Q&A: Does milhemet mitzvah [Biblically-mandated war) apply today?]

Q. Given the ongoing hostilities and lack of peace between Israel and some of its neighbors, are we in a situation that can Halakhically be termed milhemet mitzvah, a Biblically-mandated war?

[by HaRav Azariah Ariel, https://www.yeshiva.org.il/ask/]

A. The Rambam rules that saving Israel from its enemies is a milhemet mitzvah. Although one might understand from his words in Sefer HaMitzvot that this is true only if the Beit Mikdash is extant, we have proven elsewhere that this is not a correct understanding. Nor is there any reason to assume that others would dispute the straightforward ruling that saving Israel from its enemies is a milhemet mitzvah.

This ruling is clear from the Jerusalem Talmud (Sotah 8,10), which states that if Gentiles come to attack us, this creates a milhemet mitzvah [this is the term used by the Sages; but according to the minority opinion of R. Yehuda there, it is a milhemet chovah, a war of obligation; see Sotah 44b, and the commentary of the Keren Orah there; and the words of the Lechem Mishneh to Rambam, Laws of Kings 5,1].

The Meiri agrees with the Rambam. He writes (Sotah 42a) that a Priest is appointed to speak to Israel and strengthen them "before every war led by Israel's kings or leaders - whether it be a milhemet mitzvah such as a war against the Seven Nations, or against Amalek, or against any enemy that comes to destroy it, or a milhemet reshut (optional war) such as one that a king chooses on his own to fight, to expand his borders [or for other reasons]."

Another Rishon [early commentator], the Yad Remah, held similarly. He explained that the reason Israel's evil kings are not prosecuted in the Heavenly Court is because "they tried to save [Jewish] lives and fought obligatory wars and participated in Israel's sorrows."

Great Halakhic decisors of our generation also took this approach, ruling that Israel's wars nowadays are milhemot mitzvah. Thus wrote, for instance:
* Israel's first Chief Rabbi, Rav Herzog (Hechal Yitzchak, Orach Chaim 31 and 38);

* The Tzitz Eliezer (Vol. III 9,10 and 9,16; Vol. VII 48,12) – explaining that one of the reasons Aliyah to Israel is so important in this generation is because the new immigrants thus take part in a milhemet mitzvah;

* Rav Ovadiah Yosef, who wrote that the rescue in Entebbe was a milhemet mitzvah (Yabia Omer Vol. X, Choshen Mishpat 6,23).