Exposing the ‘Anti-Zionist’ Lie About the Talmudic ‘Three Oaths’

Image used with permission, from the Hashlamah Project.

Decades ago, I was introduced to an argument promulgated by the Anti-Zionist Jewish groups, such as the Satmarim and Neturei Karte. I was intrigued by the concept of Jewish Anti-Zionism, as I had been raised in a staunchly Zionist home.

For the teenage version of myself, Jewish Anti-Zionism seemed to be an attractive form of rebellion, and a way to “one up” my mother in our endless religious debates – may she forgive me for all of the headaches I wrongfully caused her.

Far from being born and raised an unquestioning Zionist, I fought my parents’ Zionism at every turn. As far back as two and a half decades ago, in 2001, I was featured on the front page of the Cincinnati Enquirer protesting with Pro-Palestine activists, shouting down the Pro-Israel counter-protesters across the street from us. I very quickly learned of how addictive the dopamine high of being the prized token in Palestinian circles could be. This continued throughout the years as I did both my second masters thesis and my doctoral dissertation in the State of Israel and the Palestinian territories. I was even engaged, for three years, to a Muslimah, whose family was from Ramallah.

This background is important to note. Those who might not know this personal history could easily assume that my position on the current defensive war against Hamas, and indeed my opposition to the unfortunate majority of the Palestinian people who today support the Hamas Pogrom of October 7th to one degree or another, is borne out of unquestioned and unchecked Zionist bias.

Nothing could be further from the truth. I was dragged to Zionism kicking and screaming – and it was not Jews who dragged me to it, it was Hamas and over 80% of the Palestinian people surveyed who support the October 7th Pogrom.

My teshuvah to Zionism, however, was a long time coming. I had stopped viewing myself as an “Anti-Zionist” – per se – decades ago. I instead preferred the designation of “Post-Zionism,” to describe my attitudes towards the Jewish state. This term, of course, was popularized by the “New Historian Movement” in Israel. As a scholar of their work and even a friend of some of them, this term seemed the most appropriate for me to adopt in my post Anti-Zionism stage of growth.

To explain this to those who have never heard the term before, to me, Zionism was something that had happened. It was a historical movement that had come and succeeded in creating the State of Israel. It happened – whether you liked it or not.

This became my work-around, in a sense. I spoke of Zionism as a concept that was no longer needed, but that served a historical purpose. Again, whether one agreed or disagreed with it, it happened… in the past.

The Hamas Pogrom of October 7th changed all of that. Every one of the right-wing arguments made for Zionism and the necessity of the Jewish state had been validated and proven beyond any reasonable doubt, in a matter of hours on that holy day of Shabbat, carrying over into Simchat Torah.

Every argument which I had tried to shut down for decades had suddenly been proven indisputably right. The seeming-paranoia of the Israeli right could no longer be dismissed as such. They had been proven correct by Hamas.

Ever since that day I have hated Hamas not only for their sadistic crimes against the Jewish People, and those in our midst that day, but also for the fact that they proved every right-wing Zionist trope right. I was humbled – humiliated…

I did not want these positions I have decried on the streets of Haifa, Tel Aviv, Jerusalem, Ramallah, Hebron, Gaza City, and throughout the United States to be correct. I wanted to believe that the majority of Palestinians actually wanted peace and coexistence with us, as so many told me in interviews I conducted for my doctoral dissertation in the State of Israel and the Palestinian Territories. I wanted to believe the lies I had been told for years throughout the Palestinian Territories and in countless Palestinian homes. But I no longer could believe them. My eyes were opened on October 7th.

This is not to say that I have no sympathy or empathy with the Palestinian people. I absolutely believe in a “Free Palestine.” But I realize that Palestinians can never be free unless and until groups like Hamas are uprooted and destroyed completely. I can never hope for peace with the tragic majority of Palestinians who refuse to denounce the terror cult that is Hamas.

But what of that small minority who do oppose them – even as high as 20% of Palestinians in the Palestinian Territories? I have hope that we have a future together – mutually opposing the extremism and insanity of the unsilent majority chanting “River To Sea” antisemitic nursery rhymes.

Beyond the Limits

With all of this in mind, I return to the Anti-Zionist Jewish argumentation that so enamored me as a rebellious and ignorant youth. This was the position that the “Torah forbids” Zionism and a Jewish State. Part and parcel with this idea was that of Charedi groups suggesting that returning to the Land of Israel en masse was itself a rejection of Messianic promise that Mashiach ben David would somehow and some day create a utopian Jewish Kingdom or state, and we would then return – and not one day sooner.

The first problem with this reasoning, which always stuck out to me like a proverbial sore thumb, is the fact that Satmarim, et al. who accept such a position are not Anti-Zionist at all. Calling them Anti-Zionist is a mischaracterization of the position. They are extremely Zionist – they simply believe that Zionism must be centered around Mashiach ben David and the Yamot Ha’Mashiach, the Messianic Age.

Okay, so fine. We’ve established that the Charedi “Anti-Zionist” Jews aren’t actually Anti-Zionist in any meaningful or literal sense… just Anti-Secular-Democratic-Israel. But what about their argument that the Torah prohibits the creation of a Jewish state before the reign of King Mashiach?

What the Talmud Actually States on the Matter

It became painfully clear to me decades ago – as I transitioned from rebellious “Anti-Zionist” to academic “Post-Zionist” – shot the Anti-Israel position in the foot argumentatively. This is due to the clear fact that one very important oath, out of those three, was broken by the nations. In the “contract” then, the Jewish obligations to keep the two remaining oaths assigned to us is dissolved.

Let’s take a look at what these Three Oaths actually state…

Rebbi Elazar states that one who lives in Eretz Yisrael “dwells without sin” (“Nesu Avon“), as the verse says, “One who lives there will not say, ‘I am sick;’ the people that dwells there will be forgiven of sin” Yeshayahu (Isaiah 33:24)

וּבַל יֹאמַר שָׁכֵן, חָלִיתִי; הָעָם הַיֹּשֵׁב בָּהּ, נְשֻׂא עָוֹן

This passage of the Talmud explains this “forgiveness of sin” by saying that “sins committed in Eretz Yisrael are punished much more severely than sins committed in Chutz la’Aretz!”

So thus, it is only a people “who are not sick” – as Yeshayahu (Isaiah) explains – that will be able to enter into Eretz Yisrael when Mashiach reigns. The people would would enter the Holy Land by force prior to that Messianic Era would in fact still “be sick” with their character flaws, covetousness, envy and greed that would cause them to take the land by force, band together and “go up in a wall.”

The Gemara (end of 110b until the beginning of 111a) records the view of Rav Yehudah, who says that anyone who goes from Bavel to Eretz Yisrael transgresses an Isur Aseh, because the verse says, “To Bavel they will be brought, and there they will stay until the day that I remember them, says Ha’Shem, when I shall bring them up and return them to this place.” Yirmeyahu (Jeremiah 27:22)

בָּבֶלָה יוּבָאוּ, וְשָׁמָּה יִהְיוּ-עַד יוֹם פָּקְדִי אֹתָם, נְאֻם יְהוָה, וְהַעֲלִיתִים וַהֲשִׁיבֹתִים, אֶל הַמָּקוֹם הַזֶּה

This verse, Neturai Karte argues, commands us not to return from Galut until Ha’Shem redeems us… But what does that mean exactly?

For the Neturai Karte, and some others of their line of thinking, this means that redemption comes only through the overt, obvious coronation of a physical King Mashiach.

To insure that such a sinless state can be attained in Eretz Yisrael, and to insure that the exponential debt of committing sin in Eretz Yisrael is not incurred, Ha’Shem has made the B’nei Yisrael swear to three oaths:

1. She’lo ya’alu Yisrael B’Chomah (שעלו יעלו ישראל בחומה) – Ha’Shem made B’nei Yisrael swear that Yisrael would not band together and “go up like a wall”

This first oath clearly prohibits the conquering of Eretz Yisrael by massive force. As well, it more literally means that Yisrael – when instituted by Mashiach – would not be built by “walling” itself off. This might sound somewhat “damning,” given the massive wall we have with the Palestinian Territories.

But there is more to the story – two more oaths to go! Remember, if the oath of the nations is broken, all bets are off, and we are released from our two out of these three oaths!

2. Secondly, Ha’Shem made the Jewish People swear that we would not rebel against the nations of the world.

Fair enough, we seem good on that. Though we have revolted, for instance the `Isawiyah Jewish revolt against the Abbasid Caliphate, this was against Imperial forces spreading into Persia – in the City of Isfahan. The Arab Caliphate was not even remotely indigenous to this nation, nor were they welcomed as immigrants – they were invaders, just the same as in Syria Palestina. Thus, this was not the Persian nation against which we rebelled, but against invaders, as Persian Jews ourselves – defending the nation we were a part of!

3. Finally, Ha’Shem made the Nations swear not to oppress `Am Yisrael “yoter midai” (יותר מדי) meaning “more than too much.”

The Jewish People have been oppressed long before the Nazi Holocaust. The Roman persecution, the Spanish Inquisition and the like are all prominent examples. As terrible as these historical persecutions were, the Talmud says that Ha’Shem decreed: “Ani matir es besarkhem” (אני מתיר יש בשרכם) – I will make your flesh permissible to be taken, meaning that Ha’Shem has allowed there to be a certain degree of oppression of the Jewish People.

The Talmud teaches that there was a limit to what would be tolerated. One might respond, that these historical incidences of antisemitic persecution were not the fault of the Palestinian people. Similarly, they may put forth that “before 1948, Jews and Muslims got along great in Palestine.”

But that is simply not true. It is, in fact, nothing more than a talking point and incorrect assumption (if not propaganda), meant to conceal the true history of antisemitic oppression that culminated in 1948. Read my article for the Times of Israel, entitled “Palestinian pogroms before 1948 prove that attacking Jews was never about Israel” for citation on the constant massacres of the Jewish people in Palestine, before the so-called “Nakba.”

According to the Talmud itself, this is the meaning of the verse: “I adjure you, O daughters of Yerushalayim, by the gazelles or by the hinds of the field, should you wake or rouse the love until it pleases.” Shir Ha’Shirim (Song of Songs 2:7)

הִשְׁבַּעְתִּי אֶתְכֶם בְּנוֹת יְרוּשָׁלִַם, בִּצְבָאוֹת, אוֹ, בְּאַיְלוֹת הַשָּׂדֶה: אִם תָּעִירוּ וְאִם תְּעוֹרְרוּ אֶת הָאַהֲבָה, עַד שֶׁתֶּחְפָּץ

This verse is so important that it is repeated again in Shir Ha’Shirim 3:5 word for word: “I adjure you, O daughters of Yerushalayim, by the gazelles or by the hinds of the field, should you wake or rouse the love until it pleases.”

What this teaches is in fact that we may not hasten a religious state which obligates the fulfillment of Jewish Mitzvot upon the inhabitants of the Land of Israel. That is to happen naturally, and through gradual blossoming of love for the Torah by the people. We thus cannot rouse the love until it pleases.

Until that time, however, with the violation of the clause to not oppress us “yoter midai”, we are permitted to return – even en masse, and even to go up “like a wall” to defend ourselves from that “yoter midai” oppression of the Nations.

What we may not do, however, is create an undemocratic Kingdom, or state, like those of surrounding Arab nations. Instead, we must provide for the security of the Jewish people, allow those Gerei Toshav who ally themselves with us to remain in the land – as we have with over 2,000,000 Israeli Arabs of “Palestinian” descent, and govern by the principals of voluntary social contract and democratic process – governing secularly, by the will of the people.

When Mashiach comes?

Whether you believe in a literal coming of Mashiach ben David or not, let us consider for a moment that the prophecies of such are true. Imagine then that there will be a Jewish monarch of sorts, once again. The Talmud teaches us that this will come about by now rousing the love until it pleases – that is, through naturally-blossoming love of the Torah.

We might think of the concept of Eretz Yisrael Hashlemah, for that matter – the “River to the River”, Nile to the Euphrates concept, not merely of One Federation of Israel, Gaza and the West Bank, but of an empire spanning the vast region promised to Abraham in the Torah. One might conclude similarly that this massive “Kingdom” of Eretz Yisrael Hashlemah would also come into being in the Yamot Ha’Mashiach by allowing love to naturally blossom.

That is to say, perhaps a One State Federation in the Land today comprising the State of Israel and the Palestinian Territories would simply be the model for a much larger Confederation of nations willingly accepting Messianic rule – whether a figure, a movement, an international revolution of democracy and social reform.

Just as we are told of a bloodless Third Temple which will be built on the site of the Herodian Temple ruins in the Yamot Ha’Mashiach, perhaps the “conquests” of Mashiach will also be bloodless, and achieved through victories of a metaphorical sword of the tongue, rather than one wielded by a violent hand.

While Mashiach ben David is likened to the name sake David Ha’Melekh, we know from the Tanakh that our beloved King was prohibited from building the Solomonic Temple that his son constructed, due to his own shedding of blood – being a “Man of War” or Ish Ha’Melchamot.

This time around, perhaps, the war which Mashiach ben David will call us to fight will be the war within, the war which Rabbeinu Bachya ibn Paqudah tells us in the Judeo-Arabic of Chovot Ha’Levavot, is the true and greatest “Jihad” – the “jihada-n-nafsa” – the Jihad against the Nefesh ego. This is what Rabbeinu Bachya tells us is Istislam – the “Surrender” rather than “Submission” – full and complete, willing Surrender to Ha’Shem – to the Commandments, the Mitzvot of the Torah.

About the Author

Dr. Micah Naziri was born in Cincinnati, Ohio. The son of a multitude of peoples, Micah has Ashkenazi Jewish, German, Native American and Melungeon Sefardic background. Micah has often said he has “one foot in the masjid and the other in shul.” Spiritually, Micah considers his understanding of Judaism to be “Judeo-Sufi,” or “Istislam” as described by Rabbeinu Bachya ibn Paqudah, in his Medieval Judeo-Arabic work “Guide to the Duties of the Hearts” (Al-Hidayat ila Fara`id al-Qulub), which quoted Muhammad and his son-in-law `Ali profusely – reference each as being “a great chasid” – while fully embracing the Torah as the framework of religious practice for the Jewish people. Dr. Naziri is the founder of the Martial Sufi Tariqah alternatively known as the Taliyah al-Mahdi (2001) and the Jamat al-Fitrah (2005), as well as Hashlamah Project Foundation (2012), and the White Rose Society “reboot” (2016). As the founder of the Hashlamah Project Foundation, Micah uses his education in Near Eastern Languages, Religions and historical models of building bridges between Jewish and Muslim communities, to help reconcile and unite Jews and Palestinian Muslims. He is a prolific author who has penned numerous academic articles, donating 100% of the proceeds to charities working towards social justice. He has also authored a science fiction novel fused with history and politics. His Master’s thesis on the religious milieu of Judaism in Muhammad’s life time, in Arabia, has been published by New Dawn Publications and is available on Amazon, with all proceeds similarly going to charity work. He has served as an editor for written works on Martial Arts and Eastern Medicine, transcribing and creating numerous titles for some of his teachers. He has himself authored several martial treatises using the pen name Seng, Hern-Heng – his Taoist lineage name given to him in 2006 by Huang, Chien-Liang. On that front, he is currently working on a new Taoist translation of the Tao Te Ching (Daodejing) based on the original Mawangdui manuscripts. Micah became well-known for activism confronting an anti-Muslim protester peacefully and reasoning with her outside of a Dublin, Ohio mosque. After nearly 45 minutes of debate and reconciliation, the woman embraced a Muslimah woman from the mosque, and went into the mosque with her and Micah for bagels, coffee and a tour of the house of worship. When she left, the Muslims there gave her a gift bag. Micah became somewhat infamous – loved by some, hated by others – not only for several high-profile, viral protests, but also for teaching free self-defense classes available to all interested parties from historically oppressed communities. Law enforcement, however, have without question been the most hostile to Naziri, as he became a regular protester against police brutality and murder of unarmed African-Americans. Micah has been equally as virally-known as an avowed anti-rape activist, who confronted the Stanford Rapist, Brock Turner at his home in Sugarcreek Township, Ohio, after he was released from his mere three-month jail sentence for raping an unconscious woman. Today, Micah continues activism in the areas surrounding Yellow Springs, and abroad, focusing on weekly protests and vigils supporting families of innocent, unarmed African-American youths, gunned down by local police or vigilante citizens attempting to hide behind gun culture and the Second Amendment, such as in the recent case of Victor Santana – who was recently arrested, charged with murder, and convicted after months of pressure put on Montgomery County prosecutor Matt Heck by protests Micah organized in conjunction with Donald Dominique of the New Black Panther Party. Micah is currently coordinating expanded work with international Hashlamah Project chapters and the Jam`at Al-Fitrah, the name used in the Palestinian Territories for the Sufi Martial Tariqah known as the Taliyah al-Mahdi. He is seeking grant-writing partnerships to grow the Hashlamah Project organization’s efforts – particularly in the State of Israel and the Palestinian Territories.