The following was written in the aftermath of the Chmelnicki massacres, He says the rabbinic leaders felt that resisting the attacks would ultimately lead to a greater number of Jews being killed.
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The author is ר גבריאל בן יהושע שוסברג there are תשובות in halacha from him. He says that that was the פסק הוראת הגאונים הרבנים that was followed by the people then as a "הוראת שעה" it's not clear if that means כפשוטו that it's not standard halacha or that the circumstances then required it.
It is highly likely they did not have the means to defend themselves at the time - lack of training and of weapons.
ReplyDeleteit is therefore a godo reason for Israel to not supply Ukraine with any weaponry
You know, there was this big trial between 1939-1945 where theories like this were tried out along with "Just say tehillim and you'll be safe" and "Don't make aliyah because it'll be worse". We know what the conclusions were. In this case, the only thing that changes is that by not resisting, we save our oppressors time.
ReplyDeleteCould you not understand plain Loshon Koidesh? He is talking about whether to kill Polish nobles and their servants who attempted to make peace with Cossacks by delivering Jews into Cossacks' hands. Rabbis (correctly, as further developments showed) held that Polish nobility and their elected king are the main supporters of Jews in Poland, and such thing could antagonize them and lead to greater צרות. Thankfully, Cossacks have proven to be treacherous, and killed Poles after Jews (in Nemirov for sure, maybe sometheree else). That put an end to the Polish perfidies, and further in the conflict Jews and Poles fought Cossacks side by side.
ReplyDeleteA careful reading of the Hebrew text indicates that this is NOT about Jews DEFENDING themselves or resisting attacks.
ReplyDeleteThis was about taking REVENGE from Poles who had reneged on their pledges to provide security to the Jews, but when push came to shove, they let the Jews get killed, as a concession to the attackers, while they, the Poles, escaped.
שהיה בידינו לנקום נקם, ולשלוח יד במבקשי רעתינו, אותן הפריצים שהפרו ברית, וחשבו להתרצות ולמצוא כופר כופר בנו נגד היונים, ולהמלט על נפשם
Tho OP totally misread the quoted text, and you swallowed the bait, hook, line, and sinker.
ReplyDeleteThe discussion was NOT about refraining from resisting being killed. It was about Jews taking REVENGE from those Poles who backstabbed them, by reneging on their pledge to provide security to the Jews, and when push came to shove, they let the Jews get killed, as a concession to the attackers, while they, the Poles, escaped.
Read the Hebrew.
ReplyDeleteThis was NOT about self-defense.
The Jews had an opportunity to take REVENGE from the Poles who backstabbed them.
The Jews presumably were sufficiently armed and trained to follow through on this opportunity.
Despite this revenge being justified, Daas Torah said to refrain from taking revenge, since ultimately the Jewish survivors were still living in Poland, and taking revenge from the bad Poles, would just antagonize the Poles who were still sympathetic to the Jews.
he states that the cost of not "taking revenge" was dying, "ולמסור נפשם על קדושת השם' "לשום נפשינו בכפינו' , so the idea that it is only paying back a wrong in not supportable
ReplyDeleteWell perhaps some people followed Rav Shakespeare's "If you wrong us, shall we not revenge?"
ReplyDeleteIn his book, "The Merchant of Venice", Shakespeare reminds us that revenge, too, is a common human motive and impulse.
ReplyDeleteIf you wrong a Jew, he will seek to avenge the wrong done to him, just as if you wrong a Christian.
It’s just the same as if a Jew wrongs a Christian: the Christian would want revenge.
Shylock says:
If a Christian wrong a Jew, what should his sufferance be by Christian example? Why, revenge. The villainy you teach me, I will execute, and it shall go hard but I will better the instruction.
The rest of the story actually was that those unfaithful Poles got their own comeuppance, but not that at the hands of the Jews.
ReplyDeleteNo evidence they had training or arms, unless the shochetim were the supposed soldiers
ReplyDeleteI didn't say that I had evidence. I merely said, that the Jews presumably were sufficiently armed and trained to follow through on the opportunity to take revenge.
ReplyDeleteThis presumption was based on logic.
He wrote that they had an opportunity for revenge. If the had no training or arms, then there was no real opportunity for revenge.
However all this conjecture is nonsense. Because if you read the rest of the story, you see clearly that they had weapons, and they were comrade in arms with Poles, with whom they joined forces to fight the Cossacks.
https://hebrewbooks.org/pdfpager.aspx?req=42262&st=&pgnum=13
Later, he writes how the Cossacks disarmed him.
https://hebrewbooks.org/pdfpager.aspx?req=42262&st=&pgnum=14
so no mention of the 3 oaths - rebelling against the nations?
ReplyDeleteSo the concept of Zionism, whether explicitly orthodox or not, was already nascent in the frum communities way back before Herzl.
Was self-defense from hooligans and murderers ever considered "rebelling against the nations", and a potential violation of the 3 oaths?
ReplyDeleteSo Cossack murderers are rodeif, but not Arabs who do the same thing?
ReplyDeleteI recall reading an article several years ago in which a few Chasidish rebbes were quoting that, in fact, while we're in golus we must, like the proverbial abused wife, bend over and let the goyim do whatever they want. Any resistance is a denial that God put us in this situation to punish us for our sins. Self-defence was a denial of Him.
ReplyDeleteOf course, for these pseudo "orthodox" leaders, Torah and halacha are irrelevant,
ReplyDeletejust they make up a new law as and when they see fit
I can't comment on a phantom reference.
ReplyDeleteIf you find it, then we can discuss it.
In any event, as per the link that I posted, in this case, the Jews were comrades in arms with the Poles, with whom they actively joined forces to fight the Cossacks.
Of course, Arab terrorists are Rodfim.
ReplyDeleteThe argument the anti-Zionists make is that the Arabs only started attacking when they felt that they were being threatened by the Zionist rhetoric about kicking out the Arabs, and taking over the entire land, which is in line with the Arab claim, that the Zionists were the original Rodfim. Otherwise, prior to that, there was reasonable coexistence between the Jews and the Arabs.
In the case of the Cossacks, the Jews did nothing to trigger them to want to kill them.
Lol
ReplyDeletethe Christians always had a rationale for their attacks on jews _ whether because we rejected d yashke, were moneylenders, were taking over the economy, etc.
Even before the modern Zionists, there was period pogroms of jews in eretz Israel, and conversion by the sword, by the Arabs.
Anyway, I know you are playing the devil's advocate
IR NTJP has closed, look on my profile ----> Following ---> Communities for a link to the Coconut Whisperer
ReplyDelete