Deuteronomy 20:19

Protecting the food supply of a city with whom we are at war

Based on recent conversations with relatives and colleagues about whether or not the United Jewish Appeal (UJA) should be sending $1million of humanitarian aid, food and medicine to Gaza, I began to reflect upon our Classical Sources. In particular, I recalled passages in parasha Shoftim, and specifically Deuteronomy chapter twenty, with deals with the laws of Jewish warfare.

There are among these laws many which have caused me tremendous distress, over more than thirty years; since the time I first seriously considered them while in college. Nonetheless, these laws are written in our Torah, and therefore I must confront them.

As but one example, my dear, I offer Deuteronomy 20:16, which reads, “But in the cities of these people, which Y—H—W—H your God is giving you as an inheritance, you shall not let a soul remain alive.” And I have asked myself, and I’ve even yelled out to God, “not even the newborn baby!?! Not even the newborn baby!?! Far be it from You!! Shall not the Judge of all the earth deal justly!?!”

The fact that such laws are written in the Torah have not brought me to abandon Judaism. The fact that they profoundly disturb me —over many decades— has not brought me to abandon me Jewishness, or my relationship with God. Far from it. In fact I have recently been officially ordained as a rabbi. Maybe that’s like doubling down. (I might add that the Torah portion which contains these verses was the weekly parasha at the time of my rabbinic ordination! Perhaps I was meant to be troubled and upset! But I’m also ever more committed!)

But there is among these laws of warfare, one verse in particular which I would like to present for your consideration; especially in light of UJA’s humanitarian aid effort. The verse itself seems to command humanitarianism, even in the midst of warfare.

“When you besiege a city a long time, making war against it to capture it, you must not destroy its fruit trees, taking an axe to them. You may eat of them, but you must not cut them down.” —Deuteronomy 20:19

Taken on its face, this makes sense: I’m a Jewish soldier making war against a city, and I have gained access to some of the enemy’s food supply, I should eat from their food supply rather than destroy it; for by destroying it I would thereby deprive myself and my fellow soldiers of valuable and sustaining resources.

Yes.

But this is not how our Classical Sages understand this verse. They do not read it as a prohibition of depriving me and my fellow soldiers of food. Rather, our Sages understand the proscription against destroying an enemy’s fruit trees as a prohibition against cutting off my enemy’s food supply.

Consider the thirteenth century Sefer ha-Chinuch, a compendium of the 613 mitzvot. As for mitzvah #529, the Sefer ha-Chinuch writes, “The Torah states that when we lay siege to a city, we are prohibited to cut down the fruit trees surrounding the city in order to oppress the residents of the besieged city and to cause their hearts distress.”

Look again carefully at the language of Sefer ha-Chinuch: “to oppress the residents of the besieged city and to cause their hearts distress.”

According to Sefer ha-Chinuch, the reason God has prohibited us from destroying the enemy’s fruit trees, is in order that we should not oppress the residents, or cause their hearts distress.

(The Sefer ha-Chinuch inherits this understanding of the rationale behind this mitzvah from Maimonides’ Sefer ha-Mitzvot, negative mitzvah #57, wherein Maimonides writes that we are prohibited from causing “distress to the the enemy or otherwise disheartening him.”)

So I ask you, my dear, is this to say that —even in the midst of war— God has commanded us not to cause distress to the inhabitants of a city we have besieged by cutting off their food supply?

Now perhaps . . . perhaps you might counter that, yes, well, ensuring that they have food, or that we don’t destroy their food, is something much much different than actively delivering food to the enemy.

And perhaps you are correct. Perhaps the prohibition against destruction of the enemy’s food supply does not encompass active distribution of food. Perhaps there is no positive mitzvah to deliver food to the inhabitants of a city under siege.

But take a look, if you’re still with me, at Maimonides’ Mishneh Torah, “The Laws of Kings and Wars,” chapter six.

Maimonides, also known as the Rambam, writing in twelfth century, says, “When a siege is placed around a city to conquer it, it should not be surrounded on all four sides, only on three. A place should be left for the inhabitants to flee and for all those who desire, to escape with their lives . . . We should not cut down fruit trees outside a city nor prevent an irrigation ditch from bringing water to them so that they dry up.” —Rambam, Mishneh Torah, “The Laws of Kings and Wars,” 6:7-8

In the first instance, it seems clear that Maimonides is arguing that we Jews are obligated to provide what we might call a humanitarian corridor (although it is true that Maimonides considers this situational, and not always applicable).

Writing in the thirteenth century, Nachmanides, also known as the Ramban, comments upon Maimonides’ assertion that we Jews are obligated to provide such a humanitarian corridor, going so far as to say that it is one of the 613 mitzvot in the Torah (see Nachmanides hosafot to Sefer ha-Mitzvot, positive mitzvah #5).

And so I go back to your challenge: ensuring that the inhabitants of the besieged city have food, or that we don’t destroy their food, is something much different than actively delivering food to the enemy.

And you might be correct: it may be something quite different.

On the other hand, we have a good source in Nachmanides, who argues that maintaining a humanitarian corridor is a Torah mitzvah. Is it not the case that such a corridor cannot long remain open unless it is actively maintained?

And although leaving fruit trees to stand may not be the same as actively delivering the fruit thereof, we recall that Maimonides obligates us to actively maintain the free flow of water.

Now, I’m not smart enough to know whether any or how much of the humanitarian aid going into Gaza ever gets to the people who need it most (and believe me, I talk with people on the ground there on all sides. My information there is of a very high quality. And yet I take everything I hear with a very healthy dose of skepticism.) I’m not smart enough to know how much of this aid gets stolen by Hamas, only to be sold at extortionary prices to Gaza civilians (although I assure you that this has been the fate of a substantial amount of the aid). And I’m certainly not smart enough to know whether UJA’s plan is a good one, or whether any of it will make a positive difference in anyone’s lives.

What I do know is that which I have shown you from our Classical Sources: we have a normative obligation —in the form of positive and negative mitzvot— not to cause distress to the inhabitants of a city under siege by restricting their access to food or water, and that active humanitarian corridors must be maintained for those who wish to preserve their lives.

—Rabbi Ethan Daniel Davidson