Q&A: Coercing Commandments
Coercing Commandments
Question
I read your article on Religious Zionism without a hyphen. I completely agree with the content. I really liked it.
Within it, you wrote that regarding “we compel observance of the commandments” and the halakhic obligation (seemingly) to care about and even force others as well in matters of commandments, this would require an article of its own. I looked and couldn’t find one. Has the Rabbi written about this?
Also, in a note at the bottom of the issue you wrote that you have an organized conceptual framework regarding states and so on, and that this requires a proper platform and perhaps even a book—have you written about that?
Answer
There will be discussion of this in the trilogy that is currently being edited.
Briefly, I would say that the obligation to compel is relevant only where the non-observance stems from giving in to temptation. If this is a different worldview, coercion has no meaning at all.
See my article here:
https://mikyab.net/%D7%9B%D7%AA%D7%91%D7%99%D7%9D/%D7%9E%D7%90%D7%9E%D7%A8%D7%99%D7%9D/%D7%91%D7%A2%D7%A0%D7%99%D7%99%D7%9F-%D7%94%D7%9B%D7%A9%D7%9C%D7%AA-%D7%97%D7%99%D7%9C%D7%95%D7%A0%D7%99-%D7%91%D7%A2%D7%91%D7%99%D7%A8%D7%94/
And regarding the connection to the idea of coercion, see my book Human Beings Are Like Grass, second Hasidic Intermezzo (on the story of the turkey-prince).
As for the definition of a Jewish state or a state of all its citizens, I have not yet written anything systematic. Yitzhak Geiger addressed this in his response to my article in Tzohar. It is worth reading what he writes (which of course is opposed to my own view).