Halakhah su Deuteronomio 26:17

A more obvious source of Rambam's characterization of a defensive war as a milḥemet mizvah may perhaps lie in a statement found in the Babylonian Talmud.²⁹R. Aaron Soloveichik, Or ha-Mizraḥ, Tevet 5730, posits Midrash Tanḥuma, Parshat Pinḥas, sec. 3, as Rambam’s source. Deuteronomy 26:17-18 states, “Harass the Midianites and smite them; for they harass you.” Tanḥuma comments: “On the basis of this verse our Sages said, ‘If [a person] comes to slay you, arise and slay him.’ ” In context, the mandated response is not merely individual self-defense but a defensive war. As noted earlier, the Gemara, Eruvin 45a, declares that it is permissible to resist aggression likely to result in loss of life by going to battle even on the Sabbath.³⁰See also Arukh ha-Shulḥan he-Atid, Hilkhot Melakhim 74:3. Cf., however, R. Shlomoh Goren, Maḥanayim, no. 69, p. 9, and Torat ha-Shabbat ve-ha-Mo‘ed, p. 345; cf., also, below, note 31. The Gemara must be understood as sanctioning such military activity in the guise of a milḥemet mizvah rather than as a milḥemet reshut for two reasons: (1) A milḥemet reshut requires a monarch, Sanhedrin, and the urim ve-tumim, none of which were available during the period of the Amora'im. (2) A milḥemet reshut may not be initiated on the Sabbath. Indeed, the Gemara, Shabbat 19a, followed by Rambam, Hilkhot Shabbat 2:25, declares that a siege may not be commenced within a three-day period prior to the Sabbath. Rashi, Deuteronomy 20:19, and Leḥem Mishneh, Hilkhot Shabbat 2:25, declare that this restriction applies only to discretionary wars but not to milḥamot mizvah.³¹Since the Gemara, Eruvin 45a, permits military action in defense of border settlements even when no certain threat to life exists, the response that is sanctioned cannot be understood to be in the nature of collective self-defense but must be in the nature of a halakhic category of war. This distinction will be elucidated below. See also, above, note 25.