Zionist Argument: The nations of the world already violated their oath

Claim: Two of the three oaths are for the Jews, and one is for the nations of the world. Since the nations of the world violated their oath and persecuted the Jews too much (i.e. the Holocaust), the Jews are allowed to violate theirs. This claim is based on the Midrash and the Zera Shimshon on Megillas Esther (Rabbi Shimshon Chaim Nachmani, 1778).

Fact: The Midrash on Shir Hashirim actually says as follows: “Rabbi Yossi bar Chanina says: There are two oaths here, one for Israel and one for the nations of the world. He made Israel swear that they would not rebel against the yoke of the kingdoms, and He made the kingdoms swear that they would not harden their yoke upon Israel, for if they would harden their yoke upon Israel, they would cause the end to come not in its proper time.”

The Midrash does not say that the oaths are a covenant between the Jewish people and the nations, nor does it say that if the nations harden their yoke upon the Jewish people the oath is annulled and the Jewish people is permitted to violate its oath. It says only that if they harden the yoke, Hashem – not the Jewish people on their own – will bring an early end to the exile.

The Zera Shimshon is a commentary on the Megillah, not a halacha sefer; nevertheless, let’s analyze what he says as if it were said as halacha. He does indeed say that the oaths are a contract and that if one side breaks it, the other may also break it. But, crucially, he says this only regarding the Jews’ second oath, not to rebel against the nations. Thus, he says, the Jews in the Megillah story were allowed to kill Haman’s followers because Haman’s followers had violated the oath by trying to kill the Jews. Neither he nor any other posek or commentator in history ever suggested that the oath not to go up to Eretz Yisroel “as a wall” was part of a contract with the nations. The reason for this is simple: they never viewed that oath as being for the nations’ benefit. It is for our benefit, to keep us in golus until moshiach comes so that our kaparah can be complete.

Even regarding the oath on “rebelling against the nations” the Zera Shimshon does not support Zionism, because he is only saying that the Jews have a right to fight back when a group of gentiles (such as Haman’s followers) attack them. This is similar to the rule that one may kill an attacker in self-defense (הבא להרגך השכם להרגו). He is not saying that if one nation perpetrates a Holocaust, the Jews suddenly have the right to fight against any nation in the world. And even regarding the attacking nation, he is not talking about a war to conquer land, or to take over or maintain a government.

It is also a fact that prior to the Holocaust, throughout Jewish history, there were, unfortunately, many other times when the nations violated their oath, and yet we never find any of the poskim and commentators saying that the Jewish oaths no longer apply. Such a claim was never seen or heard prior to the establishment of the State of Israel.

The first to make this argument was Rabbi Nosson Tzvi Friedman, a religious Zionist rabbi in Bnei Brak, in his responsa Netzer Matai volume 1 siman 10, published in 1957. He does not mention the Holocaust in particular, just says that all the nations have persecuted the Jews too much.

However, other rabbis came after him and did connect this argument explicitly with the Holocaust, for example Rabbi Shlomo Zalman Braun (Sh’arim Hametzuyanim Bahalacha on Kesubos). According to him, it would be theoretically possible that all the poskim in previous centuries who cite the oaths as binding on the Jews did agree that the oaths are interdependent, only they held that past persecutions, as bad as they were, did not constitute “too much.” Only the Holocaust fits that description.

However, Rabbi Samson Raphael Hirsch writes (in the 1830s, long before the Holocaust), “The Jewish people’s fulfillment of the first two oaths is confirmed in the pages of history. And as to the third oath, let the nations judge themselves.” (Horeb p. 461) Clearly he held that already in his time, the nations had violated their oath, and yet the Jewish people’s oath was in force.