Q&A: "Free The Hostages" From an Halachic Perspective - Rabbi Yitzchak Breitowitz

what this is interesting because your question brings up a in the mishna that is not spoken about there are two Halas in the mishna that are relevant here and there's a lot of speaking about one of theas and there's very little speaking about the other the first this is in the fourth peric of G maybe you actually learned it that means we do not Ransom we do not pay a ransom for hostage more than their economic value as a slave we don't pay what is called excessive concessions for hostages and theor gives two reasons but the reason that's up is because you're encouraging the enemy to take more and more people if they can get a million dollars for a hostage that's that's the first Haka don't pay what is called excessive Ransom there's another that people are not talking about so much that actually says we don't try to rescue hostages by rescue Miss uh uh missions because we would be endangering the people that remain behind so so if you think about this all aspects of this raise potentially halic problems we have hostages on one hand there's a tremendous Mitzvah called pigeon redeeming captives you even sell a saer Tyra for Pigeon Chan and then generally to save a life so you would think we do whatever we can to rescue the shilian but the problem is the gamor says if you give in to those demands you're going to be endangering future people because if Kamas knows that for every hostage they can get the 100 prisoners they'll take more and more and more and more so you think you're saving a 100 lives now but but maybe you're saving a 100 lives Now by being main a thousand people in the future and when it's not just money but you're actually releasing terrorists you have another inion that it's not only you're encouraging future hostage takings but you're Mish introducing people that are right they're back into the population so Al there's a very very serious question now again emotionally this is extremely difficult uh if you are a prime minister how do you look a parent in the eye and say I'm sorry we have an enemy we have to get rid of Hamas Hamas is going to endanger our population if that means we have to bomb them and not give in to the to get the hostages so be it that's extremely difficult but halachically there is at least a Shila are we allowed to give into prisoner exchange programs isn't that excessive ransoms that are encouraging hostage taking and being massak in the future population now even what was H this past week just was yesterday or two days ago in which there was a daring rescue mission that was to get two people so uh this was a military Mission but the mission itself says even that may be a problem because you're endangering the people that remain the tighter security they might decide to kill you know etc etc So Lisa what the mission is basically saying is in terms of strategy that you can't just look at the immediate situation uh I have people Bak I got to rescue them you have to look at the long-term tight size the long-term consequences of the short-term decision so Lisa these are very very serious halakic questions and they're actually serious military questions they're serious ethical questions generally now uh interestingly enough this is not the first time uh the piser had to deal with this this is an issue that's been going on for many many years as you might expect there was a big there's a big Raji YF well let's go back to the most famous one gilad shalet is probably the most famous hostage Exchange in which he was in captivity for many years for five five years more than five years and they finally released him in exchange for a thousand terrorists among whom was sinir who was The Mastermind of October 7 so it's amazing you save galad Shalit and then you release the guy that's going to you know Mastermind the murder of 1,200 civilians plus all of the hostages Etc I mean that itself is an example of how dangerous this was Raji Yosef basically did moderate and his understanding it's hard to go into all the background I I have recorded sh on this was meaning to say you got to look at the V and ignore the suff right now we have people Bak we got to rescue them what's going to happen in the future that's not for us to look at I the mishna seems to say you look at it so he says the mishna to big is only talking about a case where actual lives are not in danger the Shan are being held for money and not for Sak okay so we knowes not not with G but in an early case actually said it's user he says in time of rakov said there is no way that you can give any type of to the enemy and rakov said this is an interesting way of looking at it the same way that soldiers must fight the enemy even though that endangers their lives because the ultimate goal is to destroy this enemy so too the toim are involuntarily participating in this war they didn't choose it and you can't allow anything to be done that will compromise the military objective even if it even if it puts them in danger because they become who are obligated to risk their lives for the purpose of the greater military objective so Rea come and ask actually held it was user to make any type of deal with terrorists now it may be according to that Sor even the rescue attempts might be user for the same reason he didn't Clearly say that but he did say you don't make terrorist deals because we look at as involuntary who must in a sense give their lives for the military effort uh according to that you know people talk about the permissibility of Israeli bombing with civilian casualties according to of Yakov not only are we permitted to bomb if we're going to get civilian Arab casualties but God forbid even if it would mean we would kill the Jews in captivity he held that was part of our obligation I'm not here to p and this is a very very painful question and one cannot simply be insensitive to the feelings of families but I'll just mention you know all of you remember Jonathan Pard who was uh in prison for 30 years and now he lives in Eric Israel um he's not a POS so obviously what he says is not in any way but he is very open he says that it is absolutely wrong to have any publicity about hostages and he actually said fam should be ordered not to talk about it and if they insist on demanding release they should be thrown in jail now this is what he said that's a very extreme position but he says it is a state of National Emergency and Israel cannot allow itself to be swayed away from this military objective because if they don't get rid of this enemy this enemy will come back with greater force and Destroy more and more people so what looks like rahas in the short term turns out to be tremendous sarus in the long term again I want to emphasize because I don't I don't want to get into arguments through email or whatever it is I I'm just articulating a position rakov kin's position remember Raj took the opposite position Raji and he says Rebel Yos agreed with him although we don't have a Chua from him R and he says rebelos took the position that the P of hostages overrides the military objective so you see it's a very very complicated issue in which G p and Mish were in in great in great disagreement So my answer is you have to ask your local Orthodox Rabbi as to what your own position should be uh it's very very difficult and um it's really tearing apart uh Israel right now this is one of the most emotionally difficult issues you know Kamas is proposing you know all of these hostage releases if you just have a ceasefire for you know six months whatever it is well okay that's great to have hostages back but giving Kamas 6 months do you realize what that is that essentially undos everything that was hopefully accomplished since October 7 right so you got to be very careful you can't allow emotion to override the logic of what needs to be done in this tragic situation so this is one of the well one of many reasons that I'm happy I'm not in the political system that I don't have to make those decisions they are Hally complicated they are emotionally difficult they are politically explosive very very very hard decisions