Sotah 089

1:
Our mishnah begins with a further quotation from the Torah text [Deuteronomy 20:8] which is the source for the incredible matter of the 'designated priest' and the officers. This time, the officers do not dismiss from the ranks people who fill certain categories, but give what seems to be an almost foolhardy general dispensation to avoid conscription. The Torah says that the officers are to say to the assembled ranks, "Whoever is scared and faint-hearted may go and return to his house, lest his brother's heart melt as his heart." This must be the high point of Deuteronomistic idealism: given that ancient battles were all face-to-face confrontation and man-to-man fighting one wonders how many men would actually be left in the Israelite ranks under this system.

2:
In our present mishnah three sages give their interpretation to these 'further' words of the officers. Rabbi Akiva is of the opinion that they must be understood quite literally: the officers are to discharge any soldier who is afraid to hold his place in the ranks. I for one would dearly love to be able to ask Rabbi Akiva whether his hero, Bar-Kokhba, permitted his officers to give such an opportunity to his soldiers.

3:
Rabbi Yosé ha-Gelili realizes that such a sweeping and idealistic dispensation must be tempered with a modicum of realism. He suggests that the soldier who is 'scared and faint-hearted' does not refer to any soldier, as Rabbi Akiva would have it, but only to those soldiers who have a very guilty conscience, and fear that the sins which they have committed will be visited upon them on the battle field. Rabbi Yosé ha-Gelili also adds here a very endearing comment. He suggests that all the others were given permission simply in order to permit those weighed down with a sense of guilt to leave the ranks with their head held high. Their fellow soldiers, watching them leave, will assume that they are among those who have built a house, planted a vineyard, married a woman and so forth.

4:
The third sage mentioned in our mishnah, Rabbi Yosé, is Rabbi Yosé ben-Ĥalafta, and should not be confused with the other Rabbi Yosé mentioned. He gives the most realistic interpretation of the 'further' words of the officers. According to him the officers are not giving a further dispensation but are referring only to some of those specifically mentioned in mishnah 3 as not being permitted to desert the ranks. However, the Gemara [Sotah 44b] also asks about this difference between the two sages bearing the name Yosé, and there it is suggested that the difference is concerning what category of sin is involved. Rabbi Yosé ha-Gelili holds that the soldiers who have a guilty conscience includes those who are guilty of infringement of not just Torah law but also of rabbinic law, and elsewhere specifically mentions that 'he who chats between putting on the head Tefillah and the hand Tefillah leaves the battle field'.

We are considerably behind in the effort to bring your comments and questions: here is a comment that relates to 7:5. It comes from Avraham Jacobs.

I would like to comment, like many others, on mishna 5 [of chapter 7 – SR] – the reading of the Benediction and the Curse. In Deuteronomy 27 the command for this ceremony is issued. It is important to read also the execution: Joshua 8: 30-35 and especially verse 33. There, the tribes are not mentioned. Only that one half of the people were stationed on the Ebal side, and one half on the Gerizin side. In between, next to the ark, stood the Levite Priests, either the descendants of Aaron, or the Levites, aged between 30 – 50. So, the majority of the tribe of Levi could well have joined the others. Rashi, Ibn Ezra, S.R. Hirsch i.a.. go this way also in their commentaries on Deuteronomy 27: 12-14. Interesting is the explanation of Hizkuni why the mentioned six tribes were on the Curse side. Especially Reuben, as atonement for his act with Bilhah (Genesis 35: 22).

This question from Yiftah Shapir also explains why sometimes the comments and questions are distanced from the original shiur:

Sometimes I have to postpone reading the Shiurim – so this question relates to a lesson given last week [well, it was 'last week' when he wrote it – SR]. You discussed the story of king Agrippa, and the sages' consolations: "Do not worry, Agrippa, you are our brother, you are our brother!" I wonder – is that the earliest source for the Halakha that a Jew is one whose mother was a Jew?

I respond:

I am not certain that Yiftah is correct in his assumptions. Agrippa was the son of Aristobulus and Bernice. Aristobulus Agrippa's father was indeed the son of Mariamne, the last female from the Hasmonean dynasty; therefore, according to the sages Agrippa's father was definitely Jewish. However, Agrippa's mother was Bernice, who was the daughter of Salome who was Herod's sister. Therefore, whatever taint the sages attached to Herod himself should he been attached to Salome and thereby to Agrippa.