Torah and Jewish Idea > Torah and Jewish Idea
Response from a non zionist, regarding RAMBAN, and vilna gaon 600000
q_q_:
--- Quote from: jdl4ever on February 13, 2008, 12:33:56 AM ---I've already answered your argument before. In Chapter 6, the Rambam does talk about tribute to a King, but that is not necessary for a Milchemet Mitzvah and Milchemet Rishoot since the Rambam defines what these wars are in Chapter 5 and he does not say they require a King, he merely says the definition of a MM and MR are that one is a war against the 7 nations and the other is not. He never says they require a King. Also the Rambam specifically singles out a war with Amalek as something you must have a King first. according to you this problematic since is redundant. The Rambam mentions tribute and other things applying to a King since this is Hilchot Melachim and the Rambam is going to apply every concept mentioned in this Chapter to Kings whether it is required to have a King or not. He also talks about Kings having wives and concubines in these Chapters. So are you going to tell me that since the Rambam talks about wives and concubines in the Chapter of Kings that from this we derive only Kings can have wives and concubines? Not necessarily so. And when he talks about giving honor to a King, does that mean a Torah Scholar doesn't require honor since the Rambam mentions honor by a King? Your "proof" is not a proof at all
--- End quote ---
what it does mean is that there is no basis IN THOSE CHAPTERS OF TEXT for a milchemet mitzva/reshut without a King.
--- Quote from: jdl4ever on February 13, 2008, 12:33:56 AM ---
I am also not negating things the Rambam says, just reading him correctly; you are just reading him very superficially since you want him to say your view on something and ignoring the outright contradictions such a view holds. Your view has many contradictions in the Rambam's own words and in the Torah itself. This will become apparent when you read different Chapters of the Rambam that repeat things mentioned in this Chapter, this time without mentioning Kings, and when you read the Torah. And that commentary you have printed does not give a half satisfactory answer to these questions. It only answers how Joshua could be considered a King since that was before we entered Israel. But anyone after him until Shaul wasn't a King. And if you say they were, then a further question is that the Rambam said that a female can not be considered King, then how could Devorah the Prophetess be considered a King and wage a Milchemet Rishoot? So either way there is no answer you can give and the Rambam must be saying like me.
--- End quote ---
questions are being posed here about biblical characters who allegedly, while not appointed King by a prophet and sanhedrin, waged a milchemet mitzva/reshut..I would have to analyse this.. I only have further questions on that..
Based on a maimonidean I know, saying that halacha develops, and he often says references to bible text are just "muhleetzah", hooks of some sort. Were the wars they waged really considered milchemet mitzva and milchemet reshut, or just similar..
Was halacha in that area further developed between then and the gemara. (the rambam based his codification on the gemara. His work is a summary of the gemara)
(note- interestingly most charedim have biblical characters following halacha to the letter! I saw an article in the jewish tribune where avraham is obeying the laws of cheshen mishpat to the letter when purchasing the cave)
RAMBAM does not mention these characters that judea mentioned. So any perceived inconsistency is not within RAMBAM. But between RAMBAM and the Nach.
You admit yourself that the plain meaning of the RAMBAM seems inconsistent in the same way, and has these questions. It is you who is speculating, trying to resolve the issues in outrageous ways, and drawing outrageous conclusions.
A demonstration of how outrageous the conclusions are..
Is you want to remove the King, the tribute, e.t.c.
Why not remove the fact that this takes place on a large scale..
As I said
How about if A THUG. 1 THUG. provokes you, and you beat the hell out of him. Is that a milchemet mitzva?
You claim that by demanding that a King is required for these halachot, I am saying halacha does not apply in all times. Not true. We have many halachot that work on implications. When A happens, B happens. i.e. when a temple exists, we do this. Similarly here.
And as mentioned.
The fact that the RAMBAM refers to these in the title of the work is KING`S WARS. And there are only 2 types of war, and the only people he talks of waging them are kings (and (king?) Joshua who rambam says in 1:3 was appointed by a prophet and a sanhedrin, as a King is!). We cannot use this text as a basis for non kings waging wars.
That is not to say that we cannot wage war now.. I would hope that we can. But it is to say that this text is not a basis for that. Jewish life being in danger may be a basis..
You misread my question before.. about the thug. Not many thugs. 1 lone thug.
jdl4ever:
Actually my explanation is the simple meaning of the Rambam since when he defines wars in chapter 5, he does not say they require a King. Tribute to a King and other things talked about in Chapter 6 are not necessary since he didn't include them in the definition in chapter 5, so they are not necessary, but if you happen to have a King then there is tribute and other things. Your explanation of the Rambam contradicts the Torah and the Rambam himself.
You can not read Rambam or Talmud without first reading the Torah and comparing their words with the Torah, otherwise you will get misled. There are frequently 10 ways to read a verse of the Rambam or a verse of the Talmud and the only correct way to read them is to consult the Torah and see what they meant. Your explanation not only contradicts the Torah but the Rambam himself and he didn't say what you claim he did. He never said Tribute to a King is required and without a King there is no MM or MR so you have no proof. All he was saying is that if you have a King tribute is required.
q_q_:
--- Quote from: jdl4ever on February 13, 2008, 11:43:09 AM ---Actually my explanation is the simple meaning of the Rambam since when he defines wars in chapter 5, he does not say they require a King. Tribute to a King and other things talked about in Chapter 6 are not necessary since he didn't include them in the definition in chapter 5, so they are not necessary, but if you happen to have a King then there is tribute and other things. Your explanation of the Rambam contradicts the Torah and the Rambam himself.
--- End quote ---
Neither chapter 5 or chapter 6 DEFINE milchemet mitzva and milchemet reshut. Like in a programming language specification.
But he describes them. And throughout chapter 5, he writes under the assumption of there being a King too. So too in Chapter 6.
(yes, I understand.. that you take that to mean that he is allowing a MM or MR to be faught without a King)
Let us reason together.
He does not explicitly say a King is required. It is not a definition. Likewise, he did not say an army of people is required. So I ask you again
You want to remove the King. OK, how about removing the army too?
If you fight a single lone thug that provoked you. Is that a milchemet mitzva?
How about JDL activities against the black panthers in america?
If you say that the JDL activities were not. Well, the wars we faught under Moshe were outside of israel. Were they milchemet mitzvot? Were they not?
--- Quote from: jdl4ever on February 13, 2008, 11:43:09 AM ---He never said Tribute to a King is required and without a King there is no MM or MR so you have no proof. All he was saying is that if you have a King tribute is required.
--- End quote ---
He said neither of those things. Hence this argument between us. You have to use common sense and not wishful thinking.
Throughout chapter 5, the King leads the war. In almost every paragraph the King is mentioned. So we deduce, that a King can lead such a war. I already said about Chapter 6.
You want to argue things from Nach, that you do not need a King and a King does not need a prophet and sanhedrin, fine. But RAMBAM is not saying that.
In my questions to you, I have highlighted some problems with your loose way of reading RAMBAM.
Also, you have actually started out with the premise that israel`s wars with her neighbours are a milchemet mitzva. And it is valid.. So you tried arguing that we can appoint a King in every generation and make it so. Then you saw 1:3, so you briefly abandoned that idea. You then started to argue that you don`t need a King to do a milchemet mitzva. And then you seemed to speculate wildly that King David`s descendents are already Kings, and thus already appointed. You seemed to abandon that idea - maybe you will resurrect it again, or more likely you never abandoned it, you just put it aside for later use!
jdl4ever:
OK I admitted to you that I made a mistake and the Rambam requires a Prophet to appoint a King since he says so. I said this already. My only disagreement was if there was any exceptions to this rule given the contradictions between the Rambam and what he says other places and between himself and the simple reading of the Torah; perhaps we are misreading him or if that is not so then he is wrong like judeanoncapta wrote about the commentators that say he's wrong. I don't know how to resolve these questions, one answer was that perhaps the seed of David is different; but I have no proof. R' Kahane's Zs'l answer was that a Prophet is only required if we have a Prophet but if we have no Prophet it isn't required, but merely a Sanhedrin. This resolves R' Akiva with 1:3 but still begs the question as to why the Rambam doesn't say outright this. You have your own answers as well. No answer is particularly good at resolving these problems with the Rambam. But your reading of the Rambam does favor the simple meaning so I have no problem with your reading for this reason.
Also I'm saying that we don't need a King to wage MM and MR. The proof is many instances from the Tanach where we did so with no King during the times of the Shoftim. Plus the Torah of Moshe doesn't say we need a King to go to war, except for Amalek where this is indirectly implied as per the Rambam since it says when G-d gives you rest over your enemies and you have surrounded (the entire land of Israel) then you must wipe out Amalek. Also you admit that the Rambam does not say outright that a MM and MR require a King, you just thought he meant so and I say he doesn't mean so.
Yes, a King can be appointed in our time even according to your interpretation that a Prophet is always required since a Prophet can arise in our time before the Massiah arrives as we talked about before. We don't know what is the generation of Massiah until after the fact.
q_q_:
I didn't think it was possible, but we agree (on that disagreement).
You deserve a medal of honour, and we both deserve a vacation!
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