Voluntary war

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Voluntary war (Hebrew: מלחמת הרשות‎; milḥemet ha-reshūt), sometimes called a discretionary war, optional war, a non-obligatory war, or a war of free choice, is a technical term found in Hebrew classical literature and denoting a war that is waged of free choice by Israel, only at such a time when the people of Israel are settled in their ancestral homeland.^[1][2][3] Such a war is to be distinguished from a mandatory war, in that a voluntary war is not fought for national survival, but rather for personal ambitions of the country's ruler. This might include personal enmity with another state, or a desire to show the country's military prowess as a means to deter potential aggressors, or to expand the territorial domain of the country.^[4] Such a war cannot be waged without either the command of a king,^[a] or the approbation of the Great Sanhedrin, consisting of no less than seventy-one judges.^[5][6] A voluntary war is also to be distinguished from a religious war, insofar that a religious war concerns the conquest of the land of Canaan by Joshua.^[7]

For all practical purposes, a voluntary war can be described as an offensive war, but in the absence of either a monarchy or the Sanhedrin such a war is lacking in its powers and in its authority to be waged, and there is no man who can forcibly be taken to join the war effort.^[8][9][10]

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