Happy, thanks for the kind words, but I’m not a talmid chacham – i was, however, zocheh to be among many.
The avnei nezer is one shitah in what the rambam held; he’s not the only one to say it either. But what are the gedorim of the mitzvah according to the AN’s pshat in the rambam? Would the rambam hold, for instance, like the rivash that the mitzvah is to be mafkiah midei akum and can be accomplished remotely by buying land?
The rambam does bring hakol maalin, but he doesn’t mention a reason. He also brings the din that a husband can force his wife to go to Yerushalayim, when there certainly is no chiyuv to move from one place to another in EY.
Does the rambam perhaps hold like rav chaim cohen in Tosfos, that there’s no chiyuv in practice to go up, because we can’t do the mitzvos properly… But there would be a chiyuv theoretically?
The rambam also conspicuously leaves out a mitzvah of kibush, but mentions dinim such as an immediate obligation of mezuzah in EY mishum yishuv haaretz, the heter to make plans to buy on shabbos, etc..
So maybe the rambam held like the rivash?
Re, bar kochva – “matunach” – the fact that the rambam mentions that his conquest was supported by rebbe akiva as part of bias hamoshiach, and that he himself was thought to have been moshiach, shows that he holds of the shevuos! We are definitely not bound by them in the wars of moshiach – how else is he supposed to fight them? The rambam also writes that Moshiach must, in fact, fight those wars to establish himself as a candidate,and he is only moshiach vadai if he builds the Bais hamikdash, etc.. but it’s clearly part of his job, and rebbe akiva only supported him because he thought he was moshiach – if he had been a stam crusader for jewish liberty, no one would have supported him at all.
Regarding the Gra:
The gra writes in shu”a (EH 75, 17) that there is a mitzvah in our time, but only in order to be mekayam EY -related mitzvos, not in itself.
What you’re quoting fron sidur hagra, I don’t have available to me, but i do have the perush hagra on shir hashirim itself, and on the pasuk, the gaon writes that Hashem has “pain” so to speak, if we bring the geulah before its time, and quotes the shevuos in ghe gemara in kesuvos as written, simply.
As for the kol hatur, it was not known until recently; no one had it, and gedolim such as rav Moshe shternbuch, who is an ainikil of the gaon, say it is not reliable in the form we have, or that it never existed to begin with.
As for rav shlomo kluger, i haven’t been able to look up the sefer Damoshe quoted, but i did see him quote menachem kasher’s tekufah gedolah as some sort of source – it’s been exposed as a forgery; kasher forged signatures of gedolim who had passed away, as saying that the state is ashchalta etc..
Ths brisker rov would refer to kasher as “the biggest traifah,” a play on his name.
He was frummer than most zionists though, I’ll grant him that. But a forgery is a forgery, and he’s not a reliable source for such information.
But the claim is, as i said, not very reasonable, because first,the shevuos were between us and Hashem, not between us and the goyim, and more importantly, chazal say that the bnei efraim were punished for breaking them with annihilation,and the Egyptians had definitely broken “their side” of the “deal”