The Land I Will Show You, sec. 2, chapter 3 (pt. 2)
The Oaths as Warning against Danger
(This is a continuation of a chapter of “The Land I Will Show You, here. For the ToC, click here.)
Many clear proofs demonstrate the true essence of the oaths.
The main proof that the meaning of the oaths is not an official prohibition, but rather a warning against a danger, is the fact that the oaths were not presented in the Talmudic discussion as a source for any prohibition at all. This is Rambam’s opinion, as he wrote explicitly in the Letter to Yemen. Additionally, Rambam left out any mention of the oaths in Mishneh Torah, from which we learn that they are not halacha but reality.[1]
This can be derived also from those who transgressed the oaths and suffered from them. As we shall see, at least in one instance they acted in the proper way in their redemptive activities, and they still suffered tremendous tragedy – since the issue is not sin and punishment but rather cause and effect. One generation mentioned in the list of the “four generations that sought to accelerate the end of days and failed”[2] is the generation of Ben Coziba. However, the support for his activities was absolutely proper and consistent with halacha. Halacha necessitated to consider him the assumed Messiah, until he was killed, as Rambam wrote:
Don’t think that the King Messiah needs to do signs and miracles and introduce new things in the world or resurrect the dead or similar things, as the fools say; it is not so, as Rabbi Akiva was a great sage of the Mishnaic sages, and he was the weapons bearer of King Ben Coziba, and he would say about him that he is the King Messiah, and he and all the sages of his generation imagined that he was the King Messiah, until he was killed, in sins; once he was killed, it was known that he isn’t Messiah, and the sages didn’t request from him any sign or wonder. The heart of the matter is thus… if a king would arise from the House of David, who studies Torah and does mitzvahs like his ancestor David, according to the written and oral Torah, and he compels all of Israel to follow it and strengthen its fragility, and he will fight the wars of Hashem – he is assumed to be the Messiah; if he acted and succeeded, and vanquished all the nations surrounding him, and built the Temple in its place and gathered the scattered ones of Israel – then he is certainly Messiah. And if he doesn’t succeed to that extent, or if he was killed – it is known that he isn’t the one the Torah promised about, and he is like all the perfect and legitimate Davidic kings that died.[3]
Ben Coziba was assumed to be Messiah, and he earned the support of Rabbi Akiva.[4] Nonetheless, after he didn’t succeed in his awesome task, a terrible tragedy occurred, a horrible and great massacre, since they accelerated the end of days – due to no fault of their own. This is because accelerating the end of days is any messianic activity that ex post facto can be said to have been unsuccessful, whether the initiative was proper or not, even though the unfortunate result is unavoidable given that the attempt was unsuccessful.
Additional proof: As was brought above (sec. 1, chapter 3), Rabbi Yehuda HaLevi, in the Kuzari, called upon the whole nation of Israel to return to Eretz Yisrael, with no hesitation or mention of an oath that would prohibit this. This because he didn’t consider the oaths a prohibition. And as for the danger – that is, after all, a practical matter that depends on the circumstances, and obviously the holy call is subject to the reality, to the possibility of a thoughtful execution, while, apparently, Rabbi Yehuda HaLevi didn’t see any problem with this in his days.
Another proof: Rashi explains the oath against “accelerating the end of days” as an oath “that they shouldn’t increase supplications for this too much.”[5] For whatever reason in the world would supplications to Hashem be prohibited? It is only because redemption before its time – meaning, Israel’s return to its central position in the world before the world is ready for it – involves danger, and one shouldn’t pray for something dangerous. His prayers might be accepted and with them will come danger.[6]
Proof that the oaths include not only a warning against the danger of provoking the nations but also against economic and social dangers, as in Rabbi Yerucham Yehudah Leib Perlman’s words: “Each man will make pressure on the other, and there will be much chaos and suffering, and the pressures of poverty” – is what Chazal said about the returnees to Zion in the Second Temple era: “Many cities were conquered by those who ascended from Egypt, and were not conquered by those who ascended from Babylonia (and he holds that the initial consecration sanctified for its time but did not sanctify it forever), and they left certain places unsanctified, so that the poor would rely upon them during the Sabbatical Year.[7] According to Ramban, that capturing Eretz Yisrael is a positive commandment, one of the 613 mitzvahs – how is it permitted to abandon and neglect doing a positive commandment due to economic considerations? It is only because this mitzvah is subject to national considerations, whether of a military, economic or social aspect; otherwise, as Rabbi Yerucham Yehudah Leib Perlman phrases it in the continuation of his words – “They will defile the holiness of the place, and destroy the civilization, and they will strip the honor of the land from it, and they will lose their gain and it would be much disgrace and anger.” Had they attempted to capture whatever they could have captured, without taking into consideration the negative consequences, it would have been simply “acceleration of the end.”
How much, precisely, are the oaths operative? Which actions – or perhaps only refraining from action – do they permit, and which not? For there are many secondary actions connected with redemption, such as forcing people to do mitzvahs, uprooting idolatry from Eretz Yisrael and the like. In accordance with the above, is it correct to expand the notion of the oaths and to derive that we shouldn’t engage in these kinds of actions, since the world in general isn’t ready for the full message of Judaism, such that there would be an overall danger for a nation pushing these activities? So would it appear, but I haven’t found sources for the matter, and this all requires research in order to establish the halacha.
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[1] I am surprised that Rabbi Yoel of Satmar was bothered by Rambam’s omission of the subject of the oaths from the Mishneh Torah (see Essay on the Three Oaths, sec. 31), while he saw and quoted the words of Rambam in the Letter to Yemen right at the beginning of the introduction to the Va’Yoel Moshe, see there, pg. 5.
[2] In Son of Songs Rabbah 2, 18.
[3] Laws of Kings, 11:3-4.
[4] In the Va’Yoel Moshe, the author takes the position that Rabbi Akiva’s support was fundamentally in error, “merely a conjecture” from which one can’t derive things; see Essay on the Three Oaths, section 52. This is not Rambam’s opinion, who explains that there is a halachic approach of an “assumed Messiah” that is obligatory according to halacha when a proper king arises from the House of David who compels Israel to follow the Torah and wages the wars of Hashem. It is also wrong to say that Rabbi Akiva erred and accepted something as the absolute truth before it was so proven; see the Guide of the Perplexed, 1:32 about Rabbi Akiva’s character regarding establishing something as a certainty: “If you admit the doubt, and do not persuade yourself to believe that there is a proof for things which cannot be demonstrated, or to try at once to reject and positively to deny an assertion the opposite of which has never been proved, or attempt to perceive things which are beyond your perception, then you have attained the highest degree of human perfection, and you are like Rabbi Akiva, peace be upon him… If, on the other hand, you attempt to exceed the limit of your intellectual power, or at once to reject things as impossible which have never been proved to be impossible, or which are in fact possible, though their possibility be very remote, then you will be like Elisha Acher; you will not only fail to become perfect, but you will become exceedingly imperfect.” It is clear that it cannot be said about Rabbi Akiva that he rejected the possibility that Ben Coziba is not the King Messiah, rather everything was done as per the law and the halacha, and everything happened exactly as it was supposed to happen.
[5] Kesubos 111a, passage beginning with “And they should not distance the end.”
[6] So did R’ David Shlomo Eibshutz explain the matter, Arvei Nachal, Warsaw 5631, Toldos, homily 3: “The Holy One, blessed be He, adjured Israel not to accelerate the end, as something that happens in its time is already contained within nature and nothing would hold it back, and there is no antagonist or trouble, and therefore the matter will come easily, without suffering, which is not the case if they accelerate the end – meaning if they increase prayers – for although the Great God will not reject [the prayer] and will bring redemption before its time, there will be many antagonists and the matter will happen with much pain and suffering.”
[7] Chullin 7a.