Amsterdam Yarchei Kallah 5784 - Exchanging Terrorists to Release Hostages

this Torah class is brought to you by Torah anytime.com okay good afternoon everyone it's the moment you've all been waiting for everybody wanted to hear about this topic this is the hot issue of the day in on June 25th 2006 the IDF gillad Shalit was captured at km Shalom Crossing he's held for 5 years until 2011 and then he was exchanged for 10,27 prisoners among those 1027 prisoners were operatives was an operative who was serving 29 life sentences he was involved in the 2002 suicide bombing in ananya Park Hotel he was involved in the 20 2003 bombing of Cafe hilel released at that time were two terrorists who abducted Soldier nakon Waxman but they traded 1,027 terrorists for gillad shalet and another one of the terrorists who was released was sinir he had joined Kamas in 1987 he was captured in 1989 at the time that these 10,27 terrorists were released they had already been responsible for the deaths of over 500 Jews and now it's more than 2500 Jews so in retrospect you could look back and how painful it is to have to make such an exchange cuz you're changing you're exchanging the life of one Jew for literally thousands and that's the question question of the day should we try to redeem hostages in exchange for terrorists what do you think these terrorists are going to do when they're released you think they in jail did the chuva of the re do you think they were doing Chas you think they were repentant I mean once they're released they have nothing to lose what do you think they're going to do that's the moral dilemma uh that's involved in exchanging hostages and of course whatever we're going to learn today is all academic it's all theoretical because none of us are privy to any inside information uh one thing's for sure none of us really know what's going on behind the scenes in Israel what they know what they don't know but from a perspective let's try to get some insight into so what is the halic viewpoint on going above and beyond to rescue a Jud that has been captured the subject we're going to speak about today is p redeeming captives in Jewish the ram tells us in number one on your sheets redeeming captives takes precedence over supporting the poor covering them there is no greater mitvah than redeeming captives there's no greater mitvah in the than redeeming captives who's captive someone who is captive is hungry is thirsty is unclothed his life is in danger who hides their eye from redeeming a captive you violate don't Harden Your Heart Don't Close Your Hand you're violating don't stand by idly when your friend's blood is on the [Music] line you are being and and you're being there's no greater Mitzvah than redeeming captives the question is how much do you have to pay is there a price which is too heavy so the say number two on your sheets you do not pay more than their value whatever value a person would command on the slave market $11,000 $10,000 $100,000 you're not allowed to pay more it's prohibited you're doing an AA not that you're not allow not just you're not supposed to it's sinful you're a sinner you're Wicked you're a wicked if you do it not you're not required to or you don't have to you're considered a murderer if you do it you're not a do it you can't do it we'll have to see says the Mish why not for the benefit of society for the benefit of society you can redeem captives for more than their value so the gamar wants to know what does that mean because of the benefit of society how is it beneficial to society not to pay more than a captive is worth says the your placing undue hardship on the community the community has limited funds people have to pay tuition people have to send their kids to school people have to pay the bills people have to support their family they cannot be in a situation where they're overextending themselves to save someone who was captured I mean it's we feel bad that the person is captured but not everyone has to be held hostage because one guy is held hostage why does the community has to have to be held hostage because of one individual that's the first rationale of the gamar the gamar says oo or perhaps that's not the reason maybe the reason is maybe the reason is because if you're going to pay extra money you're incentivizing the kidnapping of Jews so you're actually a sinner if you pay a million dollars to rescue a hostage you think you're doing that guy a favor but now you're putting the the life of every member of the community in Peril because what what you're doing is you're empowering you're just inciting them to keep on doing this you know if you pay them a small amount they don't have a lot to gain to continue but when you pay them extra funds you're just incentivizing the kidnapping and the gamar does not come to a conclusion the gamar does not come to a conclusion in terms of what is the reason why you can't pay more than the value of a captive to redeem the captive is it because we can't place undue hardship on the seore or is it because we don't want them to we don't want to incentivize The Continuous kidnap of Jews Rashi says what difference does it make what the rationale is what distinction in what case would spell a difference between whether the reason is that we don't want to put undo hardship on the seore or we don't want to incentivize the capture of more uh Jews says Rashi the nafina is let's say you have a rich uncle or a rich relative so the burden of redeeming the captive is not falling on the seore you have a rich uh relative who's willing to take it on his shoulders so if the reason is we don't want to put an undo hardship on the seore we're not putting the responsibility on the seore we have a relative who's going to step in and and redeem the captive but if the reason is that we're incentivizing it so it doesn't matter who's paying the money if somebody's going to go ahead and pay these kidnappers excessive funds you're incentivizing the capture of more uh Jewish hostages the tells us tells us a story take a look in your sheets on number four there's a story The Story Goes is about went to the great city of Rome they said to him there's a young child in captivity beautiful eyes beautiful appearance and his hair was arranged very handsomely and locks and Rish goes to the opening of the jail and he begins to recite the beginning of a the says the read and the child was able to complete the end of the and the child said was stunned unbelievable here it is I'm in the jail I say the beginning of an obscure p and this child finishes the cannot believe the potential of this child he says I am assured that this young child will one day be a deiser of in Israel says I swear I will pay all the money in the world to redeem this captive says the gamar it was not shortly after until this child became a great Authority who is he beautiful story you have a young child in jail he shows great promise in his studies he was able to complete an obscure P said I swear I'll pay all the money in the world to redeem this captive he redeems him and sure enough this child turns out to be rabish Ben Alisha asks to that's very nice the story had a happy ending but how is allowed to spend all the money in the world but K tell us the mishna says you you cannot redeem captives for more than their value so he wasn't allowed to do this so it's very nice this child ended up being a Jewish leader but so what it's against the it's prohibited to do so tus gives two answers T says number one you're right in general you cannot redeem captives for more than their value but someone who displays exceptional wisdom and exceptional promise to becoming a great T you could redeem them for for more than their value that's the first answer of tus meaning Hally you cannot spend more than the market value to redeem a captive unless they show great promise that one day they could become a tal or says it was the time of theik it was the time of the destruction of the temple what's the reason you're now to redeem captiv more than their value because we don't want to incite them and Inspire them to take more hostages but at the time of the destruction of the temple that's what they're doing anyway we don't need to incite them we don't need to give them any incentives that's what they're doing therefore under those circumstances you're allowed to redeem captives for more than their value I want to turn your attention now to another tvus only 13 blot later in the gamarra where tvus speaks about a situation where a captive was redeemed for more than their value and tus gives an entirely different answer again let's clarify the first gives two exceptions to the rule of when you're allowed to redeem captives for more than the value exception number one is if somebody displays exceptional promise that they could become a great a great Torah Sage number two says at the time of the destruction of the temple at the time of theb you're allowed to redeem captives for more than their value comes the next tus and tus says another interesting Kos another original Torah Insight he says that if somebody's life is in danger you're allowed to redeem them for more than their value when does the mishna teach you can't redeem captives for more than their value that's if they're just held captive but they're being fed and they're being kept alive but if somebody's life was in danger you'd be allowed to redeem captives for more than their value or says tus the individual being redeemed was of exceptional wisdom and therefore he was allowed to be redeemed so altogether if you add it up tus in two places deals with the issue of are you allowed to redeem captives for more than their value and tus gives a total of three answers two on and two and it's a little bit unusual why T give some answers in one place and some answers in a different place but the three answers are someone who could become a great you could redeem them for more than their value answer number two at the time of the you're allowed to redeem more than the value answer number three if somebody's life is in Jeopardy you could redeem them for more than their value now coming to our times uh for a moment to redeem a hostage to redeem somebody that's taken captive by Kamas to trade them in for 100 terrorists is certainly more than their value no question you say well Maybe not maybe one of ours is worth more than one of theirs maybe one of ours is worth more than a hundred of one of their of of theirs yeah but you can't look at it that way because you have to look at it in terms of Jewish life and giving back a 100 terrorists for all intents and purposes means more than the cost of one Jewish life because these guys when they're let out of prison they're not going to play Bing they're not playing board games when they come out of prison we know what they say we know what they promise to do so we have to examine the pokim and the later authorities of what is the of whether you are allowed to redeem a captive for more than their value in a situation where somebody's life is on the line so the first the first uh Authority who discusses this question is the Mahar muin the Marin lived from 1558 to 1616 mayor of Lublin he was a student of Shapiro the rash of K who he then became the son-in-law of the rashash of Kow and he opened up a great Yesa luin and he was the rebi of theah the Malala Rua the m r the father of the Shak reats are you related to the Shak okay these were some of the of and he deals with the following question in sh the question was a young man who was taken prisoner by yishi by the yishi police force because he was suspected of having relations with a zis and they wanted to uh charge him for a capital offense and the question is is it Hally required is it Hally permitted to bail him out for more than his value and the mar you're allowed to bail him out but you cannot pay one penny more than his value not only do you not have to you're not allowed to it is prohibited the gamar says we're not permitted to redeem captives for more than their value either because it puts undo hardship on the seore or because it will just incite them to capture more and nobody argues and if you're going to say Well they're going to kill him and his life is on the line says Marin you will not find any credible pisake who says that if someone's life is on the line you're allowed to redeem them for more than their value therefore it is prohibited to redeem this Jew whose life is in Peril that was the of the comes the mahak quoted in the p and the marak and sa b h asks what do you mean we don't find a credible play sake that if someone's life is on the line you're allowed to redeem them for more than their value is to this not a credible to says yes granted you can redeem a captive for more than its value but if it's a situation of s if it's a situation where somebody's life is on the line you're allowed to redeem them for more than their value so why isin seemingly has forgotten about why didn't luin site and invoke the opinion of Tois that it's true you can redeem a captive for more than its value but if someone's life is on the line you should do so that's the million dooll question here how could the Marin just definitively isua ruling that irrespective of whether someone's life is on the line you cannot pay more than their value when tus has already carved out an exception that if someone's life is on the line is permitted to redeem them for more than their value so you ready for this fasten your seat belts comes katel anden sh 1668 to 1749 he was the rozin of the communities of ahu Altona Hamburg vanb and he says an amazing he has an amazing breakthrough on this s friends do you think you should be allowed to redeem a Jewish captive for more than its value even if their life is on the line or should or should we not be allowed to redeem them even if their life is on the line what would you say should it make a difference whether somebody's life is on the line could you hear a distinction that when when are we not required to redeem a captive for more than its value that is that's it their life is not in jeopardy but if their life is on the line maybe we do have to redeem them for more than their value says the you know what come to think of it it's going to be dependent on the two answers of the gamarra why are you not allow to redeem captiv for more than its value if the reason why you're not to redeem captives for more than its value is because it's putting undo hardship on the tore it's oppressive to the tore it's hard enough to pay the bills as it is and now if you're going to have to redeem a captive for more than its value it's going to put undo hardship on the seore yeah when can you not put undo hardship on the seor that's if someone's life is not on the line but if someone's life is on the line what is the requirement of a Jew to rescue the life of another Jew which p in the T says that you can stand by idly when someone's life is in in Jeopardy the PK is you can't stand by idly when someone else is dying friends how much money do you need to pay to rescue someone's life which this is a general question how much money do you have to pay on a Mitzvah let's say you live in a city where it's very hard to get a lul of aness rug and it's going to cost it's going to cost you half a million dollars are you required to spend half a million dollars on a l vanr are you required to spend half a million dollars on a pair of Fillin by the way thin are very expensive if you got a pair of thin for 250 bucks you need to get yourself a new pair of thin cuz the likelihood that your thin are actually kosher you can't get a really kosher pair for that little money fill and costs money a good pair is going to cost you real real dollars how much money does a person have to spend to do a Mitzvah one of your money there's a cap there's a cap how Al you don't have to spend more than 1 of your money to perform a Mitzvah but what about not to violate a la in the T what about not to violate a in the T not let's say somebody says eat the pork otherwise I'm going to take away your money you have to give up all your money not to eat the non kosher food by the way any Prohibition in the Tyra biblical or rabic you have to give up all your money not to violate let's say you know we're talking about talking by daving right let's say somebody comes over to you talk now by daving by karat or I'm going to take away all your money you have to give up all your money and not do it you have to give up all your money not to violate any LA or ma there's no cap a positive command you only have to spend the fifth of your money not to violate a negative command all your money so if somebody is dying you have to give up all your money seemingly to save their life so if the reason why you're not allow to redeem a captive for more than the value is because it's oppressive to the community so then that might be true if the person's life is not on the line but the person's life is on the line you can't stand by oddly while somebody's dying because you want to hold on to the money in your bank account you got to give all the money in the world but says the but if the reason why you're not a to redeem captives for more than the value is because you're incentivizing The Continuous kidnap kidnapping of Jews then if the person's life is on the line you're certainly not allowed to overpay for the rescue because if you do so now you're not only incentivizing kidnapping you're incentivizing murder and You're a murderer if you do it you're not allowed to pay excessive funds cuz then you're not only causing further kidnapping you're causing the murder of more Jews so says the argument of to that if someone's life is on the line you have to pay more than their value that only works out according to the opinion in the gamar that you're not to overpay because it's oppressive to theor but according to the argument in the gamar you're not overpay because you're incentivizing you're now to pay more than their value even if they're going to they life is on the line so now we have to look in theim which reason of the gar is codified of why you can't redeem captives for more than the value so look in the rabam you have it on your sheet by the way you could keep all the handouts no extra charge Rabbi cats will not EXT charge you extra if you want to pay more than the value you may if you want to pay a lot more than the value you could give it to GES they'll give half of it to zaka and the other half to for the or you could give it to the itself if you want to pay also needs money besides yeah if anybody would like to sponsor Thea they could also and if you want to pay more than the value there's no such things there's no such thing as more than the value of this kala okay so look in the rambam the rambam codifies bottom line that the reason why you can't redeem captives for more than the value is otherwise you're incentivizing the continuous kidnapping of Jewish hostages comes the reason why the definitively said that you cannot redeem a captive for more than its value even if someone's life is on the line oh but we asked didn't he forget about tus who makes an exception if someone's life is on the line no that tus was within the answer of the gamar that the reason why you can't redeem captives is because it's oppressive but according to the other answer of the gamar that it's incentivizing there is no exception even if someone's life is on the line according to Marin it would come out you can never redeem a captive for more than their value unless the person is a great that would be the only exception comes the yam and he disagrees the yam says that in our generation when there's so few Jews left in the world you know what RAB Yakov Emin writes the greatest miracle in the history of the world is the eternity of the Jewish people The Continuous existence of CLA Isel the fact that there's a y kala in Amsterdam 70 years after the Holocaust is not highly improbable it's not statistically unlikely it's a miracle of Epic Proportions that there still Jews today pouring over the ancient text of the gamarra as if nothing has happened to us it's a great miracle and therefore nowadays every Jew is so valuable if you have the opportunity to rescue a Jew even more than his value you should do so by the way what's interesting to know historically one of the alltime great rabbis maram Rutenberg was imprisoned in a castle in n and they imposed upon the community an exorbitant sum and the marinin that they cannot redeem him and the says you know I can't understand why why would he not allow them to redeem him after all he is the of the generation wasn't he concerned for the future of the Tyra but the Marin made a calculated decision that if he issues a ruling that they cannot redeem him then they will be de incentified and they will lose any motivation to continue to do so because we know after they imprisoned the Marin they tried to look for The Rush and the rush had to run away to Spain but after this episode never again was a great Rabbi taken hostage for money because Marin had the courage to say no you can't redeem me but the Yamin than a situation where someone's life is on the line you could pay more than their value what rber the excuse me neither neither the Y that if somebody's life is on the line you would be able to redeem them let's take it to our times because in our times this is not an issue of money because when you're redeeming these captives you're not paying Kamas to redeem a captive you're basic but basically what you're doing is you're not trading money for Jewish lives you're unfortunately trading Jewish lives for Jewish lives because if you're releasing terrorists as we said these terrorists are not going out and doing community service now in an and with humility the moment they're rescued they pledge to continue their activities so the question is there's no question that this is yes M whether this is more than their value it certainly is the question is are you allowed to free one Jewish life if it's going to be at the expense down the road of perhaps many Jewish lives and this is a very painful question who could make such a decision the families of the hostages you know somebody asked is it wrong of the families of the hostages to pressure the government to release their family to free their family in exchange for terrorists how could anybody judge the family amilies of the hostages we don't have any really uh poim that discuss this precise issue of exchanging terrorists for hostage although Hally you would think how how could it be halachically correct to free one Jewish hostage in exchange for many terrorists we do have somewhat of a similar situation that was actually discussed by RAB ysf it's brought in his CH it's also quoted in a sa called Masa iada Masa Iya is a saer on uh contemporary issues discussed by rabad in the state of Israel and rabad is discussing specifically The antebi Raid whether it was halachically correct for the Israeli government to uh negotiate with terrorists Because by the way you know they were in negotiation part of the whole tactic was they were in negotiation we were going to release many terrorists in exchange for the hostages in Uganda and it fell through it was it was going to happen it wasn't going to happen and miraculously Hashem gave s success to to the uh IDF and they were able to come in and they were pretty much mat in rescuing these hostages but rabu was asked Are you allowed to trade terrorists for hostages and rabi gave a very surprising answer rabi said that it was permitted to do so permitted to do so how could be permitted to do so now you have to understand this wasn't like the Gil gilad Shalit situation where you're exchanging 1,027 terrorists for one uh Soldier this was you know pretty much there were many Jews held hostage and they were going to release many terrorists radya offered the following incredible analogy okay you have to put on what I call your Luma glasses now I want to tell you something I'm stepping over here and I'm telling you something as a friend we have a lot of intelligent people here we can we have lawyers we have doctors we have scientists we have mathematicians I want to share something with you until you strain yourself to learn gamar with tvis you have never experienced an intellectual challenge no matter what career or discipline you are in life there is no intellectual stimulation like the rigorous analysis of the tamic process of gamar Rashi the there's no there is no discipline in the world that comes close to it and there's no greater happiness and satisfaction than rolling up your sleeves and digging into a gamar with rim and MAF I'm not telling you this as a rabbi I'm telling you this from experience and I'm telling you this as a friend Cesar ysf question does Hal allow an autopsy are you allowed to perform an autopsy on a dead body the answer is no what's wrong with performing an autopsy it's called ni ham you're disgracing a dead body you're not how to defile a dead body it's a la in the T it's one of the the 365 prohibitions in the Tyra what if performing an autopsy on someone who has a specific illness you will come up with medical knowledge to be able to cure someone who's dying on the next table are you allowed to perform an autopsy on a to save the life of be here and now absolutely because you're allowed to violate any Prohibition in the T to save Jewish life except for serving Idols except for adultery and except for murder you're allowed to even desecrate the shabas to save a Jewish life you're allowed to perform an autopsy to save a Jewish life but what if you're by performing the autopsy you're not going to be saving a life in front of you now but through the medical knowledge that you gain you'll be able to save lives in the future the saving of future Jewish life is that called is that called saving Jewish life that you could violate the prohibition of of conducting an autopsy no no future saving of life is not in the possibility albe it a realistic one of saving Jewish lives in the future is not considered it will not allow performance of an autopsy so you can have somebody he's dying of an illness and if we do an autopsy on him we could gain medical knowledge and save Jewish lives in the future you're not allowed to do it if it's someone right in front of you you could do it you could violate any life to save a Jewish life but not life in the future it's considered too remote although it's a reasonable possibility says Reb YF conversely if the future saving of life is not considered you could make the case the future risk of life is not NE necessarily considered halachically endangering life therefore argues even though if you save ruan's life it will come at the expense of freeing terrorists which means that in the future there's a strong unfortunately reasonable possibility you're placing other people's lives in Peril but is it today it's not today today you know they have the uh they have the security band around their leg the Israeli government is on hot on their tails but it's tomorrow the same way saving Jewish life tomorrow is not considered saving life risking Jewish life tomorrow may not be considered risking Jewish life in and therefore argues perhaps you would be allowed to save a Jewish life in exchange for a t now that's a very you need big shoulders to make that argument cuz you could argue performing an autopsy to Save a Life in the future maybe that's a remote possibility that you're going to save a life but freeing a terrorist it's not a remote possibility that you're putting people's lives in danger okay you need to be up there to make a call like that I believe I once saw another argument that radya used why perhaps you would be allowed to save the life of a Jewish hostage by releasing a terrorist but this would only apply to an Israeli soldier not necessarily to a regular citizen this may not apply to a citizen who has taken hostage but it would apply to a soldier and radi offered the following argument when a soldier goes out to war and he's defending our country and he's defending our people he has to know we have his back for him to give it his all for him to put his life on the line for him to go out there and give up everything he has to know deep down that if he's ever captured we're going to do whatever it takes to rescue him otherwise he can't fight properly on the battlefield therefore it's in the interest of the entire State and the entire country and the entire Jewish people that the policy is that when one of our boys goes down we're going to do everything it takes to get him back even at our own expense that's also very something to think about when these things happen I don't think they necessarily come and they ask a question of the greatest H authorities of the time but you should know there is no issue in life that is above and beyond the purview of the gamar and the pisin every possible issue that comes up in life has something to say about it and if you read the response of the great Pim you'd be surprised that every moral ethic dilemma you will find Clarity in the pages of talad B we hope that in the Merit of us studying the subject may you know the t is the most powerful force in the universe in the Merit of our learning of the subject of P may we all hear only and we should hear about the miraculous rescue and freedom of all of our brothers and sisters and we should only hear with the ultimate you've just experienced another Torah class brought to you by Torah anytime.com