Halakha demands the total destruction of Gaza and its cities, and for attempting to rescue the hostages as an extension of the war itself.
Rabbi Baruch Efrati for Israel National News
Jews in Israel are now battling a difficult internal battle with themselves as well as with their fellow countrymen. On the one hand, every Israeli Jew longs to see the hostages come back home safe, but on the other hand, the first phase of the hostage deal’s price in freed terrorists is appalling, as is the thought of the second phase of the deal giving up hard-won gains for which over 800 IDF soldiers gave their lives and thousands more were wounded – a deal allowing Hamas to remain unbowed and in fact, strengthened.
One of the halakhic arguments heard for signing the next phase of a deal is the claim that Israel must free the remaining hostages because there are hostages who are alive for certain, while the terror attacks to be perpetrated by freed terrorists are a probability and not a certainty. This is based on the application of a halakhic principle about a probable outcome vs. a certain outcome. In this instance, the certain/uncertain halakhic framing is difficult to accept, because freeing terrorists in the past led to their murdering Israelis and the large number demanded by the deal encourages new terrorists to join the terrorist organizations, as they expect that in a few years, they, too, will be freed in a deal.
Various people turned to me for a response to the question from an halakhic viewpoint and in penning my response, I realized that the entire framework and premises upon which the question and answer are based are in need of elucidation.
We must differentiate between civilian life, criminality and torts, and a nationwide war, as the principles applicable in one are irrelevant in the other. First of all, in almost every situation during a national war, the uncertainty of a battle’s outcome is greater than the certainty of the outcome.
If the Torah had mandated our going to war for the sole purpose of saving lives, if it had told us to choose individual lives over maintaining our independence and the destruction of our enemies, Rabbi Akiva would not have backed Bar Kochba and instead would have banished him and supported submission to Rome in order to save those who remained alive before the Bar Kochba Revolt.
We would not have established today’s state, because its success was uncertain, and our lives in exile were certain before the state was declared. King David would not have conquered more portions of the land because there were always Jews killed during the fighting, as the Gemara attests, and it would have been preferable to choose life without conquering more land in battles in which soldiers might die.
Samson would not have sacrificed his life to destroy the palace, because it was more certain he would live had he not done so.
Add to that Joshua, the Judges Gideon, Ehud and Deborah, the Prophet Samuel, King Saul and all the holy heroes of ancient Israel and Judea. They would have chosen the certainty of life as slaves of the Canaanites and Philistines and not gone out to battle for the settlement of our Land of Israel, for its monarchy and for its defense.
However, they all went out to fight, and all the speculations above must be dismissed out of hand, because there is a mitzva that commands the Jewish People as a whole to fight to conquer Eretz Yisrael. In that case, there are no personal considerations and the only factors to be taken into account are those that lead the nation to decisive victory.
This is not a case of one individual Jew’s life versus another’s, but rather that of the entire Jewish People as a national entity who are commanded to vanquish their enemies. In every war, individuals put themselves in danger in order to keep this commandment, and that is the difference between the laws affecting an individual, which forbid one person’s endangering himself excessively to save his friend and elucidate when he is allowed to do so. In war, on the contrary, every soldier must endanger himself for the sake of the mission–the goal of inheriting the Holy Land and saving the entire nation.
The challenge of the moment is to study the laws of kings and wars in depth – since we did not need them for thousands of years of exile, we must renew our knowledge of them – and stop looking through the prism of laws for the individual when dealing with those of the nation as a whole.
The halakhot (Jewish laws) pertaining to the nation as a whole are a separate legal topic with its own rules gleaned directly from the Written Torah. The halakha proscribes that we destroy Gaza and its cities to their foundations and try to rescue the hostages by means of the war itself, certainly not by freeing terrorists or through a ceasefire. Victory means fulfilling the mitzva of inheriting the land, saving Israel from those who wish to harm us, and raising Israel’s defiled banner of victory.
The other option, freeing hundreds of murderers, strengthens the enemy, harms our control over Eretz Yisrael, and will definitely (as security sources claim and as our experience has proven) endanger the lives of many Israelis (G-d forbid).
A clear text in the Torah teaches us how to act in a war of this nature, and provides a perfect example: ‘And the Canaanite King of Arad who dwelt in the Negev (southern Israel) heard that the Israelites had come through the passes, and so he fought against them and took hostages. And the Israelites swore to G-d, saying ‘If you deliver this enemy into my hands, I will lay waste to their cities.’ And G-d listened to Israel’s voice and delivered the Canaanites into their hands, and they destroyed them and their cities and called the area the Place of Total Destruction….’
Rabbi Baruch Efrat studied at Merkaz HaRav yeshiva in Jerusalem and serves as a rabbi in Efrat. He is a prolific and much-read writer on Torah issues and heads the Religious Zionist ‘Derech Emunah’ (Way of Torah) movement of young Israeli Orthodox rabbis.