Voting in the light of halacha
Rabbis we respect have ruled that voting is an absolute obligation. These are the questions they raise, and the answers from the sources.
Isn’t voting a matter of pikuach nefesh?
Those who make voting obligatory ground it in pikuach nefesh: even a remote chance that one vote decides life and land is enough. We agree that what is at stake in this land is life. That is exactly why the question is what the vote actually does.
The obligation, as it is argued, rests entirely on its effect: to prevent harm to Klal Yisrael and strengthen those likely to do good. An obligation that stands on a calculation of effect cannot forbid us to calculate the effect. And the calculation is written in the record: Sinai, Oslo, Hebron, Gush Katif and the suspended sovereignty, all carried out by lists elected to prevent them.
What about “why involve yourself in the hidden matters of the Merciful One”?
Hezekiah foresaw by ruach hakodesh that his children would not be worthy, and refrained from pru u’rvu. Yeshayahu told him: What you were commanded, you must do; what is pleasing before the Holy One, blessed be He, let Him do
(Berakhot 10a).
But pru u’rvu is a commandment in itself. Voting is not; its obligation derives from its effect. And what is being weighed here is not the hidden matters of the Merciful One, but a public record of thirty years.
Doesn’t a Jew who doesn’t vote hand two ballot slips to every enemy?
A man who stays home alone and says nothing, perhaps. A public, conditional refusal by a community hands no slip to anyone; it is a seal of approval withheld.
And we have seen what becomes of votes cast out of fear. In 1981 many moved their vote from Techiya to the Likud so that Labor would not win. Techiya won three seats, and Roni Milo told the Knesset that the debate over Camp David was over. The votes cast to stop the Left were counted as a mandate for withdrawal (Chaggai Segal, Yamit, Sof, p. 43).
What about “give up a part to save the whole”?
The choice the voter is offered at every election is this: give us a part, or the other side takes everything. Hebron in 1997, Gush Katif in 2005, sovereignty in 2020. This year the other side is Eisenkot, and everything is Judea and Samaria.
The Mishnah has already ruled on that form: Likewise women to whom gentiles said, “Give us one of you and we will defile her; if not, we will defile you all”: let them all be defiled, and not hand over to them a single Jewish soul
(Terumot 8:12). Bartenura writes that on this Rabbi Eliezer and Rabbi Yehoshua agree. And even with the loaves of terumah in the mishnah before it, Rabbi Yehoshua permits only setting one on a rock, not putting it into the gentile’s hand.
The Rambam rules so in Yesodei HaTorah 5:5 and extends it to a group told to surrender one man to be killed. Even where he permits handing over a named man liable to death, like Sheva ben Bichri, he adds: and we do not instruct them so from the outset
.
For those who call voting pikuach nefesh, the Mishnah’s rule for souls is the rule here. What is taken from us by force is taken. What we hand over, we have handed over.
Isn’t this relying on a miracle?
We do not cite miracles
(Yerushalmi Yevamot 16:4). No law is built on the man who came up out of the pit after three days.
The miracle is the expectation that this list, this time, will not compromise, after everything we have seen. The pledge rests not on a miracle but on a mechanism: a vote given only for a signature, and a commitment you can check on a date.
Won’t this help the Left win?
The withdrawals have been carried out by the Right: Begin in Sinai, Netanyahu in Hebron and at Wye, Sharon in Gush Katif. They did it with the votes of the camp that would have fought anyone else, a camp that had elected them and was told to keep voting for their list.
The pledge takes effect only when 40,000 people have signed. Until then everyone votes as they choose. What it builds is a bloc whose vote is not guaranteed in advance, and any list, from any side, can win it with a signature.