JewsByChoice.Org

I received an email yesterday from my rav in America announcing a worldwide prayer/tehillim recitation on behalf of abducted Israeli soldier, Cpl. Gilad Schalit. At 11 AM (Eastern time) on Wednesday, 2 July 2008, Jews everywhere are asked to recite Psalm 121. (This translates into 8 AM on the West Coast, 4 PM in the U.K., 5 PM in Paris, and 6 PM in Israel.) I encourage everyone to join in this appeal to Hashem on behalf of one of Israel’s young captives.

As some of you may be aware, Israel has suffered three kidnappings of soldiers in the past two years. In June 2006, Gilad Schalit was abducted by Hamas into Gaza, followed by the kidnappings of Eldad Regev and Ehud Goldwasser by Hizbullah into Lebanon in July 2006. While occasional signs have appeared hinting that Schalit is still alive, nothing at all has been heard of Regev or Goldwasser, leading authorities to conclude that they are most likely dead.

Perhaps the greatest source of anguish in Israeli society, apart from all-out war, is the kidnapping of Israelis. The following is a list of Israelis missing in action or abducted over the years whose fates are still unknown:
Ehud Goldwasser and Eldad Regev (missing since 12 July 2006)
Gilad Shalit (missing since 25 June 2006)
Guy Hever (missing since 17 August 1997)
Ron Arad (missing since 16 October 1986)
Zecharya Baumel, Zvi Feldman and Yehuda Katz (missing since 11 June 1982)

Conversations and negotiations have been taking place for two years trying to return Gilad Schalit to his family in Israel. In the past week or two, reports have appeared in the news suggesting the possible trade of terrorists imprisoned in Israel for the three captive soldiers. It is the fervent wish of the families to recover their sons, dead or alive, and to a large degree of all of Israel. To be able to recover them, restore them to their families, and in the case of Regev and Goldwasser, to bury them properly in their homeland (allowing Goldwasser’s wife relief from her status as an agunah, freeing her to marry again if and when she chooses) would bring relief from the daily anxiety, uncertainty, and fear that their families feel, allowing them to grieve for their sons or, in the case of Schalit, to welcome him back into the bosom of his family.

And yet, such an exchange would exact a much higher toll than initially meets the eye. Years ago, Rabbi Kenny Hirschhorn spent a year’s sabbatical with his family in Newton, Mass., where I lived in the United States. Rav Hirschhorn lives in Israel and at the time of his visit in 2005, then-prime minister Ariel Sharon was pushing a deal to release hundreds of Hizbullah terrorists in exchange for the corpses of three IDF soldiers, Benny Avraham, Omar Suweid, and Adi Avitan, as well as for the still-living Israeli drug dealer Elhanan Tenenbaum. Rav Hirschhorn found this proposed deal (which Sharon succeeded in pushing through) profoundly disturbing, and gave a powerful d’var Torah on the subject from the pulpit one Shabbat morning. (There is also a very thorough examination of the issue of redeeming captives by Rabbi David Golinkin here.) In his speech, Rav Hirschhorn defined the Top Ten biblical commandment “lo tignov” (do not steal) not only as a general injunction against stealing others’ property, but a specific prohibition against kidnapping (the same interpretation appears here.) Of course, in the current situation, Jews are not responsible for the kidnappings, but the question remains, “How are Jews supposed to respond to the kidnapping of fellow Jews?” The answer would seem to lie in the mitzvah to redeem the captive (pidyon shvuim), and this is indeed what motivates many people to support the payment of large monetary sums or release of criminals from Israeli prisons.

And yet. As Rabbis Hirschhorn and Golinkin point out, there are two exceptions to the rule regarding redeeming the captive: 1) when it will cause financial burden on the community, and 2) when it will encourage kidnappers to continue kidnapping and extorting higher ransoms. While the mitzvah “lo ta’amod al dam re’echa” (do not stand by as your brother’s blood is shed, Lev. 19:16) is often interpreted to support redeeming captives, it can also be seen as opposing redemption, especially in light of the second exception. Would the release of a Hizbullah-loyal murderer and three other Hizbullah-niks for Regev’s and Goldwasser’s remains, and 1000 terrorists in Israeli jails for Gilad Schalit, constitute a transgression of this commandment? Assuredly so. Not only would it make a mockery of the rule of law in Israel, it would invalidate the risk to life and limb of the IDF, police, Shin Bet, and Mossad who captured these criminals in the first place. The effect of such a deal in the future would be to endanger countless Israeli lives by encouraging further kidnappings of Israeli soldiers and civilians. And once they’re captured, there will be no incentive at all for terrorists to keep the captives alive.

In the June 27 edition of The Jerusalem Post, columnist Caroline B. Glick addresses the proposed trade of incarcerated terrorists for Schalit and the bodies of Regev and Goldwasser (full article here). She also points out that former IDF Chief of General Staff Lt.-Gen. Moshe Ya’alon is the only public figure to date to oppose the proposed deal, observing that “[i]n some situations, the price to pay as part of the deal is much heavier than the price of losing the captive soldier.” This was not easy for the Goldwasser, Regev, or Schalit families to hear. No one who is missing a child could feel objectivity in the face of their loss.

And yet, as Glick argues, someone has to. While it is understandably the chief aim of aggrieved parents to recover their children, it must be the overarching goal of the government to consider the security of all of its citizens. In addition, it is a brutal fact, but one that must be faced, that sometimes, a soldier’s career ends not in discharge, disability, or death, but in captivity. Israel must weigh in these situations whether the price for their return—especially when they have been killed—is bearable. Glick writes, “It is impossible to know precisely how many Israelis will be killed in the future if the deals now on the table are approved. …That Israel will pay a price in blood if the deals go through is a certainty. That more families will meet the fates of Schalit, Regev and Goldwasser is a certainty. The only thing we do not know today is the names of the victims.”

I am not insensitive to the feelings of the families of the abducted soldiers. My friends who have children in the army worry that their family could one day be forced into the same situation as the other families whose children have been kidnapped. I also recognize that civilians can be abducted as well, and that I or my family could someday be kidnapped and killed or never returned. (There have been two attempted kidnappings of children by Arabs in Beit Shemesh alone in the last few months.) All I and other Israelis can do is mourn with the families, be vigilant and help one another when we can, daven to Hashem, and do everything we can—both at the private and government levels—to prevent future abductions.