News channels used the dramatic technological device of a “split screen” in
reporting the release of Gilad Schalit. This may seem like a trivial detail in
the context of a momentous event that touched the hearts and minds of Jews the
world over, but the split screen actually symbolizes what we all experienced
last week: on the one side, the joy and relief as Schalit was being reunited
with his family and his people after more than five years in captivity; on the
other, our pain and fear as sworn enemies of the Jewish state and the Jewish
people were released, unrepentant of their violence.
The split screen
also demonstrates the perverted moral equivalence that the world ascribes to the
Arab-Israeli conflict. The split screen and the term “prisoner swap” imply
reciprocity, when, in fact, there is no equivalency between the release of more
than 1,000 convicted terrorists, who were accorded full legal and human rights,
and the freedom of one soldier kidnapped and held cruelly in violation of
international law – without trial and horrifyingly incommunicado.
But
there is another powerful message reflected by the split screen: the dichotomy
of values. One of the visionary rabbinic leaders in the United States during the
20th century, Rabbi Mordechai Pinchas Teitz of Elizabeth, New Jersey, used to
say, “The Torah speaks in the language of tomorrow.”
G-d gave us the
Torah for all times, all places and all situations. The Midrash says that “G-d
looked into the Torah and created the world.” The Mishna says, “Turn it [the
Torah] over and over, for everything is in it.”
Torah, being the
blueprint for the world, contains everything. By referring to “the language of
tomorrow,” Rabbi Teitz took this one step further, saying that the Torah, given
thousands of years ago, contains many ideas that we are only able to understand
as history unfolds.
“I have placed before you life and death, the
blessing and the curse; and you shall choose life” (Deuteronomy 30:19). For
generations, commentators have grappled with the meaning of this verse: Why does
G-d have to give the instruction to choose life? Is it not obvious? If the
choices before us are life and death, who would choose death? Over the
centuries, many answers have been suggested. In our generation, a new insight to
this verse has been revealed.
Certain terrorist groups and leaders have
perverted their religion into a celebration of death. As Hezbollah
Secretary-General Hassan Nasrallah infamously said in 2004 after a prisoner
swap, “We have discovered how to hit the Jews where they are the most
vulnerable. The Jews love life, so that is what we shall take away from
them. We are going to win, because they love life and we love death.”
And
as Fathi Hammad, a Hamas member of the Palestinian Legislative Council, once
said: “For the Palestinian people, death became an industry at which women
excel... and the children excel... We desire death, as you desire
life.”
It is true that throughout history there have been many people who
have had no compunction about killing Jews; but what distinguishes Hamas,
Hezbollah and their cohorts is their glorification of death and martyrdom. Their
signature crime is the suicide bomber, who glorifies not only the murder of
others, but his own death as well. Even mothers celebrate their children
becoming martyrs. When the Torah says, “You shall choose life,” its message is
in contrast to those who choose death.
The split-screen coverage of
Schalit’s release reflects the two sides of the verse: “I place before you life
and death.”
On the one side of the screen was the celebration of death,
where those guilty of perpetrating the most horrible crimes against innocent
men, women and children were welcomed as heroes.
On the other side of the
screen was the picture of a gaunt, pale and lonely soldier, for whose freedom an
entire nation prayed and rallied and for whose life a nation was willing to risk
its own safety. What other people or government in the world would release more
than 1,000 convicted, unrepentant terrorists for the freedom of one hostage?
This decision seems counter to the rational, political and military
considerations that governments and people normally undertake. Where did such a
decision come from?
Let’s consider this from a psychological perspective, and
not from the perspective of right and wrong, which must be determined by Halacha
as ruled upon by a great posek comprehensively analyzing the Talmud, codes and
responsa, with cognizance of the political and military
realities. Indeed, many have argued in this regard that the decision was
wrong precisely because of the sanctity of life. But let’s look beyond the
intellectual merits and try to understand the decision as a
psychological-societal phenomenon.
What psychological forces led Israel to
agree to this deal? Why is it that only a Jewish state could possibly have done
this? The answer to these questions lies in the values buried deep in the Jewish
psyche from the time we received them at Mount Sinai, where G-d gave us the
Torah 3,323 years ago. Generations of Jews have been born into the inspiring
ethos of “And you shall choose life,” and infused with the lofty spirit of the
Mishna passage that to save one life is to “save the world,” and enlightened by
the halachic principle that pikuah nefesh (danger to life) overrides almost all
mitzvot.
The government and the people of Israel supported the release of
Gilad Schalit instinctively and emotionally because these Torah values are so
deeply ingrained in our national psyche. It is a decision no other country would
have made.
Or, in the words of our Shabbat afternoon prayers, “Who is
like Your people Israel?”
Let us set aside our anguished deliberations about the
wisdom of this decision, which is now a reality, and rather feel proud at the
bold and eloquent message that went out to the nations of the world as they
watched the Jewish state defy the normal laws of human nature and society to
sacrifice and risk so much to save just one life. Remarkably the Haftara of the
week of Schalit’s release spoke in the language of tomorrow, where the prophet
Isaiah said in the name of G-d: “I called you in righteousness, and have taken
hold of your hand... I have appointed you... to be a light to the nations; to
open blind eyes, to bring prisoners out of a dungeon, those who sit in darkness
out of a prison.”
The writer is chief rabbi of South Africa.