Abstract
“Let me have war…” declares one servant ironically in Shakespeare’s play Coriolanus, as he overhears plans for an offensive against Rome. “It exceeds peace as far as day does night; it’s spritely, waking, audible, and full of vent. Peace is very apoplexy, lethargy: mulled, deaf, sleepy, insensible…” (Coriolanus IV:5).
It may not be difficult for some to identify with this serving man’s words – the excitement and importance of war; war lends itself to stirring rhetoric and transient glory for leaders. It is sometimes easier to evoke enthusiasm for intervention in the world’s war-torn regions, than remain on the side lines wringing one’s hands in despair.
Judaism is not a pacifist religion. One only needs a cursory glance at the Bible and biblical history to be convinced of the frequency with which the Israelites went to war. Periods of peace in the Bible are relatively exceptional.
Yet both the Bible and later rabbinic commentators detailed legal regulations governing military combat. Even though Jews lacked sovereignty for 2,000 years until the establishment of the modern state of Israel in 1948, Maimonides (1135-1204) ruled that defensive wars were forbidden unless their justice was established by the verdict of a ruling of the Supreme Court. ‘War must not be waged against anyone in the world until peace has first been offered’ (Hilchot Melakhim 6:1). In other words, peace terms have to be offered first before any declaration of war, and they have to include submission to the basic moral order as defined in the Seven Noachide Laws, applicable to all non-Jews, prohibiting idolatry, murder, adultery, incest and the setting up of courts of law.
Jewish legislation in times of war offered safeguards as well: no city should be encircled on all four sides, leaving room for the besieged population to escape and saving human life. There should be no wanton damage of trees or destruction of buildings, closing of water wells or wastage of food, no starvation or scorched earth policy as methods of warfare.
The objectives of war may be noble ones: to topple a despotic regime, to support a rebel cause for freedom and justice, to prevent the torture and murder of thousands of dissidents. But its dangers threaten the price we place on life, debase our humanity, create instability and break apart the fabric of society.
There can never be winners in war and the cost of liberation is never easy. As the Talmud says: when the Egyptians were drowning in the Sea, the angels wanted to sing a song of thanksgiving to God, whereupon God said to them: ‘My creatures are drowning in the sea, and you would sing a song of praise?’ (Babylonian Talmud, Megillah 10b).
The great Israeli poet, Yehuda Amichai prays for the ‘mulled’ sleepiness of peace. Let me have peace, he says:
“A peace without the big noise of beating swords into ploughshares, without words… Let it come like wildflowers, suddenly, because the field must have it: wildpeace.” (Yehuda Amichai, ‘Wildpeace’)