(יט) כִּי תָצוּר אֶל עִיר יָמִים רַבִּים לְהִלָּחֵם עָלֶיהָ לְתָפְשָׂהּ לֹא תַשְׁחִית אֶת עֵצָהּ לִנְדֹּחַ עָלָיו גַּרְזֶן כִּי מִמֶּנּוּ תֹאכֵל וְאֹתוֹ לֹא תִכְרֹת כִּי הָאָדָם עֵץ הַשָּׂדֶה לָבֹא מִפָּנֶיךָ בַּמָּצוֹר. (כ) רַק עֵץ אֲשֶׁר תֵּדַע כִּי לֹא עֵץ מַאֲכָל הוּא אֹתוֹ תַשְׁחִית וְכָרָתָּ וּבָנִיתָ מָצוֹר עַל הָעִיר אֲשֶׁר הִוא עֹשָׂה עִמְּךָ מִלְחָמָה עַד רִדְתָּהּ.
(19) When you besiege a city for a long time, making war against it to take it, you shall not destroy its trees by wielding an axe against them; for you will eat from them, but you shall not cut them down - for is the tree of the field man, that it should be besieged by you? (20) Only the trees of which you know that are not trees for food, them you may destroy and cut down, so that you build bulwarks against the city that makes war with thee, until it fall.
Rambam, Mishneh Torah, Laws of Kings 6:10
| Translation | Original |
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| Not only one who cuts down a fruit tree, but anyone who destroys household goods, tears clothing, demolishes a building stops up a spring, or ruins food deliberately, violates the prohibition of Bal Tashchit,‘do not destroy.' [Translation by Big Green Jewish] |
ולא האילנות בלבד, אלא כל המשבר כלים, וקורע בגדים, והורס בניין, וסותם מעיין, ומאבד מאכלות דרך השחתה-- עובר ב”לא תשחית”
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Moses ben Maimon, commonly known as Maimonides (/maɪˈmɒnɪdiːz/ my-MON-i-deez)[note 1] and also referred to by the acronym Rambam,[note 2] was a medieval Sephardic Jewish philosopher who became one of the most prolific and influential Torah scholars of the Middle Ages.
Rabbi Samson Raphael Hirsch, Horev 397-398
The prohibition of purposeless destruction of food trees around a besieged city is only to be taken as an example of general wastefulness. Under the concept of ‘you shall not destroy,’ the purposeless destruction of anything at all is to be forbidden, so that our text becomes the most comprehensive warning to human beings not to misuse the position that God has given them as masters of the world and its matter, to capricious, passionate, or merely thoughtless wasteful destruction of anything on earth. Only for wise use has God laid the world at our feet when God said to humankind, “...fill the earth and master it; and rule...” (Genesis 1:28)
Rabbi Samson Raphael Hirsch (June 20, 1808 – December 31, 1888) was a German Orthodox rabbi best known as the intellectual founder of the Torah im Derech Eretz school of contemporary Orthodox Judaism.