466. Optional War and a War of Mitzva [Commandment]

August 1982

“When you go to war.” RASHI interpreted that it is optional. But concerning a war of Mitzva, it is written, “You shall not keep alive any soul.”

We should divide between “optional war,” when one engages in war against the inclination, and a war of Mitzva, where there is no thinking, meaning that a person does not need to introspect whether he is working Lishma [for Her sake] or Lo Lishma [not for Her sake].

This is so because even an act of Mitzva, such as observing Shabbat [Sabbath], if a person has the power to force his neighbor not to desecrate the Shabbat, or he will deny him provision, and so forth, for which he would be observing Shabbat not because it is a Mitzva but because his neighbor forced him not to desecrate the Shabbat, in this, too, one must force his neighbor to observe the Shabbat. This is the meaning of “You shall not keep alive any soul.”

Conversely, in an optional war, meaning in things that are permitted, when it is neither a Mitzva nor a transgression, there is the work of Lishma or Lo Lishma, to thereby see how much faith he has in observing something permitted in order to bestow. But when it concerns a war to do a Mitzva or a transgression, there are no calculations whatsoever, and we must observe the practices even without intentions.