Are the Wars the State of Israel Fights Today Halachically Considered a Milchemes Mitzvah?

The Answer From the Gedolei HaPoskim Is No — And the Reasons Are Halachic, Not Political

For seventy-eight years, a halachic argument has circulated within the Religious Zionist world and has been adopted as the religious framing of Israeli national policy: that the wars conducted by the State of Israel are milchemes mitzvah — that every Jew is halachically obligated to participate, that yeshiva students who do not enlist are violating Torah, that the State's military authority binds the conscience of every Torah-observant Jew. This claim, advanced by Rav Tzvi Yehuda Kook zt"l, Rav Shaul Yisraeli zt"l, Rav Avraham Shapira zt"l, and the major Religious Zionist poskim of the past century, has become the halachic foundation invoked whenever the secular establishment seeks to compel Charedi enlistment, override Shabbos for non-pikuach-nefesh purposes, or claim religious authority over Torah-observant Jews.

The secular State itself argues from a different framework — equality of burden, shivyon b'netel, democratic citizenship. But when the secular argument runs out, the religious argument is reached for, and it is the Religious Zionist halachic framing of milchemes mitzvah that gives Charedi conscription its theological cover.

The gedolei haposkim of the Charedi world examined this halachic claim — the Religious Zionist claim — against the actual sources. The answer they reached, with remarkable consistency across Lithuanian, Hungarian, and Sephardic poskim, was clear: the wars conducted by the State of Israel do not meet the halachic conditions of a milchemes mitzvah.

This is not a slogan and not a political position. It is the documented conclusion of the seforim that sit in every serious yeshiva library — written by gedolim who studied the question at length, who lived through the founding of the State, who watched every Israeli war unfold, and who never changed their analysis. We set out the reasons here.

I. What the Rambam Actually Requires

The Rambam codifies the laws of warfare in Hilchos Melachim perek 5. A milchemes mitzvah is one of three things (Hilchos Melachim 5:1): the war against the seven Canaanite nations, the war against Amalek, or l'ezras Yisrael miyad tzar shebah aleihem — assisting Israel against an attacker.

The third category — defense against an attacker — sounds at first glance like it should fit modern Israeli wars cleanly. But the Rambam writes within an unstated halachic framework that the Rishonim took for granted: Jewish national life under the authority of a king (or its halachic equivalent), a Sanhedrin, and the Torah governmental structure that allows for milchama in its formal halachic sense to take place at all.

The Rambam (Hilchos Melachim 5:2) makes this explicit for milchemes reshus: "The king does not go out to a milchemes reshus except by the word of the court of seventy-one." No Sanhedrin, no milchemes reshus. The structural assumption is that war as a halachic category — with all its implications for who fights, who is exempt, what is permitted on Shabbos, and what halachos govern conduct — exists within a Torah-governmental framework, not outside it.

The State of Israel has no Sanhedrin. It has no king. It has no Urim v'Tumim. It has no halachic body authorizing its military action. It has a Cabinet of secular politicians, most of whom do not keep Shabbos, do not eat kosher, and do not view halacha as binding. Under these conditions, the act of defending Jewish lives remains a mitzvah of pikuach nefesh — every Jew is obligated to save Jewish life. But the formal halachic category of milchemes mitzvah, with everything that designation entails, requires conditions that do not exist.

II. The State Itself Was Established in Violation of Halacha

This is the deepest layer of the question, and the one the secular establishment most wants to avoid.

The Gemara in Kesuvos 111a, derived from the threefold "hishbati eschem" in Shir HaShirim, records the shalosh shevuos: the three oaths sworn between Hashem, Klal Yisrael, and the nations. Two of these oaths bind the Jewish people: not to ascend to Eretz Yisrael as a wall (i.e., by mass force), and not to rebel against the nations of the world. The Satmar Rebbe zt"l, in Vayoel Moshe (Maamar Shalosh Shevuos, 1959), demonstrates exhaustively — through thousands of citations from Shas, Rishonim, and Acharonim — that the establishment of a sovereign Jewish state by political and military means before the time of Mashiach is a direct violation of these oaths.

This is not a Satmar idiosyncrasy. The same conclusion was reached by:

• The Chazon Ish in Kovetz Igros Vol. 1, p. 97, and recorded in Mishkenos HaRoim p. 1195
• The Brisker Rav (Rav Yitzchok Zev Soloveitchik) in Uvdos v'Hanhagos l'Beis Brisk Vol. 2, siman 140, and Peninei Rabbeinu HaGriz p. 148
• Rav Elchonon Wasserman Hy"d in Ikvesa D'Meshicha — where he writes that the establishment of a state under the conditions of the three oaths is forbidden
• Rav Elazar Shach zt"l in Michtavim u'Maamarim Vol. 1, letter I:12
• The Minchas Yitzchak (Rav Yitzchok Yaakov Weiss zt"l) in Shu"t Minchas Yitzchak Vol. 10, siman 10
• Rav Avigdor Miller zt"l in Sing, You Righteous and across his recorded shiurim

A war waged by an institution whose very establishment violates the halacha cannot, by definition, be a halachically authorized milchemes mitzvah. The defense of Jewish life within that war remains a mitzvah of pikuach nefesh — that obligation does not depend on the framework. But the war itself, as a halachic category, cannot inherit a status the framework does not possess.

III. Who Leads the Soldiers Matters Halachically

The Rambam in Hilchos Melachim perek 7 describes who is exempt from war — and assumes throughout that the chain of command is functioning under Torah authority. The Charedi gedolim have argued for seventy-eight years that placing a Torah Jew under the operational authority of commanders who do not keep Torah and mitzvos creates a structural halachic problem with no resolution from below.

This is not theoretical. Every religious soldier in the modern IDF can describe it. Chillul Shabbos is normalized through expansive "operational necessity" exceptions that grow into routine kelalim. Mixed-gender environments where halacha forbids them are not just permitted but mandated, with religious soldiers disciplined for refusing. Ceremonies requiring participation that halacha rules out — the women's singing crisis litigated since 2011, formalized in IDF Chief of Staff Benny Gantz's 2012 directive prohibiting religious soldiers from leaving such ceremonies — produce halachic conflicts that no individual soldier can resolve.

The IDF's own institutional response to the Har Bracha yeshiva in 2012 was telling: when Rosh Yeshiva Rav Eliezer Melamed shlita refused to condemn soldiers who walked out of women's singing ceremonies, the IDF formally expelled his yeshiva from the Hesder framework. The IDF, an army, decided which yeshivos are "kosher" partners. A Rosh Yeshiva who would not bend halacha to fit the chief of staff's PR concerns was punished by having his institution stripped of its arrangement with the army that his talmidim had been dying for. This is not a chain of command that can produce a halachic milchemes mitzvah. It is a chain of command that systematically subordinates halacha to secular military priorities.

IV. The Chazon Ish Said It Directly to Ben-Gurion

The clearest articulation came in the most famous meeting in modern Charedi-State history: the Chazon Ish to David Ben-Gurion on October 20, 1952, with Yitzchak Navon as the only third-party witness.

Ben-Gurion pressed: And these young men sitting at the borders, who protect you — is that not a mitzvah?

The Chazon Ish: In the merit of our Torah study, they live, work, and are protected.

Ben-Gurion: But if these young people didn't protect you, the enemies would slaughter you!

The Chazon Ish: On the contrary. In the merit of our Torah study, they are safe.

Ben-Gurion: Protection of life is also a mitzvah! If nobody is alive, who will learn the Torah?

The Chazon Ish: Torah is the tree of life, the elixir of life.

This is the gadol hador, sitting in his apartment in Bnei Brak, telling the Prime Minister of Israel — to his face — that the Charedi world does not accept the Zionist framing in which State military activity is the central religious obligation of the Jewish people. The soldiers are protected by the bnei yeshiva. Not the other way around. This is the documented Charedi position, and the gedolim who came after the Chazon Ish — the Brisker Rav, Rav Shach, the Steipler, Rav Elyashiv, Rav Chaim Kanievsky — never reversed it.

V. The Religious Zionist "Milchemes Mitzvah" Argument Is Invoked in Three Distinct Ways — And the Halacha Rejects All Three

To compel Charedi enlistment. The Religious Zionist argument: since defensive war is milchemes mitzvah, every Jew must serve, including yeshiva students. The halacha says otherwise. The act of saving Jewish life is pikuach nefesh and obligates every Jew when needed. But the formal category of milchemes mitzvah, with its overrides of personal exemptions, requires the structural conditions the State does not provide. The Chazon Ish in his Hilchos Eiruvin (siman 114) and the gedolim who followed him have explained that Torah study itself constitutes the primary form of national defense incumbent on bnei Torah, and that the IDF's institutional framework is not the avenue through which that obligation is discharged.

To override Shabbos. The argument: since these are milchemes mitzvah, military activity overrides Shabbos broadly. The halacha says otherwise. Pikuach nefesh overrides Shabbos directly — not because the war is milchemes mitzvah but because saving life always overrides Shabbos. These two are conflated by Religious Zionist poskim and adopted by the IDF Rabbinate, but they are halachically distinct. The IDF's expansive use of Shabbos overrides — for non-pikuach-nefesh administrative purposes, for routine operations, for political optics — has no halachic basis. It is justified, when at all, only by genuine pikuach nefesh evaluated case by case.

To create a national religious obligation. The argument: since these are milchemes mitzvah, the State has the halachic authority of a Jewish king. The halacha rejects this categorically. A Jewish king requires anointing by a navi, recognition by the Sanhedrin, and meeting the conditions specified by the Rambam in Hilchos Melachim perek 1. The Knesset is not a king. The Supreme Court is not a Sanhedrin. The chief of staff is not a Jewish military commander in the halachic sense. The State has no authority to declare a milchemes mitzvah it does not have the structural standing to declare — and no Religious Zionist posek can confer on it a status the halacha itself withholds.

These are not technicalities. These are the foundational requirements that distinguish a true halachic milchemes mitzvah from a defensive action conducted by a secular state. Without the requirements, the designation does not apply — no matter how widely it is asserted in religious Israeli discourse.

VI. Pikuach Nefesh Is a Mitzvah. Milchemes Mitzvah Is a Halachic Category. They Are Not the Same.

These two are conflated in the public discourse, but the halacha distinguishes them sharply.

A doctor in Hadassah Hospital who saves a Jewish life is performing a mitzvah of hatzalas nefashos. He is not, by that act, engaged in milchemes mitzvah. The categories are different. They have different halachic implications, different requirements, and different scopes.

In the same way: an individual Jewish soldier who defends Jewish lives in Gaza, in Lebanon, on the northern border, performs a real mitzvah of pikuach nefesh. We daven for him. We mourn every loss. We recognize the courage and mesirus nefesh of every Jew who puts himself in harm's way to save Jewish life.

But the war as a category, the formal halachic designation of milchemes mitzvah with all its implications — that requires what Chazal laid out: Torah authorization, Torah leadership, integration into the halachic framework of Klal Yisrael's national life. When those conditions are not met, the formal category does not apply. And when the State invokes the category to compel obedience, override Shabbos, or manufacture religious obligations, it is invoking a designation it has no halachic right to claim.

VII. The Conclusion the Gedolim Reached

When the Religious Zionist halachic argument that today's wars are "milchemes mitzvah" is invoked — to compel Charedi enlistment, to override Shabbos, to manufacture a national religious obligation that overrides individual halachic considerations — it is being invoked without halachic foundation. The term has been borrowed from the Rambam, stripped of its halachic conditions, and repurposed.

The seforim are still on the shelf. The analysis is still there. The Chazon Ish, the Brisker Rav, Rav Elchonon, Rav Shach, the Satmar Rav, the Minchas Yitzchak, Rav Avigdor Miller — every one of them studied this question, examined the conditions, and reached the same conclusion: a war fought by a non-Torah state, under non-Torah command, in pursuit of a project that itself violates the shalosh shevuos, is not a milchemes mitzvah in the formal halachic sense. The defense of Jewish life within that war remains a mitzvah of pikuach nefesh. The protection of Klal Yisrael remains binding on every Jew. But the formal category that has been invoked for seventy-eight years to compel obedience and override Torah is, halachically, not what it claims to be.

We daven for the day, bimheirah b'yameinu, when the conditions for a true milchemes mitzvah will be restored — when shofteinu k'varishonah v'yo'atzeinu k'vatchillah, our judges as at first and our advisors as at the beginning, will sit in a rebuilt Sanhedrin under a Davidic king, and the Jewish people's defense will be conducted within the halachic framework Hashem prescribed. Until then, we say what the gedolei haposkim have said for a hundred years, with no apology and no equivocation: the wars of the State of Israel are not, halachically, milchamos mitzvah. They are something else. The Torah world, knowing the difference, continues its actual avodah — learning, davening, and sustaining Klal Yisrael through the means Hashem actually gave us.

Sources

Primary halachic sources

• Rambam, Hilchos Melachim u'Milchamos 5:1-2 — categories of milchemes mitzvah and milchemes reshus
• Rambam, Hilchos Melachim u'Milchamos, perek 1 — requirements for a Jewish king
• Rambam, Hilchos Melachim u'Milchamos, perek 7 — exemptions and obligations in war
• Mishnah Sotah 8:7 — who fights in milchemes mitzvah
• Talmud Bavli, Kesuvos 111a — the shalosh shevuos
• Talmud Bavli, Sanhedrin 20b — the king and milchemes reshus

The Charedi halachic position on the State and its wars

• Vayoel Moshe, Rabbi Yoel Teitelbaum (Satmar Rav), Maamar Shalosh Shevuos (Brooklyn, 1959/1961)
• Al HaGeulah V'Al HaTemurah, Rabbi Yoel Teitelbaum (1967) — response to the Six-Day War
• Kovetz Igros, Chazon Ish, Vol. 1, p. 97
• Mishkenos HaRoim, p. 1195
• Chazon Ish, Orach Chaim, Hilchos Eiruvin, siman 114
• Uvdos v'Hanhagos l'Beis Brisk, Vol. 2, siman 140 — the Brisker Rav (Rav Yitzchok Zev Soloveitchik)
• Peninei Rabbeinu HaGriz, p. 148
• Kovetz Maamarim and Ikvesa D'Meshicha, Rabbi Elchonon Wasserman Hy"d
• Michtavim u'Maamarim, Rabbi Elazar Menachem Man Shach zt"l, Vol. 1, letter I:12
• Shu"t Minchas Yitzchak, Rabbi Yitzchok Yaakov Weiss zt"l, Vol. 10, siman 10
• Sing, You Righteous, Rabbi Avigdor Miller zt"l

The Chazon Ish – Ben-Gurion meeting (October 20, 1952)

• Yitzchak Navon's recorded account, published in his memoirs
• World Mizrachi, "The Chazon Ish, Ben-Gurion and Rav Tzvi Yehudah" (March 2023)
• Yeshiva World News, "70 Yrs Ago Today: What Happened At The Historic Meeting Of The Chazon Ish And Ben-Gurion?" (October 2022)
• Jewish Action, "Great Minds of the 20th Century" (Rabbi Aharon Feldman) — citing MK Shlomo Lorincz, Digleinu Vol. 2 (110), Marcheshvan 5718

The Har Bracha expulsion and the women's singing crisis

• Haaretz, "IDF: Soldiers Cannot Skip Ceremonies With Women Singing" (September 2011)
• Ynetnews, "Rabbi Melamed: Stop IDF draft" (2012) — Har Bracha removed from Hesder framework
• Times of Israel, "Report: Female soldiers barred from singing at IDF base due to religious troops" (August 2023)