JayMatt: Building weapons doesn’t in any way indicate lack of bitachon in Hashem. The Mishna in Shabbos discusses many types of weapons. But they are all ancient types. If you are saying chazal approved the use of weapons, and that is not a contradiction to bitachon, then is using modern weapons a contradiction? We are only allowed to use lousy weapons? In truth, it is called histadlus, and just like going to work which Chazal did doesn’t contradict the pasuk of Poseach es yadecha umasbia lchol chai ratzon, manufaturing weapons doesn’t contradict the pasuk of Eleh barechev.
Joseph, I fully agree the science of today will be replaced with the science of tomorrow, yet we are going upwards in sophistication. There is no evidence Chazal understood the science of today or could duplicate modern technology. Of course they were bright enough to do so, it just wasn’t revealed and developed back then. It took many contributions from many people pooling their knowledge. Newton invented calculus, another invented the microscope, another saw germs, another worked out magnetism, and another put some of the previously listed subjects together and invented MRI.
As far as they didn’t drop an atomic bomb because the RBSH wanted the Beis Hamikdash destroyed, but why did they not perform their mandated chiyuv to be matzil nefashos? I addressed that in my first post. You can’t tell someone I will not save you because the RBSH wants you to pass away now. That is not our cheshbon, and anybody who does that is a shofech damim. Are you saying Chazal sat there without doing what they could? Do our Rabbonim today say people are out of work for a reason that was decreed upstairs so we will not do anything to help you, or do they organize all kinds of chesed projects to help the unemployed?
Yes, the RBSH wanted the Bais Hamikdash destroyed, or else he would have given Chazal the knowledge of atomic theory or internal combustion engines and explosives, or some other means and they would have been saved. But to tell me that a modern technologically sophisticated army lost to some primitive horseback riders without putting up a fight is impossible to accept, and kneged halacha.