EXOD418 I can want to do my duty, either through being acculturated to doing so (that is, I do it out of habit) or because I want something that depends on doing my duty. So, for example, I may avoid having an affair because the prohibition of adultery has been ingrained in me since childhood, even before I knew what the word meant. Alternatively, I may adhere to my duty to remain faithful, despite temptations to the contrary, because I know that doing the right thing will contribute to having a good relationship with my spouse. Whether or not I want to do my duty, though, I feel duties as a burden on me that I must do. In contrast, I usually want to do what is morally good, for such actions, by definition, lead to a desirable state. Moreover, what is desirable may not be desired, but it often is. I may not know what the right thing is to do, for I may be subject to several conflicting duties. In such circumstances, I will be in a quandary that I must resolve to determine which of those duties takes precedence over the rest. Once my duty is clear, though, it feels completely and compellingly obligatory; indeed, all my duties feel that way. That is the nature of duty. The Rabbis noted a similar thing in regard to the Torah's commandments. The Torah promises the reward of long life for fulfilling two commandments: the duty to honor your parents and the duty to shoo away the mother bird before taking her eggs. The former obligation lasts for a person's entire life, while the latter takes but a second. This teaches you, said the Rabbis, that while some commandments may be more difficult than others to fulfill and while they may even carry with them different rewards according to their respective difficulty, they are all equally obligatory. (The reward of long life for honoring parents: Exodus 20:12 and Deuteronomy 5:16. For shooing away the mother bird before taking her eggs: Deuteronomy 22:6-7. The Rabbis’ lessons from this: B. Kiddushin 39b and B. Hullin 142a.)

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EXOD473 See [[DEUT848]] Deuteronomy 16:20 justice DORFFDRAG 114-5

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EXOD523 See [[DEUT1408]] Deuteronomy 24:18 slave DORFFDRAG 133-4

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EXOD623 The Talmud introduces a new category of war, however, and claims that Rabbi Judah and the Sages disagreed about that [i.e., whether wars waged by the Kings of the House of David for the purpose of territorial expansion were discretionary, and that the wars waged by Joshua for the conquest of the land of Canaan were required by God]. The category consists of wars “to diminish the heathens so that they shall not March against them.” M. Sotah 8:7 (44b). According to the Talmud, because such wars are not specifically commanded by God in the Bible, Rabbi Judah and the Sages agreed that the biblical exemptions [to military service] apply, but they refer to such preemptive strikes in different terminology because they disagreed on their status and other matters. The Rabbis included such wars in the general category of discretionary wars because they are not specifically mandated by God in Scripture. Rabbi Judah thought that even though that is the case, preemptive strikes of the sort described nevertheless fulfill a commandment because they are necessary for self-defense. In other words, even though the Torah does not specifically require such wars, it indirectly commands that we engage in them as part of the general biblical obligation to defend yourself based on Exodus 22:1, which exonerates a householder who kills a burglar. (Compare B. Sanhedrin 72a and Yoma 85b). Rabbi Judah, therefore, described wars of self-defense as “commanded wars” (milhamot mitzvah) and invented a new term, “obligatory wars” (milhamot hovah), to mark wars that are specifically required by God in the Torah, such as the conquest of Canaan. The practical result of this disagreement, according to the Talmud, is based on a general principle, according to which a person who is engaged in the performance of any commandment is exempt from the fulfillment of other commandments during that period. For Rabbi Judah, since preemptive wars constitute a commanded act, soldiers engaged in them may take advantage of this exemption; for the Rabbis, though, such wars are discretionary, and the soldiers engaged in them are still obliged to fulfill all other commandments. In sum, the conceptual structure of the Mishnah and its talmudic commentary distinguishes two, and perhaps three, types of war: specifically commanded wars, including the wars against the seven Canaanite nations (for example, Numbers 31:7, 15f. and 33:55 and Deuteronomy 7:2, 20:16f) and the wars against Amalek; Exodus 17:14-16 and Deuteronomy 25:17-19). Discretionary wars, including the wars of King David to expand the borders of Israelite territory; and, for Rabbi Judah, indirectly commanded wars, including preemptive wars for purposes of “diminishing the heathen so that they will not March against them [the Israelites].” For the rabbis, the last of these is simply another example of discretionary wars, but for Rabbi Judah they constitute a separate category of “commanded” wars.

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EXOD769 See [[DEUT848]] Deuteronomy 16:20 justice DORFFDRAG 114-5

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EXOD782 See [[DEUT848]] Deuteronomy 16:20 justice DORFFDRAG 114-5

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EXOD824 See [[DEUT848]] Deuteronomy 16:20 justice DORFFDRAG 114-5

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EXOD870 See [[DEUT848]] Deuteronomy 16:20 justice DORFFDRAG 114-5

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EXOD912 According to the terms of the covenant, the Jews are obligated to be loyal to God and to love Him, expressing that love primarily through obedience to God's commandments. These commandments demand that Jews live out God's will in the thick of life, not just in a cloistered environment like a synagogue or monastery, and that they teach them to their children and “Recite them when you stay at home and when you are away, when you lie down and when you get up.” (Deuteronomy 6:7, which is part of the Shema, one of the two central prayers in daily and holiday Jewish liturgy.) They are, in other words, to pervade each Jew’s life. In return for such love and loyalty, God is to reward the Jews with continued existence through progeny as numerous as the stars in the heaven, ownership of the Land of Israel, material well-being, and -- probably the most important of all -- the continued, special relationship with God. On the one hand, failing to abide by the covenant will, the Bible assures us, produce the reverse: physical debilitations, loss of the Promised Land, and detachment from God. In respect for the promises He made in the covenant, however, God will not abandon the people forever, even if they sin grievously, but will rather forgive them and return them to the Promised Land and to the blessings of progeny and well- being. God will do this also because God by nature is not only just but loving and merciful. God’s patience, though, is also a function of His own interest in preserving the covenant, for the People Israel were to be God’s great experiment with humankind, God's “Chosen People” to be “a light of the nations,” a model for all other peoples of what God really wants in His human creatures. [This theme is expressed in several forms. The People Israel is to be “My treasured possession among all the peoples” and “a kingdom of priests and a holy nation” (Exodus 19:5-6); “a people consecrated to the Lord your God: of all the peoples of the earth the Lord your God chose you to be His treasured people” (Deuteronomy 7:6); “the Lord's portion” and “His own allotment” (Deuteronomy 32:9); and “My chosen one, in whom I delight,” who “shall teach the true way to the nations” and thus be “a light of nations” (Isaiah 42:1, 49:6). See also the Messianic visions cited later in this chapter.] Consequently, God has a vested interest in having Israel as a Chosen People: Apparently convinced that He cannot demand model behavior from everybody, God and nevertheless wants a group of people who can exemplify what living a godly way of life is all about. God’s need for a model people forces Israel’s hand. They agreed to the covenant amid thunder and lightning at Mount Sinai, hardly an opportunity for free, coolly reasoned, informed consent! (Exodus 19-24, especially 24:7) and Deuteronomy 5 (note 5:24). The Rabbis later tell two stories about this process. According to one, God went to all the other peoples of the world and offered them His covenant, and they each refused when they found out some of its demands. Finally, as a last resort, God went to the measly People Israel, and they agreed to it without ever hearing its terms! (See Sifrei Devarim par. 343 and Numbers Rabbah 14:10). That is consent, but certainly not informed consent. The other story picks up on the biblical description of the awesome setting of Mount Sinai and says that God actually held a mountain over their heads, and said, “Either accept the covenant, or this will be your burial place!” B. Shabbat 88a and B. Avodah Zarah 2b. On that account, Israel’s consent to be God’s covenanted people was both uninformed and coerced. Similarly, another rabbinic source has God saying this: “For I am the Lord your God who brought you up out of the land of Egypt to be your God: you shall therefore be holy, for I am holy,”... when it says “to be your God, it means even against your will. Sifra, “Shemini”12:4 on Leviticus 11:45, 57b. Clearly, then, it was not Israel’s calm, voluntary choice that brought them into the special relationship, but rather the love and fear of God.

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EXOD974 See [[EXOD314]] Exodus 19:5 covenant DORFFDRAG 68-71

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