From Michtavim u’Ma’amarim, Letter 8, written 1979, translation from the book “Rav Shach Speaks,” p. 12:
There is a well-publicized campaign afoot to oppose signing a peace treaty with our neighbors under any condition. To me this is incomprehensible. Every reasonable person understands that [so to speak] a life of austerity is a price that should be paid to achieve peace. If by our efforts we can spare the life of even one single individual, wouldn’t it be worthwhile? After all, every Jewish life is a complete world!
The instigators of this campaign frequently invoke halacha to justify their position, but in my opinion their arguments are without foundation. For example, they cite the paragraph in Shulchan Aruch which states that when a Jewish city is under attack, even if the enemy have only come to steal straw, one may violate the Sabbath to defend oneself against them. How much more so, they reason, when they set their eyes on Eretz Yisrael itself?
Yet the situation this halacha deals with is very different from the one in which we find ourselves today. The Shulchan Aruch is dealing with case in which the enemy has come to conquer or steal, whereas in our case, although we know that Eretz Yisrael is ours by inheritance, the enemy believes that he is merely trying to recover what was taken from him by force. If we will just return the “stolen land,” then he agrees to sign a treaty. (If we were to challenge him on the basis of our inheritance, we would be putting ourselves in a very precarious position indeed, because if the enemy is aware of G-d’s gift to our forefathers, then he is surely also aware that it was given to us on the condition that we keep the commandments – see Devarim ch. 28.)
From Michtavim u’Ma’amarim, Letter 8, written 1980
Our situation as the Jewish people among the nations, was always as Chazal defined it: one sheep among 70 wolves. The hatred of Jews is an eternal hatred. And in all times and generations, they wish to destroy us. And even at times when they show us the opposite, for this is the tradition that was handed down to us from our fathers and grandfathers. And this is what Chazal taught us, and we must not depart from it. Only the secular Jews among us who left behind the way of the Torah make this mistake. They see it as a success when one of the leaders of the nations of the world shows us favor or says something positive about the Jewish people. But the truth is that it’s not so. Their mouths speak vanity and falsehood. And this truth the entire Jewish people once knew, from smallest to greatest. And for every wave that came upon us, we knew that we had nothing to rely upon except our Father in Heaven, and our belief in the coming of moshiach.
We took to the shuls and batei medrash, where three times a day every Jew prayed and poured out his words to the Holy One, blessed is He, and learned Torah there – each one of them in a different way. One in Chevra Shas, one in Chevra Mishnayos, and one in Ein Yaakov, and so on and so on. All of these gave us strength, individually and the entire Jewish people. And only because of this, we were able to stand our ground, even after all that came upon us.
We knew that we were the chosen people. And even at the time when we were persecuted, we said, “You chose us from among the nations.” For 2,000 years, we had Tanaim and Amoraim, Rabonon Savorai, Geonim, Rishonim, Acharonim, great sages, and all of them accepted upon themselves the decree of heaven. They did not take any action, out of despair, to rebel against the nations, to be killed or to kill. All of them had Ahavas Yisroel and Ahavas Eretz Yisroel, and they knew about the mitzvah of Yishuv Eretz Yisroel. Their mode of conduct, known to us from our fathers and grandfathers, is Torah. We must go in this path and not deviate to the right or the left.
And in my previous letter, written on the 17th of Adar, 5738, I wrote to you about what Chazal say on the pasuk (Devarim 2:3), “You have circled this mountain long enough, turn yourselves northward.” The Midrash Rabbah says, what does it mean turn yourselves northward? Hatzpinu atzmechem. Hide yourselves. The Jews said, Master of the universe, his [Esav’s] father blessed him saying, you will live by the sword. And you are agreeing to them, and telling us to hide ourselves from him? Where should we flee? He said to them, flee to the Torah. All of this teaches us what the path of the Jewish people must be until the coming of moshiach.
But if they want to bring the geulah early, the Torah already says about this in Bamidbar 14:44, “They forced their way up… and they beat them and killed them until Chormah.” And this is our directive for all generations.
How painful it is that especially those who are observant of Torah and mitzvos are openly inciting Jews to act in a way that is provoking the nations of the world! And they are partly the cause of the instability of this corner of the world where we find ourselves. With this type of behavior, who knows what the results will be?
And this is what I say in this letter to be careful and to warn you not to be drawn after what they write with proofs that have no foundation. I have already said that when they mention the Shulchan Aruch Orach Chaim 329, it has no connection to our time. All their words on this subject are words that were not gathered from daas Torah. They are foreign to the spirit of Israel and this is nothing but zeal with an ulterior motive, such as we did not hear and did not see with our predecessors…
From me, your friend, Elazar Menachem Man Shach
The following letter is printed in Michtavim U’Maamarim HaChadash, volume 1, page 27, in the section about the conquest of the territories and the provocations against the nations. It was written in 1978 to then Prime Minister Begin, urging him to make territorial concession for peace and not to pay attention to those rabbis who said otherwise.
Peace and blessings. Thank G-d, I have reached over the age of 80, and my entire life I have grown up and been educated to understand and listen, learn and teach only the Torah that was given by Hashem through Moshe Rabbeinu, without any admixture of secular knowledge. And for my entire life until today, I have fulfilled Chazal’s dictum, “Sit in the dust of the feet of the sages,” both by learning their books and by learning directly from them, watching how they behaved and remembering what I heard from them directly. And I know that their opinion was pure daas Torah as it was given to Moshe at Sinai, and handed down, teacher to student without any foreign influence.
And as far as I know, it is this behavior based on Torah that guided the people of Israel from the day it became a people until today; we did not deviate. Only in the merit of this, thank G-d, we are still alive despite all that happened to us over the last thousands of years. Not only one nation rose up against us to destroy us, but we, the smallest of peoples, are still alive while they are gone without a trace. The Gaon, Rabbi Yaakov Emden, z”l, who lived 250 years ago, wrote, “By the life of my soul, the miracle of the survival of the Jewish people is a greater miracle than the miracle of the Exodus from Egypt.” All of this teaches us that the existence of Klal Yisrael is completely different from that of other nations. Their way is not our way. What is good for them is not good for us.
They derive their existence from the blessing of Yitzchak Avinu, “By your sword you shall live.” But this is not our way. The blessing of Yitzchak Avinu to Yaakov begins with the words, “May G-d give you” (Bereishis 27:28). And when we analyze it, we will see that when Yitzchak blessed Eisav, he didn’t mention that Hashem would give anything to him, but rather that he will take things by his own initiative and live by his sword. The Jewish people, even in the era when they needed to fight wars, needed to consult with the Sanhedrin, as the Rambam says (Hilchos Melachim 5:2).
And the decree of Chazal not to eat non-Jewish baked bread, lest we come to drink their wine, and not to drink their wine lest we come to intermarry with them – this was the reason why the Jewish people did not assimilate among the nations. With our own eyes we saw that the countries where Jews were lax in their Torah observance, they assimilated, and now there is no religion or nationalism there.
And from this we can understand that when Chazal forbade us from rebelling against the nations of the world or going up as a wall (Kesubos 111), this was only because they sought the well-being of our people, because with their prophetic spirit, they knew that the hatred of the nations towards the Jews was an eternal hatred, permanently fixed in their hearts. We must not provoke them, even at a time when we are justified in doing so, because this will only add to their hatred.
And you must not think that the Holocaust that happened to us was because we did not have a state at that time. That is not true. The state does not guarantee our existence. And even if we have five million Jews or more here, when G-d forbid there is a war between the superpowers, what value will that have against today’s technology? And even if we are also strong, that won’t be worth anything against a superpower.
During the years of the Second World War, when the Germans were at El Alamein, and G-d forbid, if they had entered Eretz Yisroel, even if there had been five million Jews here, it would have been a tremendous destruction, and it would have been worse than a different place because here there are no forests in which partisans can hide. On one side is the sea, and on the other three sides enemies and haters. Only the hand of Hashem was able to change the Germans’ minds so that they attacked Russia instead, in order to save the remnant of Jews in Eretz Yisroel.
Therefore I think that we must be careful not to speak haughtily. And in my opinion, it is better not to insist on settlements. I would like you to know that a concession made for the sake of peace is not a concession. When Hashem has mercy on us and the time of our redemption arrives, everything will be returned to us. I am not hesitant to say that according to halacha, there is nothing wrong with conceding part of Eretz Yisrael for the sake of peace. Based on history, we have suffered more in the countries of Europe than in the Arab countries.
I have decided to write all of this to you, and I have the impression that you are too influenced by people who have not thought deeply enough into this serious and consequential subject. Since they are your political allies, you are influenced by them, but I hope that you will not accept their opinions as a final decision.
And in the same way, I would like to encourage you not be impressed by famous people whose opinions are not sourced in the eternal halacha and Torah, as it was handed down to us from generation to generation.
It is clear that it is difficult to concede when it is against our emotions, and especially when this emotion seems to be a religious emotion. But your obligation as a responsible person who makes decisions about life and death matters, is to raise yourself above emotions and let your actions be guided only by your best sense, which is sense based on Daas Torah.
With prayer and hope to Hashem, and true faith in the coming of moshiach and the salvation of Hashem which can come at any moment. With blessings, Elazar Menachem Man Shach.
Another excerpt from the same section:
This chapter about “Vayapilu,” the Jews who invaded Eretz Yisrael in the time of Moshe Rabbeinu (Bamidbar 14:44) is not just a historical tale; it is an open warning to us and our future generations. The Torah commands and warns us: do not go up! And we are obligated to keep this explicit prohibition. G-d forbid for us to go up to the top of the mountain while provoking the nations of the world, under the guise of mitzvos and kabbalistic Torah concepts or even, as they claim, the mitzvah of Yishuv Eretz Yisroel.
And besides this, in my opinion, statements by the members of these various movements, as well as those people who speak and incite day and night, at every opportunity, that we should not give up and it is forbidden to give up on the territories in Eretz Yisroel, do not come from a holy source, but rather they have absorbed this idea from secular wisdom on this subject, based on the assumption that we are a nation like all other nations, we also have the right to a state with sovereignty, and we will hold on to it and not let go of it.
And from this, one can understand that when Chazal forbade us to rebel against the nations of the world and go up as a wall (Kesubos 111a) they were looking after the best interest of our people, and with their holy inspiration they knew that the hatred of the nations toward the Jewish people is an eternal hatred, permanently engraved in their hearts. Therefore we must not provoke them, even at a time when we are justified in doing so, because this will only add to their hatred.
From Michtavim uMa’amarim Letter 4, written 1978, translation from “Rav Shach Speaks” p. 9:
A perfect example of the kind of gross provocation I am referring to is the policy of establishing settlements in the territories. This is a product of the fundamental error underlying Zionist ideology that statelessness was the root of all our troubles throughout history. Now that we have a state of our own, they claim, we are the equals of any other country in the world, and if we will just be obstinate enough, our enemies will eventually yield to us.
Although this view has become widespread, we must realize that it is a deviation from the principles passed down to us from the sages. On the contrary, we should do our best to ensure that no nation feels it is suffering on our account, whether it be regarding the oil embargo or even if all that is involved is a loss of investments in businesses and banks. Why fan the flames of an already smoldering anti-Semitism?
I Will Await Him 
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