Rabbi Yonasan Eybeshutz (1690-1764), in his commentary on the Haftaros, wrote several passages that touch on the meaning of the Oaths.

On the Haftarah of Parshas Vaeschanan, he says that even if all the nations agree that the Jewish people should return to their land, they will cry out with an oath and refuse to do so:

“Upon a lofty mountain ascend, O herald of Zion, raise your voice with strength, O herald of Jerusalem; raise [your voice], fear not; say to the cities of Judah, ‘Behold your G-d!’ (Yishaya 40:9)

Rashi comments: מבשרת – this is the feminine form. Elsewhere (Yishaya 52:7), he says, “The feet of the herald (מבשר).” This is the masculine form. This denotes that if they are worthy, he will be as swift as a male. If they are not worthy, he will be as weak as a female and will delay his steps until the end.

Based on this, we can explain why the oath in Shir Hashirim uses a feminine verb תחפץ – she desires: “I adjure you, daughters of Jerusalem, not to arouse or awaken the love before she desires.” As Rashi says, there are two redemption scenarios: redemption may arrive quickly like a man, or it may be slow like a woman. It depends on how much merit the Jewish people have.

The speaker of the oath is the Jewish people, and the daughters of Jerusalem are the nations; the Jewish people cries out to the nations with a curse and an oath, “Do not arouse or awaken the love towards the ingathering of Israel! Perhaps I don’t have enough merit for an early, masculine redemption. Even if all the Jews are ready to go to Jerusalem, and all the nations agree, still she cries out, G-d forbid, I will not go there. For the end is hidden, and perhaps now is not the true time, only a temporary moment of favor. In a short time they will sin, and be forced into exile again, G-d forbid, and that exile will be worse than the previous one. Therefore, she asks them not to go until “she desires” – until the feminine redemption arrives, that is, until the time when the entire world is filled with knowledge. From that time onward, the Cause of all causes promised that the Israelite people will lack nothing. This is the true time of redemption, may it come soon in our days.

Hence the Navi says, Upon a lofty mountain ascend, Mevaseres Tzion. Raise your voice and do not fear – do not fear another exile, G-d forbid. But say to the cities of Judah, behold your G-d will come Himself and redeem you.  (Ahavas Yehonasan, Vaeschanan) [1]

On the Haftarah of Parshas Eikev, the Ahavas Yehonasan writes of a voluntary aliyah which would then lead to the coming of moshiach:

“For your ruins and your desolate places and your land that has been destroyed, for now you shall be crowded by the inhabitants, and those who would destroy you shall be far away.” (Yishaya 49:19)

This may mean that in the future, when the time of Hashem’s love for us arrives, the government will make decrees against the Jewish people, and they will voluntarily go to live in Eretz Yisroel. At that time, there will be danger to Jews, and Hashem will hear their prayers and have mercy on them, and send before them His moshiach, who will restore the exiles of Zion as of old.

This is what the posuk means: “Your ruins and your desolate places and your land that has been destroyed” – by the enemies at the time of the destruction of the Temple, when you were exiled. “For now you shall be crowded by the inhabitants” – the non-Jews in exile will put pressure on you and life will become difficult.

The next posuk continues, “Your children of whom you were bereaved shall yet say in your ears, The place is too narrow for me” – because of the anti-Jewish decrees. But then the righteous redeemer will come, and life will be good again.

Even if the Ahavas Yehonasan had predicted that all or most Jews will return to Eretz Yisroel, that would not necessarily mean that he holds it is permitted to do so. If it’s forbidden to do it, the fact that it was predicted by a prophet doesn’t make it permitted.

In fact, he doesn’t say that they will have a state or even that most of the Jewish people will live there, just that some of them (those living under the oppressive government) will go to live there.

On the Haftarah of Parshas Shoftim, the Ahavas Yehonasan says the oaths prohibit gathering together to fight by force.

“Awake, awake, arise, O Jerusalem, you have drunk from the hand of Hashem the cup of His anger; the dregs of the poisonous cup you have drained.” (Yishaya 51:17)

This can be explained based on what it says in the Midrash: “I adjure you, daughters of Jerusalem, not to arouse or awaken the love until it is desired. The Holy One, blessed is He, made the congregation of Israel swear not to go up as a wall, meaning that Israel should not gather together to fight by force, and they should not pray too much, as in the story found in the Gemara Bava Metzia 85b, in which Rabbi Yehuda Hanasi asked Eliyahu why he could not wake up all three patriarchs at the same time, and he said, if I wake them all up together they would bring moshiach. And the reason why the Holy One, blessed is He, made us take this oath is because the third redemption will be a complete one after which no evil ones will ever persecute us again. But as long as there is a poisonous root, the Jewish people will not be redeemed, until all stains are cleansed, and the Jewish people in exile must rectify the sin of Chava. And the reason why they must rectify Chava’s sin specifically in exile is because of the principal that “sins happen through sinful people” and since in exile the Jewish people must in any case rectify their own sins committed in previous years, therefore we add on to their burden the sin of Chava, who squeezed grapes and drank the dregs of the wine. And the main sin was the fact that she sucked the wine out of the dregs, as is known to those who study Kabbalah.

This is what the Navi means: “Awake, awake” – twice, because Hashem made them take two oaths: not to go up as a wall and not to pray too much.  But now a Divine voice announces, “Arise, O Jerusalem” – because the imprint of the sin of Chava is no longer present, and your days of mourning, during which you drank from the hand of Hashem the poisonous cup, are over; you drank it and drained it. The sin has already been rectified and you will no longer drink of it.

The Navi continues, “She has no guide out of all the sons she bore, and she has no one who takes her by the hand out of all the sons she raised.” (Yishaya 51:18)

This posuk explains the two things which the Holy One, blessed is He, made the Jewish people swear not to do: “She has no guide out of all the sons she bore” –  means that the sons she bore did not go up as a wall to fight against the enemy. “And she has no one who takes her by the hand out of all the sons she made great” – the sons who are great did not pray to much or force Hashem to say, “Go out [of exile].”

In this quote we see that Rabbi Yonasan Eybeshutz only forbids military conquest, since he says “go up as a wall to fight with force” and “go up as a wall to fight against the enemy.”

Of course, the Zionists have transgressed that too. By establish their state through warfare, they did exactly what the oath forbids.  But how do we reconcile this with the Ahavas Yehonasan’s position in Vaeschanan, that even with permission from all the nations the oath stands?

Rabbi Avraham Weiss, writing in the newspaper Hamachaneh Hacharedi (article 345 in his series, published on 1 Elul 5747), proposed that in Shoftim he is talking about the oath imposed by Hashem, while in Vaeschanan he is talking about an oath taken voluntarily by the Jewish people.

R’ Yonasan makes this distinction clearly in Yaaros Devash (v. 1, end of drush 10). There he reiterates his position from Vaeschanan, but he explains the feminine “ad she-techpatz” (until she wants) differently. He says, “The Holy One, blessed is He, wished to have mercy on His people, but the Jewish people does not want it until it is assured that it will not go back into exile again, for if they go back into exile it will be worse than before.”

According to Weiss, what’s unique about Rabbi Yonasan Eybeshutz’s explanation is that he sees the oaths as the Jewish people swearing of their own accord, not Hashem imposing an oath on them. On the contrary, Hashem wishes to have mercy on His people and give them temporary respite from exile, but they refuse.

However, even according to Weiss, this oath taken voluntarily not to return to Eretz Yisroel even peacefully – creates a real prohibition, just like any other vow or oath.

I am skeptical that R’ Yonasan would come up with a new voluntary oath on his own. Perhaps the true answer is that R’ Yonasan is offering different opinions in different places in his writings. He is not writing here as a posek, but rather as a Scriptural commentator, so not everything he says has to be consistent. This would explain why the gedolim quote the piece from Vaeschanan (see footnote below) without mentioning Shoftim. Evidently, they held that what he writes in Vaeschanan was the real halacha.

[1] The Ahavas Yonasan on Vaeschanan was widely quoted as forbidding mass aliyah or a state peacefully established by the ruling power. Those who quoted it include:

1. The Avnei Nezer’s correspondent (YD 456)
2. Rabbi Yitzchok Weiss, the Spinker Rebbe (1875-1944) in Chakal Yitzchok, Vayeira
3. Rabbi Chaim Elazar Shapiro of Munkacz, Shailos Uteshuvos Minchas Elazar 5:16 and Tikun Olam Chapter 3 and 68.
4. Rabbi Mordechai Rottenberg of Antwerp (Shailos Uteshuvos Yad Mordechai, Siman 53, written at the Knessiah Gedolah of 1937 in response to Britain’s Peel Commission)
5. Rabbi Michoel Ber Weissmandl in his 1948 article entitled “Who Delivered Israel to the Plunderers” (printed in Toras Chemed, p. 337)
6. The Satmar Rebbe in a letter written to Hungarian rabbis in approximately 1939 (the letter was copied over by hand many times and sent to each of the rabbis who had asked for his opinion). It is printed in Moshian Shel Yisroel, v. 7 p. 136. The purpose of the letter was to warn against joining the Agudah, who had begun cooperating with the Zionists. The Rebbe again quoted the Ahavas Yonasan in Vayoel Moshe, Yishuv Eretz Yisroel Siman 109.