When You Go to War, Go to War!
“When you go to war against your enemy…” (Deuteronomy 20:1). Why does the Torah say “against your enemy” when obviously one goes to war against an enemy and not a friend? The Midrash answers: “Said the Almighty, ‘Go against them as enemies! Just as they do not have mercy upon you, do not have mercy on them’” (Tanchuma, Shoftim 15).
That is Judaism. Do not be “better” than they, since in the end you will not be better but deader. And certainly do not be “better” than the Almighty who commanded you to be cruel and merciless against those who rise up against you and against G-d, “for whoever rises up against Israel is as one who rises up against the Holy One Blessed Be He” (Mechilta, Beshalach, HaShira 6:1).
The Sifri (Shoftim 192) adds: “You are not going to war against your brothers – neither Yehuda against Shimon nor Shimon against Yehuda who, if you fell into their hands, would have mercy on you… – but against your enemies, who would not have mercy on you.”
And the Yalkut (Shoftim 20) says the following: “If you have mercy on them, they will go to war against you. It is similar to a shepherd who, while tending to his sheep in a forest, found a baby wolf. He had pity on it and nurtured it. His employer saw it and said, ‘Kill it; do not have pity on it lest it be a danger to the sheep.’ But he did not listen, and when the wolf grew, it would see a sheep and kill it and see a goat and eat it. Said the employer, ‘Did I not tell you not to have pity on it?’ So did Moses say: ‘But if you do not drive out the inhabitants of the land from before you, then those whom you allow to remain will be like thorns in your eyes…’ (Numbers 33:55).”
The Jewish Press, 1990