Tears are running down my face; I have just heard the news that a deal has been reached to bring hostages home. I watch the hostage families rejoice on Israeli TV, and I cry.
No, I’ve never met hostages; yet I cry about their return anyway. I don’t know them, yet I have spoken about the hostages every Shabbat for the last two years. I’ve lobbied the US government for the hostages, run publicity campaigns for the hostages, and attended rallies for the hostages.
And now I cry for joy. I cry for our beloved hostages.
There is, of course, the big question any hostage deal must answer: is it worth it? Rescuing hostages would appear to be a strategic liability. Nearly 2,000 years ago, the Mishnah decreed that communities must refuse to pay a higher than usual ransom for Jewish captives, because it would encourage future kidnappings of Jews. It is simple economics; if the price for Jewish captives is higher, then the incentive to kidnap Jews is higher. Offering hundreds of prisoners with blood on their hands in exchange for one hostage certainly seems to be disproportionate.
Some in the medieval era adhered closely to the Mishnah ‘s policy. In one celebrated incident, a famous 13th century Rabbi, Meir of Rothenburg, spent the last seven years of his life in prison, all the while refusing his community’s offer to pay a ransom for his release. According to one report, Rabbi Meir worried that if he allowed himself to be ransomed for a large sum, every major rabbi in Europe would immediately be at risk of being kidnapped.
What is remarkable is how often communities strayed from the Mishnah’s policy. Even the Talmud offers several exceptions and loopholes, which more often than not became accepted practice. Instead of taking their direction from the Mishnah’s unyielding policy, they found their inspiration elsewhere. The Talmud considers ransoming captives the “greatest mitzvah,” as it saves the captive from torture, abuse, and death. And Jews did everything they could to bring captives home.
One example of this is found in a public letter to Egyptian Jewry by Maimonides, written in 1168. The Crusader King Amalric of Jerusalem had invaded the town of Bilbays on the southern Nile and taken a group of Jewish prisoners. A very large sum was needed to ransom them; Mark R. Cohen explains that the going rate for a captive was 33 and ⅓ dinars, “enough money to support a middling family for a year.” Maimonides wrote in his letter: “…When this letter is read out to you dear brothers, pay attention to it, as is expected from you, and earn this great merit. Act as we have done, we, the great judges, elders and scholars. We all go around day and night and solicit the people, in the synagogues and in the bazaar, at the gates of their houses, until we get something for this great undertaking, and this after we ourselves have contributed as much as we have been able to do.”
In contemporary Israel, this debate continued to rage. Many rabbinic authors weighed in on the issue of exchanging security prisoners for hostages beginning with the spate of hijacking in the 1970s. Some Rabbis argued that Israel has a unique obligation towards its soldiers; if the soldiers are willing to risk their lives for the state, the state must do everything to release them. Others said that releasing any security prisoners was forbidden, because they would immediately strengthen the enemy. (Yahya Sinwar was released in the Gilad Shalit deal.) Rav Ovadiah Yoseph, in an oft quoted opinion from 1976, wrote that whatever danger the released prisoners posed was uncertain, while the danger to the hostages faced was certain; mitigating the certain danger is the priority, and one must work first to return the hostages.
And it is here where the uncomfortable consensus lies. Israel has always privileged a military rescue over ransoms; that’s why intricate rescue operations like Entebbe or Nuseirat are always the first option. But when military means proved impossible, Israel has often released hundreds of prisoners to rescue a handful of Israelis.
To some, these lopsided exchanges were strategic blunders; to others, they were a moral imperative. Let’s assume for a moment that the hostage exchanges were mistakes. Even so, you can often tell more about someone’s character by the mistakes they make. And Israel’s willingness to do everything to bring home hostages tells you a great deal about the DNA of the Jewish tradition.
Jewish history begins with a hostage rescue called the Exodus from Egypt. The Tanakh writes how Abraham risks his life to save his nephew Lot from captivity. This is not because he is fond of Lot. Abraham had divorced himself from his nephew due to a business dispute; but family is family, and saving Lot is the responsibility of kinship. (Years later, Abraham’s great grandchildren will commit the cardinal sin of kinship and sell their brother into slavery. Because of that sin, the Jewish people will be exiled to Egypt).
The experience of 2,000 years of exile also plays a role. As a minority without rights, Jews were particularly vulnerable to imprisonment and slavery. Captivity was more than a personal problem; it was an existential danger, one which threatened the morale of the entire community. When it came to ransoming captives, each Jew thought to themselves “there but for the grace of God go I.” The religious responsibility of ransoming captives became a way for Jews to achieve a sense of security in an insecure age.
Most significant is how Jews see their connection to each other. To be Jewish is not just to be part of a religion or a nation, it’s to be part of a family. The Torah begins with the story of Abraham and Sarah’s family, a family which ultimately becomes the Jewish people. It writes about this family at length, because the lesson of Genesis is that even when the family evolves into being a nation, the nation never stops being a family. We are, to use the Biblical phrase, “Israel’s children”, brothers and sisters in one large family of sixteen million people. For better or for worse, this sense of family is very much a part of Jewish identity. Jews, even total strangers, will treat each other with all the familiarity, warmth and dysfunction of any family. Yes, we argue too much, often about petty things; but when the chips are down, we’re there for each other. One feels connected to their fellow Jew no matter where they are from.
This deep sense of connection has been on display for the last two years. We are so connected to every piece of news out of Israel. When Keith Siegal spoke to our synagogue on Yom Kippur, he was received like a long-lost member of the family.
Our devotion to the hostages speaks volumes about our communal identity; and having a strong communal identity also has strategic value.
This week, the Israeli newspaper Yediot Achronot interviewed families of hostages, and asked them an opportunity to express gratitude to those who offered them help. Ella Ben Ami, whose father Ohad was held hostage for 491 days, put it succinctly: “To bring a person back from captivity, you need an entire tribe.” She spoke about all the volunteers who had come to the Hostages Families
Forum and volunteered, and said, “when we were asked to choose whom to
thank, I said that behind our parents’ return from captivity stand hundreds, if not thousands, of people — people who, on October 7th, dropped everything, stood by our side, and did whatever was needed to support us.”
These volunteers came to help because they are family. And around the world, millions of others poured their hearts out for the hostages.
During the two years, some of the hostages came home. Some were rescued. And our heart breaks for those who died in Gaza at the hands of Hamas.
But now the last living hostages will come home. And so many of us have tears in our eyes; the hostages’ sixteen million brothers and sisters have been waiting for them.
Rabbi Chaim Steinmetz is the Senior Rabbi of Congregation Kehilath Jeshurun in New York.
