Lament over the Second Hostage Deal (Column 688)

With God’s help.

Disclaimer: This post was translated from Hebrew using AI (ChatGPT 5 Thinking), so there may be inaccuracies or nuances lost. If something seems unclear, please refer to the Hebrew original or contact us for clarification.

These days the second hostage deal is being finalized. I have already written extensively about hostages, costs, and deals, from every angle. Here I will mainly repeat a few key aspects—mainly because I cannot restrain myself and keep quiet. Precisely because of the excitement over the hostage deal that is about to descend on us for the worse, I am losing my mind over the insane, idiotic carnival unfolding around us.

Even now, in response to questions I was asked, I wrote that I oppose any deal with Hamas, period (and no, this does not contradict my proposal at the start of the war; see here), and of course I also oppose the deal now being signed. I explained already at the start of the war (see column 611, for example) that the government is lying to the public, since the war aims contain an internal contradiction: eliminating Hamas and returning the hostages are conflicting goals. You cannot achieve both, and anyone who says otherwise is lying. Until now the government operated as if toppling Hamas and achieving security were the primary goal. Later they added the return of the hostages, and over time that suddenly became the main goal. In these days the process has ended, as Israel has explicitly and openly given up on eliminating Hamas (unless Hamas once again saves us from ourselves by violating the agreement and enabling us to continue eliminating it). At the moment it seems we will not in fact achieve the return of the hostages either (the hostages are Hamas’s only security card, and I see no reason to think they will give it up), so we have both eaten the stinking fish and been expelled from the city. Once again we, together with the most glorious army in the universe, have suffered a resounding defeat at the hands of a gang armed with bayonets and rifles.

In short, we are now in a situation in which the war has failed miserably and has joined a long list of operations in Gaza that achieved nothing. It turns out that in two years we will likely be facing the same Hamas as on October 6, and the thousands of our dead in Swords of Iron will all have been for nothing. I have also written that the pompous declarations that women’s combat service was “proven” in this war and that the debate is over were nonsense. This deal proves that this is demagogic falsehood. The female soldiers are first in line to be returned (this coming Sunday), even before the elderly and before male soldiers, of course. In other words, the false claim about equality, as if there is no difference between men and women and everything should be judged by abilities, has been exposed as a crude lie—which was clear from the outset. I have written this several times (see, for example, here).

I have written quite a bit about the “hostage psychosis” (see, for example, columns 664 and 666), which puts the hostages at the center and ignores every other rational consideration. A few days ago I was happy to begin hearing some voices opposing the deal, but my impression is that in recent days they have been completely silenced. I have no doubt that in a month you will begin hearing everyone proclaim that they actually opposed the deal from the start—just as happened with the Shalit deal. A Greek chorus that forced the government to pay an intolerable price, and then suddenly after October 7 zillions of staunch opponents rose from the grave, though I didn’t hear a single one of them beforehand. Those who pushed the government, in utter madness and in a symbiotic dance together with Hamas, into the current reckless deal will very soon—once the results of this appalling deal become clear—take to the public square and explain that it was the government’s fault and that they in fact opposed the deal from the outset.

In today’s discourse, Ben Gvir, Smotrich, and their people are cast as the ultimate villains—heartless and immoral—who weigh political considerations instead of morality and mutual responsibility. A large portion of the Israeli public, led by the media, academia, and the army, has been in a wild psychosis for about a year and a half, and, paradoxically, the only sane people here are being portrayed as monsters. It really calls to mind R. Nachman’s story of The Mad Grain. I must say (and I really don’t enjoy saying this) that if elections were held today I would vote for Ben Gvir, and I say this quite seriously (only because of his stance on the deal and the war—nothing else).

In recent days I keep hearing, again and again, in conversations with opponents of the deal (=the monstrous lunatics, the inhuman and immoral ones), especially in the media, that they are asked whether they will nonetheless feel joy when the hostages return. This question drives me insane every single time, for several reasons. It is true that most journalists are not the sharpest pencils in the box, but that’s legitimate. Even brainwashed and foolish people need to make a living. But such a stupid question cannot be explained by stupidity alone. In my assessment, it is a combination of stupidity and malice.

If anyone needs an explanation (nothing surprises me anymore): can one even imagine that someone would not be happy to see the hostages? Is there anyone who truly does not want them back? But if you ask the Kaplan crowd and the hostage families alongside them, you will hear, emphatically and with absolute confidence, that indeed there are such people. They say again and again that Bibi and his people absolutely do not want the hostages and are merely sabotaging the deal (of course not Hamas—only they). They are heartless and immoral. Monsters, did I say already? They want the war to continue at any cost. I have explained more than once that this incitement is baseless and lacks any rational or factual foundation—but those are no longer relevant parameters for our psychotic cousins. They cling to their propaganda and incitement (and of course always accuse the other side of incitement—the “poison machine,” did we mention?), and no fact or rational argument will change that. Psychosis does not inhabit the realm of facts and reason at all.

This foolish question is asked again and again even though its answer is entirely clear. So why ask it anyway? You surely understand that this isn’t mere stupidity—though there is some of that too. It’s perfectly clear to me that the aim is to present the speaker as a monster indifferent to the fate of the hostages. The “scumbag” will of course deny it and answer that of course he is happy and wants to see them back, but there are various considerations that lead him to oppose the deal. But we all know that monsters always deny being monsters. Who believes them?! And rational considerations—who is interested in those at all?! Thus the question achieves its purpose. The psychosis has won.

Above all, this question and others like it reflect the most serious phenomenon here: more than malice and more than stupidity, it reflects the emotional psychosis washing over us from every direction. No one is interested in substantive considerations, one way or the other. What matters is what you feel. The decision about the deal and the approach to the hostage issue are devoid of any shred of reason and/or morality—saturated with unbridled emotion lacking any rational control. People form positions and promote policy that are pure emotion. When psychoses roar, reason falls silent. Hence the most important question becomes what someone feels when seeing the hostages return. Try saying that you will indeed rejoice, but nonetheless you oppose this deal. That no longer matters. Decisions are made according to the heartbeat and the emotional winds. Considerations and reason have long ceased to be relevant in our discourse.

We are told that Israeli society will not be able to recover if we do not bring back the hostages. Never mind that this is tendentious nonsense. Never mind that this very claim should be directed at the emotional inciters and not at those insisting on hewing to reason. As if we can live with the consequences of the deal. What the left cannot live with—there is no way to live with it. But as for the right, no one is really interested in what it can live with. From time to time claims arise that this deal will likely leave quite a few hostages to die in Gaza (claims voiced mainly by relatives of those not being released now), but you might as well talk to a wall. Emotional presentism rules the day. We are told that only Bibi is preventing the deal, though there is not a shred of logic in that of any kind. But what do we have to do with logic?! We are told that political considerations are replacing moral and human ones (meaning, of course, the animalistic emotions of all the fools shouting here at full volume in a Greek chorus of brainwashed zombies), whereas nothing could be more logical than subordinating blind emotion to political and security judgment. Try explaining to them that government policy is not “political considerations” in the pejorative sense but the very policy for which the government was elected. You might even argue that its attempt to advance its policy and values counts in its favor. Somehow, when there are coalition partners who think the deal is bad, going with them is labeled “political.” But moving forward with a disastrously bad deal—an enormous defeat and a renunciation of all the war’s aims—just because of pressure from a terror organization, from people in distress, and from a foolish opposition is considered a moral and rational move. Not political at all. Going with your coalition partners is disgraceful; surrendering and abandoning your positions because of pressure from a feckless opposition combined with terror organizations is a noble step.

I have often written that a leftist and/or secular outlook tends to view morality as an emotional matter. In their view, morality is in the heart. In contrast, the right and religious conceptions view morality as values, not feelings. Values are part of our reason and intellect, and the way to engage them is through thought, not emotional psychosis. Not everything your heart tells you is the moral imperative. On the contrary, many times it misleads you and leads you down paths that are manifestly immoral. You can now see that this is not some theoretical academic analysis, as I have been accused more than once. You can now easily see that this is the root of all the debates and that this dispute has enormous ramifications in every area of our lives.

To determine the fate of a state, and of entire regions within it, because of a few dozen unfortunate people (some of them corpses), is emotional folly. The images and depictions of hostages languishing in tunnels and the tears of their family members naturally arouse strong feelings. But this is not how decisions are made—certainly not by statesmen. From a national perspective one does not mortgage a society’s fate because of a few hostages and captives. One does not surrender to a murderous terror organization and give it new life because it holds our captives. From a rational perspective one does not release even a single terrorist in exchange for a hundred bodies—nor for living captives. With terrorists one speaks only through rifle sights. Otherwise their conclusion, which only strengthens over the years, is that with us what works is only terror and brutal violence. A policy based on reason is prepared to ignore psychological distress and emotional storms if the situation requires it.

All these rational considerations are directly confronted by the emotions that sweep us from every side. Who can stand opposite a weeping mother of a hostage who, with tears in her (genuine and entirely understandable) eyes, incites against anyone who moves? Who can allow her to say what is on her heart yet act rationally and not in submission to this psychotic brainwashing? Bibi has shown admirable stamina until now (no one else could have conducted a war for a year and a quarter despite all these insane pressures at home and abroad), but now it seems he too has broken (I suppose thanks to Trump as well).

The media today is occupied almost exclusively with preparations for the great moment. They interview physicians, psychologists, and social workers about the meticulous preparations for the hostages’ return. The excitement is at its peak, and everyone is dealing with emotions and more emotions and more emotions. Entire days are wasted on these emotional, worthless carnivals—mainly to deflect public attention from rational considerations. Our society is in total collapse. Everyone has gone mad. Reason has been run over by emotion in a hit-and-run.

It is important for me to clarify that there can be other positions regarding the deal (even though I cannot see the logic in them). But positions must be grounded in arguments. I am not criticizing here the positions of those who support the deal, but the way the discussion is being conducted. My claim is not against the positions but against the absence of arguments, and especially against the unwillingness to engage with arguments.

I have quoted here in the past Dov Sadan’s witticism that the next person to make a revolution in the world will be a Jewish orthopedist. Jewish—because revolutionaries are usually Jews. But why an orthopedist? Sadan explained that the first Jew who made a revolution in the world was Abraham (and perhaps also Moses), who called on us to use our heads (“Lift up your eyes on high and see who created these”). The next Jew who made a revolution in the world was that man (Jesus), who called on us to place the heart at the center. Next came Marx, who said everything is in the belly. After him came Freud, who explained that everything is below the belt. That is, we started with the head, then descended to the heart, then to the belly, and finally even lower. The next step will apparently be toward the feet—that is, to an orthopedist. This is a literary expression of the despair of reason and the dominance of emotions that so typifies our crazy world.

Halakhic and Torah thinking teaches and habituates us to separate the brain from the heart. We learn to weigh cool, rational considerations even where the heart cries out against them. After all, it is possible and appropriate to take the heart into account as well—but decisions are made with the head, not the heart. Sometimes this approach reaches absurdities and an excessive coldness that ignores conscience, probably because it is mistakenly identified with emotion. But conscience is not a feeling; it is part of the intellect (it is the instrument that provides us with our moral axioms—our values). In column 655 I dealt with Haredi intellectualism, which is completely detached from straight thinking and conscience, and produces logical arguments endowed with a kind of formal consistency devoid of any sense. Like a learned disputation that can be entirely disconnected from common sense yet built to perfection with splendid logical complexity. This is nothing but a problematic extreme of a mode of conduct that is, in itself, proper and correct: to place the intellect, not the heart, at the center. Long ago, in my book Shtei Agalot, I wrote that this is what our tradition teaches us: to act from the head. The despair of reason that, in the past hundred years, has led to the postmodern spirit of folly is practically built into secular and leftist thinking (Nietzsche predicted this), even in sectors of our society that do not define themselves as postmodern. Today it is clearer than ever how bizarre and harmful this is—and how important it is to adopt the sane religious and halakhic alternative, not because of its content but because of its method.

People think religiosity is usually emotional. Nothing could be further from the truth. It is precisely secularism that is emotional in most cases. Religiosity (at least Jewish religiosity, but not only it) is characterized by cool, balanced, rational thinking. Check the positions regarding the Shalit deal and the current deal, and you will see the correlations clearly and distinctly: rabbis and the religious public (not the Haredim—the only thing that really interests them is their budgets) are those who oppose, and the secular and the left support. It is not for nothing that they are accused of lacking a heart. The more accurate claim is that they do not operate according to the heart but with the intellect—and good for that. It seems that the last barrier that can save us from the secular-left emotionality that is leading us to ruin is the cool religious and halakhic rationality. I will clarify again that I am not speaking here about the content of halakha and Torah but about their manner of conduct and way of thinking.

Sadly, in recent years this emotionality has also been taking root on the religious and right-wing side (existentialism and feeling in place of commitment and rational thinking). This is a disgraceful and shameful surrender to the spirit of the times, but I still think the distinction between the sides is very clear. It is hard to shake the impression that the “debates” taking place (in fact, not taking place) today are not between opposing positions but a clash between intellect and emotion. It is not a debate between the wise and the foolish, but between those who operate by the intellect and those who operate by emotion. It is very hard to defeat emotion, because it is stormy and powerful—even though it is shallow and misleading and usually downright stupid. Therefore, cool, balanced, measured intellect is not really a match and cannot truly overcome it. It is not for nothing that Dov Sadan describes the descent from the head to the heart and to the belly and down to the reproductive organs. This is not only a descent in terms of location but also in essence. It is hard to operate by the intellect. It is cold and not very exciting. Emotion is animalistic—alive, pulsing, and kicking. It is animalistic both in its force and vitality and in the quality of conduct it dictates.

In my view this is the foundation of the psychosis reaching its peak these days. Despair fills me, and sadly I do not see what can be done here, except to cry out again and again the cry of reason against the plague of the mad grain and its storms. Oh—and not to forget to write on my hand in advance: “I am sane.”