Three Oaths
[3] The three oaths are derived from Biblical verses during a sugya, or Talmudic passage, about Zeira's desire to move from Babylonia to the Land of Israel.
The midrashic exegesis of these verses is consistent with the traditionalist understanding of the entire book as an allegory for the relationship between God and the Jewish people.
In the letter he states: בזמן הראוי ויאבדו בכך וישיגום הצרות הזהיר מכך והשביע עליו על דרך המשל ואמר Solomon, of blessed memory, foresaw with Divine inspiration, that the prolonged duration of the exile would incite some of our people to seek to terminate it before the proper time, and as a consequence they would perish or meet with disaster.
[12] So too we are required to follow in the way of the Patriarchs and to restore ourselves so that we may be graciously accepted and with our fine language and prayer before God, may He be exalted.
[20] Rashbash (himself a descendant of Nachmanides) understood this particular biblical obligation to be binding on the individual level but not on the collective: In truth, this commandment is not a commandment which includes the entirety of Israel in the Exile which now exists, but it is a general principle as our Sages stated in the Talmud in Ketubot, that it stems from the Oaths which The Holy One, Blessed be He, made Israel swear not to rush the End, and not to ascend like a wall.
[24] In his work Netzach Yisrael he wrote: Another explanation of the Midrash's statement (he is speaking of Shir Ha-Shirim Rabba 2:20 that begins "ורבנן אמרי השביען בדורו של שמד") that God adjured the Jewish people in a generation of Shmad (religious persecution Jews, or decrees against Jews): that even if they will threaten to kill them with difficult torture, they will not leave [the Exile] nor will they change their behavior in this manner[25]However, in his commentary to Ketubot the Maharal explains that the Oaths are rather heavenly decrees, necessary to maintain the unnatural state of exile: שבועות הללו וכו'.
פי' כאשר הש"י גזר הגלות על ישראל, והגלות הזה אינו לפי הסדר שראוי להיות בעולם, כי לא תמצא שהאומה יהי' גולה ויהי' יושבים בתוך ארץ אומה אחרת, רק כל אומה ואומה היא תחת רשותה, והש"י גזר הגלות על ישראל והגלות הזה אינו לפי סדר הראוי שיהיה בעולם ולפיכך היה הש"י גוזר קיום על גלותם.
R. Walkin postulates that this is because while Maimonides saw these oaths as important, he did not consider them to be legally binding as Halacha, only that they serve as "warnings that these actions would be unsuccessful".
[29] Rabbi Joel Teitelbaum (the Satmar Rebbe) however, noted that Maimonides cites the Three Oaths in Iggeret Teiman, in a way that makes it appear that he is discussing binding Halachah.
He stated that "the oath was not given to heretics but to all Jewry; and even if the whole Government were pious like men of old, any attempt to take their freedom prematurely would be to deny the Holy Law and our faith.
"[31] As for Nachmanides' explicit statement that the commandment applies even during exile, Teitelbaum says this refers to living in Israel as an individual - not conquering, since that would conflict with the Three Oaths.
[32] Neturei Karta stress what is said in the mussaf Shemona Esrei ("The Standing Prayer") of Yom Tov, that because of their sins, the Jewish people went into exile from the Land of Israel ("umipnei chatoeinu golinu meiartzeinu").
Additionally, they maintain the view – based on the Babylonian Talmud[33] – that any form of forceful recapture of the Land of Israel is a violation of divine will.
According to Diamond and Kellner, "there is simply no plausible reading of Maimonides’ activist realization of the Jewish return to and settlement of Israel as a necessary stage in bringing about the messianic period that would not run afoul of Teitelbaum's “oaths” argument".
They maintain that there is a certain degree of ambiguity in what he has written in Netzach Yisrael and therefore his position must be seen in such a manner, for "anything to the contrary yields a contradiction within the Maharal's own writings",[28] which would clearly be undesirable.
However, the position of Rabbi Joel Teitelbaum (the Satmar Rebbe) in respect to whether Maharal understood the Oaths as prohibitively binding upon Jews is based primarily upon what was written in Netzach Yisrael.
In response to Zionists who quote the Maharal's commentary on Ketubot, anti-Zionist writers have said that even if the oaths are to be seen as decrees, it was obviously not God's intent that the Jewish people should keep trying to return to the Land of Israel and build a state until they hit the right moment.
In view of the harsh consequences of failure ("I will declare your flesh ownerless like the gazelles and hinds of the field"), this would be as foolish as playing Russian roulette.
Their rationalization is that they do so only as individuals and families, but not as members of the organized mass-immigration, and that they come to the Land solely to live there, not in order to conquer it or rule over it.
On the Jewish holiday of Purim, Neturei Karta members have routinely burned Israeli flags in celebrations in cities such as London, Brooklyn and Jerusalem.
Chief among these was Moshe Hirsch, leader of an activist branch of Neturei Karta, who served in Yasser Arafat's cabinet as Minister for Jewish Affairs.
