Gilad Shalit has now been held captive for over 5 years by our "peace" partners.
Throughout history, Jews have gone to remarkable lengths to retrieve their brethren from hostile hands. This mitzvah is referred to in rabbinic literature as "pidyon shivuyim" (redemption of captives). It is the only precept designated by the Talmud as a "mitzvah rabba" (great mitzvah). Its special status in Jewish law goes to the heart of defining the moral and material dimensions of the value of human life.
Oddly, however, given its unique standing in Halacha, no specific directive to redeem captives is found anywhere in the Bible. Rambam and other authorities do list a series of Mitzvot that are violated, if one is remiss in fulfilling this duty. One – the obligation not to "rule over him ruthlessly" (Leviticus 25:43) – is found in the Torah portion Behar. Yet this verse actually refers to the proper treatment of Jewish slaves owned by other Jews.
In fact, none of the verses cited by Rambam is his major Halachic work "Yad Chazakah," refers directly to the rescue or redemption of captives. This duty, he explains, falls under the general rule of mandated assistance to the hungry, the naked, and the imperiled.
The absence of a distinct Halachic imperative to captives is offset by the high profile afforded this subject in the Biblical narrative. Abraham, the first redeemer of captives, risked his life by going to war against the great regional powers in order to rescue his captured nephew Lot (Genesis 14). In Numbers 21, the nation of Israel initiated a war to retrieve (according to rabbinic tradition) a single captive of non-Jewish origin, whom the Canaanites had taken in battle. And King David responded similarly when Jewish captives were taken by the Amalekites (I Samuel 30). In all of these cases, the mode of response was uncompromising, even in the absence of an explicit Divine command.
How are we to understand this absence of an explicit order to fulfill the "great mitzvah"? The answer may lie in Rabbi Bachya ben Asher's "Kad Hachamah," which refers us to the Ten Commandments. In the First Commandment, which many Halachic authorities understood as the precept to believe in G-d, the Almighty presents Himself as the Great Redeemer, "I am the Lord your G-d, Who has taken you out of Egypt." Rabbi Bachya, like other commentators, is perplexed by the verse's reference to the Exodus. If any feat were to be highlighted in this identifying statement, surely the creation of the universe is the most obvious choice. Why settle for a more "local" and less extraordinary miracle? Rabbi Bachya concludes that the verse describes G-d as the Redeemer of captives, as an exhortation to become like Him and do likewise. Thus it would appear that the rescue of captives is so cardinal a principle, that it merits implicit mention in the fundamental Jewish tenet: to believe in G-d. How can we explain this? The Talmud (Berachot 8a) states that there is more than one type of captive and describes G-d Himself as a "captive," Who can be "redeemed" only through our observance of mitzvot and study of Torah.
Kabbalah teaches that the redemption of captives is a symbol of all the 613 Mitzvot. While G-d Himself is infinite, His hidden presence in the world – the Shechinah – is perceived as being in exile and can be redeemed from its "imprisonment" through our good deeds. Thus, the fulfillment of all commandments is an act of redeeming captives that releases the spiritual potential latent in all corporeal (physical) reality.
Finally, the very term "redemption of captives" suggests that even the liberation of flesh-and-blood prisoners involves something larger than the restoration of their freedom. In rabbinic sources, the term is always given in the plural (pidyon shivuyim), suggesting that there is no such thing as a single captive, for the Jewish nation is understood as an organic "spiritual whole" – that acts as a vehicle for the revelation of G-d, and His Torah.
Thus, as long as Gilad Shalit is held captive, all of us are in captivity as well. |