Redeeming Hostages in Exchange for Terrorists (cont'd) by Rabbi Anthony Manning

thank you for coming out if everybody's keeping warm the cold wi today um I'd like to with your permission uh continue from last week but first I'd like to ask you if you don't mind to turn off your phones work out how they turn off how they turn down how they mute that would be very uh helpful thank you so much we do have a lot to do I hope you've got the sour sheet in front of you um first of all I'd like to recap on very briefly what we did last week cuz today runs on from that we are dealing with a with a very uh painful topic which remains a very painful topic and as I said last week the the Tor that we learn on it not only informs our thoughts and values even though barem we don't have to make the decisions um but it gives us guidance on how to analyze these ideas in our minds and it also beem is a for the for the for the hostage that remain to be uh released that they should be released very soon um and uh and our learning should be a merit for them the learning that we did last week basically goes like this let's do it Point by point point number one is that there is an overriding obligation to redeem hostages it is a great Mitzvah the rambam lists seven or eight different mitzvot that you do by redeeming hostages and the says every minute that we don't redeem a hostage when we could and should redeem the hostage which of course are the key words every moment we delay is tant amount of murdering that person so we need to move as fast as we can to redeem any hostage that we can and should redeem however point two the mishna says that we may not overpay for hostages because there comes a point where we may not pay anymore why is that the gamorra gave two reasons either because it puts too much Financial pressure on the community or the second reason which is the one which is followed by the rambam and the because it could well encourage the hostage takers to take future hostages and there's a longterm um downside in that that is the reason that we tend to follow and that is the reason that is brought down as I said in the sh however Point number three we then had a gamorra where reab Yeshua redeemed re what who was to be re is a young in captivity in Rome he redeemed him for an enormous amount of money and the question is how does that fit with the mishna that says that's not allowed and toas gives three answers we looked at last week one answer is that there's an exception for which is interesting although we looked a little bit at that itself has significant exceptions remember the story of the maram of Rottenberg where he forbade them from ransing him and also more recently r Yakov kesack when R Hut was taken hostage that we may not redeem rhut for a large amount of money so that itself has has has uh restrictions the second reason why it might be different in that casing the gar is because it was B it was a time of so the considerations of didn't apply in the same way what's we gave a few answers one suggestion of Ra was that at a time when people morale needs to be lifted so we can pay extra because people need to see that we're getting the hostage is back very relevant to our Times Standard reason is bin is well what what harm can it do it's as bad as it can be anyway we're worried about making it worse it couldn't get any worse that's maybe an exception and the third most hello this just here we are the third most important exception for our purposes is that maybe if the host's life is in danger an immediate danger we must overpay for the hostage and that was a very controversial reason because some people said yes that is a real exemption because there are hostages and there are hostages back in the old day many many hostages were taken and kept very healthy because they needed to remain healthy because they were exacting a very handsome reward for those hostages so they it was in their interest to keep them healthy however there are some hostages where the hostage takers really don't care and they will murder them in a second and maybe those hostages we have to redeem even for a higher price and that was a very debated issue that was back and forth and different maor said yes said no we brought there was a difference of opinion and that remains a difference of opinion however we finished off last week and we said that even though there are restrictions in at redeeming hostages the Jewish people can't hold themselves back and the minhag of the Jewish people we saw the RAS we saw there yam schlomo is even though they shouldn't overpay they do overpay because they can't bear not getting Jewish hostages back and we see this in our day that's where we left it off last week today I need to move forward to the next schap which is the whole conversation that we've had so far has really been about redeeming hostages for money that is not the situation that we find ourselves in today uh the hostage takers are not interested in money what they want is for us to release criminals and terrorists who are very likely to go on to kill people in the future so what really we're weighing today is not the hostages versus the financial burden but the lives of the hostages in captivity today versus the lives of the people who God forbid could be killed in the future by the very people that we release today that's what we're weighing we're weighing lives against lives let me just go on a little bit before we take some questions and that may be a completely different and there are many angles to that and that's what I'd really like to analyze today because that's where we're at it could be that the whole discussion last week was fairly irrelevant cuz it was always talking about money and and that's not the reality today so how does this work um how does this work in a time of War how does this work with the Israeli State you had a question M always a new Propet correct in other words we're not cutting that that's a very good that's actually a very good point the lady saying that that even though the people who were released went on to do heinous things if they hadn't been released who's to say there wouldn't have been other people who would have risen to that position meaning can you turn around and make a causal link and say had we not released the terrorists in 2011 or 12 whenever it was then this would never have happened or do we turn around and say it would have happened anyway they would have planned something if not him then him or him someone would have planned it that's a very good point and it brings in the level of uncertainty in in in what we're dealing with and that's what I want to start with um at the bottom of page one before we get into the sources let me just maybe lay down a little bit of the um philosophical background to the to the question that we're debating and and I heard of and excellent share from Rabbi Daniel Feldman uh that I've given you a a link to at the bottom when we're dealing with war then we're often have different rules different rules of property different rules of the sanctity of Life Of course life is always sacred but when a war is in progress there are different things that are permitted you're allowed the government is allowed to requisition property from the the host nation in order to fight the war there are it's allowed to take property from the enemy to kill the enemy how does it deal with enemy civilian that is a topic that I'd like to get on to which I'm not going to get on to today maybe next week or maybe maybe in a couple of weeks that's it's a very big topic but there are two fundamentally two ethical approaches to how we deal with the rules of War one of them is called consequentialism consequentialism means that basically the ends justify the means I need to get something done I have a goal of War anything basically is permitted in order for me to achieve that goal that's one approach what's called consequentialism I just need to get it done and the means will be permitted whatever they are another approach is formalism formalism is no There Are Rules there are moral and ethical principles that we may not break meaning I don't know the consequences it's hard to know the consequences maybe a religious formalist would say it's not my job to think about the consequences God runs the world it's not my responsibility I just need to do the right thing or a maybe a non-religious or a practical formalist would say you never know the consequences there are unintended consequences how can I say that the ends justify the means when things may happen that I never expected so I just have to do the right thing that's formalism now there are extreme versions of this which maybe you'll say both of the extremes are wrong maybe an extreme consequ consequentialism we'll say you can torture people achieve do anything you like to them just to get the information that you need in order to fight the war now there have to be some limits on that or do they that's one extreme and extreme formalism will say I must never tell a lie even if somebody is about to be murdered it's a famous case of K even if somebody's holding hiding in your house and the murderers come knocking on the door is there someone hiding in the house that you want to kill you have to say yes there is because I may not tell a lie even to sell a life that is a To Save A Life That's an extreme version of this and there are lots of things in the middle you might say yes I'm a consequentialist I need to get it done but there's a long-term tick andolan factor meaning yes I want to release these hostages but I don't want to release prisoners who may cause future hostages so you can see it's complicated and even if you're talking about strict ethical values formalism well which values I have an imperative save a life but I also have an imperative not to negotiate with terrorists so you'll see these things are really not uh simple at all a consequentialist might turn around and say we have to get the hostages out that's all we that's all that matters these people need to be released Quakes right now A longterm consequentialist might turn around and say I'd love to get them released we want to get them released but we can't release thousands of prisoners who are going to kill future people a formalist might turn around and say I'd love to get them released but we do not negotiate with terrorists because by negotiating with them we recognize them and in some way we validate or partner in some way with they're evil by even talking to them and if the host whoa if the hostages could you turn it up a little bit more because I just it's good now okay right if the hostages are not released that's a tragedy but I'm not negotiating with Kamas you see there are different approaches to this we have to try and navigate our way through some of the sources so let's have a look at that now with that relatively short introduction there's obviously much more let us have a look at some of the sources page so I'm going to deal with the first sources quite quickly cuz really what I want to do with you today is talk you through turn off the echo you up the okay can we we was better before okay can we try and go back to uh that's better that's better that's better now okay I mean if there's an echo I could always sing for you I mean I have a nice a nice acoustic okay Source number one I'm going to deal with this quite quickly because what I'd really like to do today is take you through RAV um radi yosef's tuver on the raid on inbi as you well know in 1976 in July 1976 the hostages were taken in a plane that was diverted to UGA to anbi and a number of kein were asked to rule on whether it was permitted to release host release terrorists in order to get these hostages back and that was the first time that the Israeli government had really seriously con consider this and Radia has a 177,000 word Chua I didn't count every word I just did it per page so it takes a lot of reading but I've been through it and we're going to try and summarize that in the next 45 minutes but we'll I think we'll do it um hopefully pretty uh pretty pretty well there R the first important point is that you may not take one life to save another life that is fundamental in Judaism it's brought down in number one the the case is brought down of a of a woman whose baby is causing her enormous difficulties in in child birth some a woman who is having great difficulty giving birth we are allowed even mandated to kill the fetus in her uterus even if there is no way to save the uterus her life becomes before the uterus is life the fetus's life yub but if the baby has emerged I'm not getting into all the definitions of what that is we cannot kill the baby even though we need to save The Mother We may not take a life to Save a Life and once the baby is alive which we defin Define as born not getting into that now we talked about the on abortion we may not kill one person to save another that's fundamental um we know we may not even save ourselves by killing another person number two a very famous Source I'm not going to read it in side but we know the big three that you may not break even if one's own life is in danger and one of those is murder I may not murder another person to save my own life why what is the underlying rationale and this is very important for us look at number three how do we know we may not murder to save life it makes sense it's logical someone asked ra said to him if this Bandit if this this evil sulan go and kill this man if you don't I'm going to kill you murder in order to save your life you have to say to him I will be killed and I will not kill others my why do you feel that his blood is redder than your blood very famous maybe his blood maybe your blood is read than his maybe his blood is better R than yours you can't tell life is infinite and therefore you cannot ever take a life to Save a Life however ever is perhaps a too strong word because there are occasionally people whose blood is less red than the other person's blood a royde for example someone who is actively trying to kill others has gone down and AR and their blood is less red quotes unques and therefore you may even must kill them and we'll see there maybe other people uh as well who fall into that category so that's the that's the basic starting point you may not take a life to Save a Life what about taking a life to save multiple lives the answer is no generally not number four if non-jews capture women and say to them give us one of the woman and we'll rape that woman God forbid if not we're going to rape all of you hand somebody over to be raped or you will be raped they must all allow themselves God forbid to be raped you may not hand over a Jew that's key key you may not hand over someone even to save more people and this is translated by the TOA into a case of murder and this is where we're going again I'm doing this quite fast because this is going to lead us into the main event look at number five a group of people and and the non-jews you know hold them up and they say to them give us one person and we will murder him murder all of you hand over someone to be killed says says the following this idea of the Mish they must all be killed and never hand over a person however here's the key for us if they specify someone just like the story of where was on the run from DAV and HED up in a city and yav came to besiege the city and the is the wise woman came out and says why are you destroying a Jewish City and he said well we have nothing against you we just need sh she said okay fine and she chopped off his head and they threw it out and that was the end of that and he went home you may kill someone you may hand them over to be killed there they killed him he just hand him over if he's been specified then you can give him over they don't all have to be killed two caveat said no if they're all not likely to be killed if he is with them and they're all going to be killed but if they're if if they're not all all going to be killed sorry if they are all be if they're all going to be killed anyway meaning if they if if he's going to die anyway says R then that's when you can get hand him over to be killed but if there's a chance that he might survive then you can't hand him over it's only if he'll definitely be killed either way if he won't be killed then you can't hand him over and he bring from The Case of the city and the key thing that's less important for us but the end point is very important omim says no this is what the wise woman said to them the point with is not that he was identified is that he was guilty he was a rebel that's why you could hand him over there were two strikes against him number one they identified him and number two he was guilty and he deserved it that's rak's approach so which way do we Pas him do you have to be guilty or do you not have to be guilty and this is extremely important for us because if we here are arguing in in our particular case do we risk the lives of future people to save the lives of present people none of those people are guilty they're all innocent so maybe we just can't hand anyone over to save anyone in any way we'll have to determine what handing over means but if you have to be guilty that's not going to help us in number six I brought you a Tami where it debates there Rab's view is you don't have to be guilty r lak's view you do have to be guilty and the passing us what have a look in number seven if if the group say give over one of you for us to kill they cannot give over one of the people unless they specify that person there is a view even if they specify him you may not hand him over so there were more brings down to opinions you may hand them over to save everybody if they've been identified the and other people say no you may not you may only hand them over if they're actually guilty so how how does any of this help us at all so I brought you at the bottom of the page a little bit of an analysis are we handing over people to save people so let's say we make a deal withas so future lives are quote unquote being handed over to save the hostages are we allowed to hand over future people in order who are innocent in order to save the present people so you may turn around and say well we're not handling anyone over it's different when you pick up someone and push him out and say kill him and save us all that when you're dealing with the probability that future people may be killed maybe the prohibition there is the cruelty of taking one person and pushing them out maybe it's not relevant to us at all so that's one angle um let's say we don't do a deal and we say we're not handing over future people to save uh future lives but are we therefore handing over the hostages in order to save the lives of future people to which you could argue no we're not handing over anybody they were taken against their will we are not committing any acts of Cruelty what is the bottom line here it's not clear whether this applies to our case at all because there's nobody who's guilty and nobody's handing over anybody now I brought you the analysis even though I ended up by saying well it probably doesn't apply because RI says we have to work through that first because if there's a clear answer on we may not hand over One Life to save another then that's going to inform our decision maybe but there isn't a clear answer because no one's handing anyone over and nobody's guilty that's one thing okay that's number one number two even if let's say we risk the lives of future people by handing by saving the hostages is that an act of cruelty or is that an act of hat we're really saving people we're not killing people God forbid have a look at number eight we've looked at this before this is the kish's presentation of the trolley uh problem the classic the trolley dilemma where you have a train which is heading down a track and he's about to kill 20 people and you're standing at the points and you can you switch the track and you can swerve it over and it'll kill three people do do you swerve it over and therefore directly cause or indirectly cause their deaths or do you say you know something I'm not interfering it is what it is and and what's meant to happen will happen look at the is so he says as follows the Hine we have to look he's not talking about hostages he is talking generally about the situation but let's say someone sees a missile which is heading over to kill many people you can you can you can you can direct it away to a different side he will kill only one person and save all the others other people who are on your side will be saved and the other people will be killed but if you don't do it they'll all be killed and the one person on the side will live meaning do you intervene to save the many so he says this case is not like handing someone over to be killed to save others because in that case of handing over the the actual handing over is the cruel thing that you're not allowed to do shall you are conspiring in the murder of a Jew you cannot do that to save other people okay because the nature of the ACT is is cruel but here it's actually you're saving people Isel so so he says basically in the case where you're you're handing somebody over you're directly giving someone over to be killed in order to save others but redirecting the missile you are actually saving people your action is one of your action is not one of and you are not in any way responsible for the death of this other one person who now is going to die because you've redirected the missile he just happens to be on the wrong side on the other side the people are going to be saved and we'll see Raa talks about the idea of let's say someone God forbid throws a hand grenade into a room of people and somebody has the presence of mind to pick it up quickly and throw it out of the window but I don't know who's outside is that is that allowed it says yes it's allowed because the Misa itself is aah you're actually doing an act of saving even though indirectly people will be killed but that's not your responsibility because you're really saving so well on this basis you might argue that the hostages should be released we should release the terrorists because that's not an act of handing over and cruy hurting future people we're really only focused on saving the hostages right now and whatever happens will happen and that's an interesting application by the way the Kish was asked a real shiler there was a taxi driver who was driving down a hill and his brakes failed and what he did is he he he was heading towards a group of people and he diverted the taxi and killed somebody else in order to not head into the group of people and then afterwards he said I you know I can't live with myself did I do the right thing or did I do the wrong thing because the brakes failing was nothing to do with me but turning the steering wheel I killed this person and the Kish gives this answer and at the end he says well maybe you could see it the other way as well I'm not getting into that now but Rabia picks up this Kish as we'll see in a few moments so what have we got so far you may not hand over one person to save another or even to save many but if it's an act ofah if you're really saving people the fact that other future people will die we'll see in a minute it's not certain but even if it is certain that's called an act of that's not called an act of Cruelty and that says the Kish would be permitted by the way just before we get into r a person is definitely permitted to give up their own life in order to save many people that is an act of enormous uh piety and we learned that from the story of uh lulus and papus if you look in number nine for a second this is uh just in parentheses tus tan sorry tran not tus Rufus was when TR wanted L at L for he wanted to kill them two brothers if you're really from the Jewish people let God do a miracle for you and he'll save you and they answer him it's quite famous they answer him there won't be any Miracles here because we are not as deserving as uh as the three boys in the in the in the furnace and you are not as deserving as a king of Nebuchadnezzar like Nebuchadnezzar was in order to have a miracle done next to him and therefore there ain't going to be no Miracles here and even if you didn't kill us they say we could always die somewhere else there are many ways that we could die this is very interesting Kamar as to whether if a person is about to be killed then that's going to happen either way the person is going to kill them and even they don't kill them they're going to die God forbid in some other way it's an interesting way of analyzing it but Rashi explains how did these two Brothers die that there was uh the uh one of the officials one of the Roman officials daughter was killed and there was a blood liable that they blamed the Jews of the town and they were going to kill all the Jews because this Roman official's daughter was killed and papus and lunus stepped forward and said we did it we killed her and they hadn't killed her but they did it in order to save the lives of the Jewish people um and they died Alem and if you look in Rashi for a second he says with this was in L this is why we say those two boys who were killed in L there is no one that can reach their level in ganen because they voluntarily gave up their lives in order to save the Jewish people that is not only permitted but an act of enormous piety ra said that the soldiers fighting in the IDF are comparable to the harud they put their own lives forward and they say we are prepared if need be to be killed in order to save the lives of am Isel and therefore there is no place said in sh that is possibly matched uh by their self-sacrifice that's an important uh extra point that I wanted to make but let's get to an because this is a fascinating uh uh story you know the story of anbi many of you will remember the story of anbi let's see how rather V frames it and now we've learned those earlier things first I think it'll be it'll move much more smooth let's learn it together number 11 on the 29th that's 1976 Air France and Air France plane was hijacked on the route from Paris to Israel it was captured by terorist there were many passengers on the plane 104 Jews actually quite a similar number to the number of hostages which are currently being held in Gaza Isel on their way to Israel the plane was landed in Uganda 4,000 K away and and the ugandans helped the the terrorists because they were also s Israel and they released all the non-jewish passengers and just kept the Jews on the plane and they gave an ultimatum they demanded that they should with their fellow terrorists should be released within 48 Hours only 40 they only wanted 40 terrorists interesting proportion 40 terrorists for 104 hostages okay which is not the way that they negotiate today they were going to kill the people if this wasn't met and we were asked to sh we'll see who we was in a minute we were in a minute should we release these guilty prisoners as demanded by the hostages in order to save the Jewish hostages or maybe do we say are we opening the door to Future hijacks and future hostage taking because they want to squeeze out more and more and more terrorists from us because they they succeeded in this plan and we also have to be careful it's almost definite that the terrorists the prisoners that we free from their jail they will in the future try even harder to attack Jews in Israel and they will have no hesitation in killing men women and children and therefore in order to save these hostages these 104 hostages from certain danger we're putting the Jewish States in particular The Villages and towns on the borders this is eily prophetic at least into a and he's saying it's almost definite that these people are going to try and do this it's certainly a real doubt so what do we do so who are the people who are deciding this it's interesting that y Rin convened this group of rabbis to decide on this question this is the first time the Israeli government had seriously considered handing over terrorists to save hostages until then they had never done it this is in 1976 so if you look at number 12 ra notes in his CH in the addition of the from ra from 19 from 2004 he received this as a gift from was very close to he just says it's D he doesn't tell you who these rabbis were that were decided in a later edition of the the he adds in the margins who did he sit with okay can't imagine a greater set of rabbis in the 1960s 70s sitting down to work this out so he goes through a number of questions first of all he asks the following are we allowed to take lives in order to save lives or rather to save lives and risk future lives being taken and I'm not going to read number 13 in detail because he basically gives the argument of the is that we already read he said don't worry about the future lives that will be in danger because your act right now is an act ofah you're not handing over people to be killed you're saving Jews and if it happens in the future that people God forbid are killed that is not your responsibility and he gives the case the parallel case of uh throwing the hand grenade out of the room and he says that also is not an act of Cruelty that is an act of saving people and therefore he says that is not something which is a a concern it is a concern but it's not an overriding concern that's his first statement his second statement deals with the issue of suffk and V which is actually fascinating the people who are hostages right now are in direct and certain life-threatening danger the people in the future who may or may not be targeted even though we think it's likely they'll try there's at least a suffk we don't know if they're going to be in danger maybe these terrorists will not try to kill people people although we don't think that's going to happen maybe they'll be rearrested maybe they'll be caught maybe the intelligence will work there's lots of things that might happen in the future which are which is not relevant to the hostages right now sitting in tunnels where there's no suffect that there an immediate danger are you allowed or even obligated to undergo a suff danger in order to save someone else from a certain danger that's very interesting because this comes into the issue of kidney donation as well are you allowed or even obligated to hand over to give over a kidney to save someone's life who is in direct life-threatening danger when giving them a kidney won't put you into direct danger will put you into some level of danger is that a is that an act of piety is that an obligation how does that work now I would say we're not dealing with the issue of Life kidney donations today and it could be that today's medical uh advances have made the danger to the donor relatively small when it gets to the point that it's effectively the same as giving blood I don't think it's quite that yet but if it is effectively the same then there won't be any question of course you have to give blood in order to help save someone's life there's there's almost no downside to you and I've brought you on page six in the footnotes some of the guidelines that Rabbi Steinberg uh R Dr abam Steinberg gives in order to decide whether you do or don't give a kidney uh but I'm not getting into that right now in principle there's a Mitzvah of you may not stand by while people are in danger look on the top of page six the excuse me if you see another person drowning in the river meaning they are they're clearly drowning they're not going to make it they're in real difficulty or or they're about to be attacked and you can save them you can save them or you can get other people to save them you have to act if you don't act you you are you are breaking the Mitzvah of standing by While others are suffering and if you do act as if you saved the whole world because you jumped in and you saved them the question is what if you're in danger what if you're looking at this person drowning and you're thinking I can swim but it looks really you know the current is very strong you know I'll probably be fine but I'm not sure maybe I'll also be caught up in the K maybe it's worse than it looks maybe we'll both end up dying what should you do so the BET brings down in number 15 and he says he brings Aon from the and he says ques even if you're going to be in a doubtful danger you have to intervene you have to jump in and Save because when you got a and you always go with the B not the suff he's definitely drowning I might drown but probably not but maybe I have to save him I don't have a choice I have to jump in I'm hierarchically obligated to jump in however the L say this this this this is not brought down anywhere in the or the and therefore maybe it's not obligation and in fact most people understand the radas brings brings down that giving over something that will put you in a sopic danger is an act of great piety but it's not an obligation we hold it's not an obligation look at the case he brings fascinating case 17 I want to explain to you the is living in Egypt in the 15th century you've seen the question is seen somewhere if the sultan says the Israel to a Jew you must allow me to cut off one of your limbs that you will not die from or and if not I'm going to kill this other Jew do you have to have your arm cut off to save another Jew these were real shilas that they were dealing with and this person who's asking me has read that some people says yeah you have to have your arm cut off you're probably not going to die you're probably not going to die you wanted to ask me is that correct in or is not correct so he says to them it's not correct look at the it's extremely Pious if you agree to do that but you don't have to because even though you're probably not going to die by having this cut off maybe you'll bleed out you never know and who says that his blood is rather than your blood maybe your blood is red maybe his blood is red says it's interesting I actually saw with my own eyes is interesting for the doctors here they they um they scratched his ear down to try and bleed him obviously they used to bleed people a lot so they made incisions in his ear to try and take out blood and he bled so much that the guy passed away there's nothing less important if you like or less life-threatening than just taking off the external part of your ear most people would not die from that and yet this guy died and then he says something absolutely fascinating It also says doesn't it say about the Torah the ways of the Torah are pleas present you could take this a long way which I'm not sure you meant to isn't it logical that the laws of the Torah will be like seic they will make sense for people they will be logical for people how could you imagine that a person would have to allow themselves to be blinded or or their arm cut off or the leg cut off in order to save someone else it makes no sense nobody would be asked should be asked to do that ever it's very interesting since when do we on the basis of there are some occasions where we do but it seems like a very blunt weapon how how could you expect somebody to be blinded in order to save someone's life and therefore he says therefore I pasan that is not the Haka and the uh and it's an act of great piety but it is not a halakic requirement and the um and the ra V picks this up and he says I'll summarize what he says in number 18 because I want to move on a little bit he says if you were to Pas likei that you have to put yourself into sopic to save somebody else's V he says in theory there's no difference between you and other people I would have to put other people into suffk to save other people from vad because you're dealing with a sopic and a vad and the vad the definite overrides the sopic so in theory I should negotiate with the terrorists and hand over the prisoners and the future people who are in sufff Sak that's a suffk versus the present people's V and you can't set off the suff the Vada against the sfic because right now the people are in real danger and the people in the future are in questionable danger and therefore you have to go with the vad over the svic he says however we don't passing like that we passing that it's an act of piety for you to put yourself in danger he says nevertheless when you are a third party and you're deciding tragically between this group of people who are vad really in danger and this group of people who could be in danger you still have to go with a vad you don't have to put yourself in danger but if you have to make a choice you have to go with the people who are definitely in danger which is very interesting so again he's using that argument to say that you would have to negotiate and release the prisoners cuz the future danger is a sof and the present danger is a v yes what about the idea that you shouldn't get too much money to save someone because it will encourage future kidnapping if that person was in definite danger you would give too much money or no because the question is how much is too much and he's saying here that putting other people into questionable danger is not considered too much when Rel when redeeming hostages it's not we know that that they'll they'll end up uh we don't know we strongly we yes correct correct correct and he said he said at the very beginning he's not naive he says I know full well that it's almost certain that these people will do that try their hardest to cause future deaths but it's not certain it's it's not just talking about deaths like that these terrorists will go and kill people but it's going to increase the likelihood of kidnapping 100% but he says at the end of the day we uh first of all you may go with a view that we can overpay in order to save people's lives that's one View you and at the end he's going to say could be that the whole this whole discussion is going to be different in a situation of War we're going to talk about whether it's different in a situation of War but right now he's just weighing up this one issue do you weigh up the suff you you set the suffer against the let's go on a little bit I put you on page seven uh some issues where you really we really have to try very hard to avoid murder to even being accessories to murder this is going to away on the other side well truth is it weighs on both sides all of this weighs on both sides but these sources here talk the the ritva in number 19 has a very interesting D you can't hand over a life to Save a Life the had in and I think says in the Middle Ages this is also the but let's say someone says to a Jew give me your weapons cash and I'm going to kill Jews with weapons and if you don't give me the keys to the weapons cupboard I'm going to kill you now that's very interesting do you have to die rather than hand over the keys to the weapons that they're going to Ed to kill others says the um says the the the non you can't get to it without your help you may not give over the key in order to save your life very interesting because you may not be a party to the Future murder of other people now again this weighs in the the other direction in some way if you are an accessory you're helping people organize their Tools in order to kill people that is a that is itself a an accessory in some way to murder um number 20 R zilberstein in the the brother-in-law the son-in-law raash he has an interesting case here tragic case the same idea that there are there are terrorists who are forcing torturing a Jew to reveal where the weapons are does he have to die rather than reveal them and he basically uh concludes yes you may not give over the weapons if they're going to be used to um to to kill future people he brings down a stat of the end maybe if you're not sure and then they might be they might not be so then maybe there's a different situation but basically this is still the same idea you may not be an accessory to murder it's part of murder this is very interesting why would that be just in parenthesis so you could say it's Li Li is you may not give people the ability to commit sins to toh to stumble in future ways but since when if you had to give up your life rather than commit the prohibition of lia lia is one of the 613 but it's not one of the big three is it why would you have to give up your life for that which raises a fascinating methodological question is is Li I a separate prohibition or is it a local part of each other prohibition let's say you encourage somebody or help someone to break shabas what did you break did you break lift native or did you on some level break shabas the LIF native a bit of shabas or let's say you encourage someone to eat nonosa did you break Lia which is one of the 63 or did you break the laws of cashus so that would have an implication here if you encourage and help people to murder did you break lift native a in which case why would you die rather than do that or do you actually murder someone on some level in which case maybe you would have to die fascinatingly number 21 the taram yonis I got this from Rabbi Feldman and the Shia he says there on the do not murder Heaven the Jewish people may not be killers there may not be accessories and partners with murderers either which is very interesting and the Izar even brings down in 22 on the prohibition of not murdering um the you can't even give testimony which is going to tell get somebody murdered or withhold information which is going to save somebody his life and that ISU you are murdering them as well now I'm not sure it's he's speaking Hally but murder is obviously a very very broad um prohibition and if we're in any way accessories to that we can be included in that if you're a witness to a murder you can give testimony that somebody Mur yeah we of course you can if you're giving testimony which is true testimony right you can't say something false he's saying which is going to get somebody killed something false something true of course you can say you can't say a falsehood oh you say well I just spoke I didn't murder anyone I just spoke the answer is no you didn't just spoke you spoke and somebody was killed wrongly because of what you said that is almost the idea of so again we have to be extremely careful that we're not in some way being accessories to murder and that would weigh on the other side that we we're not murdering the hostages were taken by Kamas but we're somehow en enabling other people in the future to be murdered maybe that includes it's included in our responsibility that's also a major consideration two other considerations go over the page uh page eight R vaner towards the end of his tuver having gone through all of the other issues is this called putting a life for a life and he said no because you're saving not handing over is this a sopic in a V situation he says yes and you can't normally set off a sopic against the Val is it warm in here by the way it's bit warm here it's not war okay it's not warm in here it's not war in here I'm always warm look what he says in number 23 again for the doctors okay for seven for seven minutes we'll have to argue about it okay fine look at the look at number 23 apart from all the things we've said this is R speaking further are should we be more focused on the immediate danger to life of the hund hostages he's talking about on the plane but the future danger even the likely danger to occur later by freeing prisoners and terrorists that's not today that's next year in 10 years hopefully never but certainly not today it's in a future a future Horizon after time what is the key SCE here this is a famous we talked about it in this year even though you're allowed to do an autopsy on a dead body which is normally prohibited because of nil ham you may not desecrate a body you're allowed to do an autopsy because you to learn Essential Medical knowledge to get an effective medication for someone who's sick who is right now somebody just died of a plague somebody else is getting that plague I can do an autopsy if that might help me to to save the person right now who has a danger as well they have the same sickness the person who died maybe we'll learn it we learn from this this is a real and that absolutely we can override any problem of autopsy if people might be saved in the future but we don't have a patient right now I want to do autopsies maybe because we learn we learn more about the the anatomy more about the pathology of this particular disease we'll build a find a medicine in the future we'll find an inoculation and then in the future will we'll find a cure that's no the fact that I might find a cure in the future doesn't entitle me to to um to do an oopsy because if he did then you'd be allowed to do anything on chabas of course I can work on chabas I'm a I'm a research uh physician and I'm going to do I'm going to drive to the to the lab I'm who knows maybe I will this shabas discover the Cure that will save millions of people in the future that's not you that's not you're not allowed to break shabas for that because it's not and therefore he says also the the the hostages who are who are in life-threatening danger now that's but the people in the future even if you say they'll be that's not it's not right now I've already got three or 4 minutes I'll answer your question afterwards you see which way Raji is leaning on this Shiloh they're basically leaning in favor of saying to Rabin you can release the prisoners to save the hostages the actual end of inbi was very different which we'll come to in a second let me just in parenthesis point you out uh to se point out section C6 to you that there are many other reasons and and factors that we haven't dealt with and the two perhaps most important ones are these before we get to the ending it could be that everything we've said so far is irrelevant I'm sorry to tell you paid good money to come to a sh okay why because maybe the Hal in the time of war is completely different and many poim bring this up it could be that the the considerations are not just lives versus lives but maybe the soldiers need to know that if they're captive we'll always come for them and they'll never be left behind and that will help them to fight on the other hand maybe the opposite like I said last week if you ask soldiers who are fighting today if God forbid you get captured would you like us to release a thousand Palestinian prisoners to get You released I don't know a single one that would say yes so you've got those how is it going to make the war effort go better and maybe the laws for a sovereign state are different and we'll have to look at that in a future sh maybe not next week maybe yes what are the laws of war where do we get them from is there a h book that we can pull out off the shelf the laws of war none of these things we've been discussing today have been talking about war they've been talking about individuals where are we going to get the laws of war are this is there such a thing as theas of War it's not so where would it be and also what are theas of a state what is a state where do we get the for a state again it's not in the these are bigger bigger questions actually enormous questions which I would like to give some shirim on I don't know if I'll have the time to research them by next week but I would like to give some sh for now let's stay with an and let's finish off number 24 this is one of the most wonderful uh endings to AA R after 17,000 words he ends with the following 24 when all these great rabbis were sitting together they asked us to decide on this and again they were leaning towards saying you can release the prisoners while we were still sitting in the room discussing it in house in as far as I'm aware debating knocks on the door for Value that was probably an everyday occurrence the Prime Minister and he he gave us the unbelievably uplifting news had gone in and they' eliminated the terrorists that Uganda and those who helped them in Uganda they got all hundred of the [Music] hostages God protect all these people he says and they're on the way they're on the way back in a plane to Isel and he ends off the cha he goes into a completely different mode he says praise to God that God given us all of these Miracles and all the people in the world will see the world will be astounded at the strength of the Jewish people lighter than Eagles stronger than braver than lions and we'll be able to save even more people we' saved 100 what a that we bringing the back because nothing holds God from holding back from from saving the great the many or the few he starts saying huah okay we would like an ending like that okay for the current crisis so we have to D for that but it it's just fascinating how he ends in that way very quickly wants to go over yeah sorry lady I had a question the permission for the to take place to save someone immediately yes gives permission to organ transplant okay that's another question the problem with organ transplants is the person dead a with an autopsy we know for sure that the person is is is not alive with an organ transplant that is the you know that is the the key yes quickly yes aren't we always have War oh that's a good we'll have to deal with that yes we are always a war at the moment uh correct and that's maybe why some of these sources may not be so relevant but go away and think about what we said today this in summary as the back and fourth of ragis Chua and we will either next week go on to a different topic to lighten the mood or we will go even deeper into this topic also to lighten the mood uh and and help us to understand the teror better thank you ladies and gentlemen