Rso,
The Rambam writes he will compel all Israel and wage wars. He then says “if he does this” what is this going on? Wars? Okay, wars. “And he succeeds” what’s this now going on? Wars again? Strange. Maybe u want to say it means “if he waged wars and succeeds in them” but then he could have just said “if he succeeds [in them]” as he already wrote earlier he was doing them. And then he writes “and defeats all the enemies that surround him”. Again a third time about wars?? Ur making the entire thing repetitive. As the Lubavitcher Rebbe has already said, these words include his actions on Jews. And as I already said pirkei geulah say he is involved with Tikkun klal yisroel. Instead of just quoting words, ask yourself why one has to entirely be done and the other only started? Why can’t both be done in order to be chezkas or both be done in order to start vadai?
Now, rambam writes in the first perek of hilchos melachim that one must appoint a king, destroy amalek and build beis hamikdash. He further writes that the first milchama before a king can wage any other is milchemes mitzvah of defeating the nations around eretz yisroel including amalek. The loshon he uses for this amalek war in the first perek is a near replica of the words in the moshiach section “defeat the enemies that surround him” which only appear after “if he does this and succeeds”, this surely isn’t a coincidence. They must be referring to the same thing. Especially as we already said he can’t fight any other wars as a king until he fights these. if he is not coming to include any of the previous things that Moshiach does with these words then he is using three different phrases to refer to the same thing “if he does this and succeeds and defeats all the enemies that surround him”! This is frankly untenable as anyone who knows the Rambam knows he is specific with his words not to mention this is brought in klali harambam that he is specific with his words.
Rso,
No, the sugya is deeper than one thinks because it frankly is deeper than one thinks. To list but one example, the Rambam rules CLEARLY that a king is only able to be a king if a Navi and beis din approve him. The Rambam writes this clearly in his hilchos melachim. And yet he also says bar kochba was a melech and rabbi Akiva thought he was moshiach. How strange! The Rambam pashut says a king and ur gonna tell me bar kochba was a king without fitting how the Rambam says a king is established?! Who is playing games with the word king now? Furthermore bar kochba was also not a reish galusa which the Rambam says take the place of kings in our day. So he isn’t even the next best thing the Rambam mentions which isn’t exactly a king either. But even if u could quote that we have shifted the meaning of king. That itself is an admission that things aren’t what they appear. Of course u only figure this out by asking questions not by reading a Halacha. There is what to get into here, but none of it is just a simple reading of a halacha. Point demonstrated.
Avira,
-Most Soviet Jews immigrated to Israel
– for a frum jew to intermarry deserves Kaddish. For a reform Jew to intermarry while already keeping close to zero mitzvas is rather different. Let’s not pretend those are the same. I myself am the product of intermarriage between my Jewish mother and nonjewish father. I am now a frum jew and have gotten my family to do a few Jewish things they otherwise never would have done. Their net mitzvah count increased as has mine. My story is not unique. This concept that intermarriage means u don’t believe or that u will never do mitzvas again is a rejection of reality. Life is much more complicated and even intermarried Jews(who marry for love at this rate not to reject a Jewish life as a frum person would) in reality can and do increase in their religious observance in plenty of instances. So no, intermarriage says very little about mitzvah observance when in the context of already barely religious Jews. The question is are they MORE involved than before. Obviously if u judge them like u would a frum guy who intermarried then u would expect that if they intermarry then the rest falls too. But pretending the groups are the same is ur biggest problem and shows a lack of familiarity with this side of the aisle.
Other things I heard:
– even in the letters which are published and which I posted, rav hutner did not have a problem with tefillin campaign and openly said he doesn’t want it to stop, he only wanted to correct it and felt the Jews putting on tefillin needed to know the boxes had parchment inside.
– it’s easy to paint things as worse than Lubavitchers say, but u have also not examined how many great things were said about the Lubavitcher rebbe nor are u interested in doing so.