Shabbat B’Midbar: War and Conscription
But first, a few words about the invasion of Canaan and the antisemitic myth that we invented genocide! Despite what looks on the surface to be a command in the Bible to destroy the Canaanites, historically, we know that the Canaanite tribes were not driven out of the land or exterminated. If it was, in practice, it was never carried out. Until the Assyrian conquest in 720 BCE, the Canaanites continued to be settled and co-exist with the Israelites. Sometimes allying with them. Sometimes defeating and enslaving them. The Canaanites were a loose federation of seven rival warring sub-groups comprising, according to the Book of Joshua, some thirty-one small kingdoms or city-states. Rather like drug-dealing clans in our day. Some decided to fight, some readily capitulated or negotiated peace, while others deceived to avoid conquest. It was a fluid and unstable world.
This command was a symbolic requirement rather than a practical one. But Canaanites did represent a cultural existential threat, using sexual seduction as much as violence to degrade the Israelites. The Pagan world had no morality and their perverted religious rites included child sacrifices, ordeals by fire, and temple prostitution. We know from our days how seductive and destructive unlimited sexual excess can be. As Israel’s mission was to bring law and order as well as spiritual improvement, the Torah does indeed describe the Canaanites as corrupt, and that justified in its eyes their subjugation in principle. Though sadly, many of the Israelites soon fell prey to paganism themselves and the pagans kept on fighting back.
The battle for survival was not just one of physical victory but a moral one too. This was why the Torah both permitted and welcomed anyone to settle and have civil rights regardless of background, so long as they adhered to its civil and ethical laws. Nevertheless, everyone agrees that there was a specific and temporary command to invade Canaan.
There has always been disagreement amongst our legal authorities as to the question of whether it was right to go to war and under what conditions. Maimonides ( 1138-1204) and Nachmanides ( 1194-1270) disagreed as to whether one was obliged by the Torah to fight or simply allowed to if necessary. For two thousand years, it was a moot point because we were never in a position of power to be able to wage war.
That all changed when the modern State of Israel was founded. Nobody has disputed the right to self-defence. But the issue has been whether compulsory conscription was allowed because, according to the Torah, that only applied when war was required on the religious ground of an immediate threat to one’s life. This week’s Torah seems to imply that one can be conscripted in advance of a threat. And whether the current situation counts as a War of Obligation or not reflects the different outlooks of the Charedi communities and the less fundamentalist and nationalist Israelis.
But quite apart from that, the lesson I believe we should take from his part of the Torah is that to succeed in any area and most certainly in matters of war, one needs preparation, efficient and understandable organisation, good leadership, a unified mission, and a strong sense of the moral and religious dimension that ensures we fight morally and disciplined for a just cause.
Rabbi Jeremy Rosen lives in New York. He was born in Manchester. His writings are concerned with religion, culture, history and current affairs – anything he finds interesting or relevant. They are designed to entertain and to stimulate. Disagreement is always welcome.
