14 Nov WAGING WAR ON SHABBOS

Religious Jews violate
Shabbos in response to
even a life threatening
situation. Religious
soldiers fight war 24/7
in order to protect
lives. This is widely
understood nowadays.
But was it always accepted that we may
wage war on Shabbos? Some claim that
this religious permission arose only in the
time of the Second Temple, during the
Hasmonean revolt. As we will see, this
idea is illogical, unnecessary and lacking

any basis in Jewish history even if non-
Orthodox scholars accept it as true.

The book of Maccabees (1:2:31-41) tells
the story of how the Hasmoneans originally
refused to wage war on Shabbos and were
slaughtered. After that, Matisyahu ruled
that they must fight back on Shabbos.
This account is repeated by Josephus
(Antiquities 12:276). Prof. Louis Feldman
(Jew & Gentile in the Ancient World, pp.
160-161) lists other ancient attestations
to this refusal to fight on Shabbos, such
as Strabo (16:2:40:763) and Dio Cassius
(37:16). The question is why they refused
initially and what did Matisyahu change.
Isn’t it piku’ach nefesh, a life threatening

situation that merits violating Shabbos?
Why did they need Matisyahu to tell them
that they are allowed to fight on Shabbos?
Rav Moshe Tzvi Neriah, a leading student
of Rav Kook and the rosh yeshiva of the
entire Bnai Akiva school system, published
a 1959 book about war on Shabbos fittingly
titled Milchamos Shabbos. Rav Neriah
asks (p.77ff) how the Jewish people could
possibly have survived until that point
if they did not violate Shabbos to save
lives. There were so many wars during
the First Temple era. How were the Jews
not conquered and killed if they refrained
from fighting on Shabbos? When the Jews
returned to Jerusalem after the Babylonian
exile, they were under constant attack when
they rebuilt the Temple to the point that half
of them worked on the building and the
other half stood guard: “We worked in the
construction, half of them held the spears
from the rising of the morning until the
stars appeared” (Neh. 4:15). Why didn’t the
enemy just attack on Shabbos and destroy
the newly returned community and all
their work? Furthermore, why is there no
mention of this transition in midrash or
Talmud? Rather, argues Rav Neriah, this
is all a misunderstanding by historians
looking for halachic change when none
occurred.
Rav Neriah quotes Rav
Yitzchak Isaac Halevy (Doros
Ha-Rishonim, part 1, vol. 3,
p. 340ff) who says that when
you look at this passage in the
context of the Chanukah story,
the entire question disappears.
This episode occurred before
there was a Hasmonean army

fighting against the Syrian-
Greeks. At this point in the

story, they were individual
Chasidim, Jews clinging to their
religion against foreign oppression. They
had two options in the face of oppression,
flee or give up their lives in martyrdom.
They fled and hid in caves. However, the
government’s soldiers found them and
tried to force them to violate Shabbos, for
which the pious Jews instead chose to die
al kiddush Hashem. When Matisyahu heard
about this incident, he declared that we will
not run, we will not hide, we will not die
peacefully. Rather, he organized an army to
fight back against the oppressors. When they
come to force us to violate Shabbos, we will
be ready for them and fight back. This was
not the point in history when Matisyahu
decided that it is permissible to fight back
on Shabbos. It was when he decided we
would fight back, we would join together
in an army and defend ourselves. In this
case, it was about Shabbos because that
was when the enemy came but the story
is about deciding to fight back against
the mighty Syrian-Greeks, not deciding
to violate Shabbos to save lives.
Additionally, Rav Neriah points
out, there is a difference between
individuals defending themselves and
an army fighting a war. Once Matisyahu
organized an army to fight against the
Syrian-Greeks, they were not limited
to defending themselves on Shabbos to
a specific immediate threat, like with
normal piku’ach nefesh. They could
defend themselves even against a remote
possibility of a threat. They also were
not limited to defense. This was war and
they could attack on Shabbos, as well.
Rav Shlomo Goren, the first chief rabbi
of the Israel Defense Forces, takes a
different approach to this question in
his collection of army responsa (Meshiv
Milchamah 1:2). Even if we accept that
the Hasmoneans were already organized
as an army at that time, and refused to
fight back on Shabbos until Matisyahu
changed course, that still does not mean
that they believed that fighting a war
in general is forbidden on Shabbos.
In previous wars, whether against the
Assyrians, the Babylonians or the
local residents when the Jews returned

from exile, Jews defended themselves on
Shabbos. In the case of the Chanukah story,
the Syrian-Greeks knew how important
Shabbos is to Jews and wished to force
them to fight on that day. Thus, there was
a shmad-gezerah, an anti-religious decree,
specifically to fight on Shabbos. Therefore,
the Hasmonean beis din initially ruled not
to fight — when gentiles try to force us to
violate a law we must choose martyrdom
over violating it. In this case, the enemy
tried to force us to fight on Shabbos and
the Hasmoneans chose martyrdom over
submitting to this religious oppression.
Matisyahu subsequently ruled to the
contrary, that they must fight back. When
the Syrian-Greeks continued this strategy
of fighting specifically on Shabbos and
it became an existential threat to the
continuity of the Jewish people, the
religious leadership of the time ruled
that the continuity of the Jewish people
overrides the law of martyrdom and they
must fight to save Klal Yisrael.
As the Israel Defense Forces fight back

against the deadly threat of brutally anti-
semitic terrorists, they fight on any day of

the week and the year. The enemy attacked
us on Yom Kippur fifty years ago and on
Simchas Torah (in Israel) this year. They try
to force us to violate our holy days but they
do not know that Matisyahu taught us that
we fight back at all times, with all our might,
with Hashem’s help to defeat our foes.