As I made my way through the supermarket check out line a
couple days ago, I was shocked and disgusted to see the cover of Time magazine, which featured a picture
of Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl and, in large bold print, the question: “Was he worth
it?” Just imagine how you would feel if
this were your own son or daughter!
Whatever one thinks about the deal that brought Sgt. Bergdahl home, or
even the still unknown circumstances around his service and capture, the lack
of basic human empathy behind this headline is appalling. And the public’s rush to negative judgment in
this case, without any significant knowledge of the facts, is most lamentable.
Was he worth it? My
own tradition would overwhelmingly answer: “Yes.” While Jewish law recognizes that there are real
dangers and limitations in ransoming captives—namely, rewarding the captors and
thereby unintentionally making future kidnappings more likely—our sacred texts
come down strongly on the side of what is known as pidyon shvuyim, our obligation to secure the release of
prisoners. The leading medieval Jewish
scholar, Moses Maimonides, wrote: “There is no greater mitzvah (commandment) than redeeming
captives, for the problems of the captive include being hungry, thirsty,
unclothed, and they are in danger of their lives too. Ignoring the need to redeem
captives goes against the Torah’s teaching: ‘Do not stand idly by while your
neighbor’s bleeds.’” To which the
authoritative Jewish legal code, the Shulchan
Aruch, adds: “Every moment that one delays in freeing captives, in cases
where it is possible to expedite their freedom, is considered to be tantamount
to murder.”
This is not a theoretical
matter. In the book of Genesis, when
invaders take the patriarch Abraham’s nephew, Lot, as a captive, Abraham raises
an entire army to free him. More
recently, over the last half century, Israel has released over 13,000 Arab
prisoners in exchanges that brought home just 16 Israeli prisoners of war—a
ratio of roughly 800 to 1. As Israeli
philosophy professor Moshe Halbertal notes: “These things are in the DNA of our
culture.”
One of the Talmud’s most
famous teachings—thanks, in part, to the film “Schindler’s List”—is this:
“Whosoever saves a single life, saves the world entire.” Indeed.
Given this Jewish reality, can there be any doubt about the answer to
the question so insensitively posed by Time
magazine? Our nation’s commitment to him
speaks to the best in our culture. Should
we sink to the point where we fail consider his life to be “worth it”, then we
will know ourselves to be morally bankrupt.
