Joining us now is Rabbi Meir Twersky, Rabbi Twersky is a Rosh Yeshiva at RIETS and is a leading thinker in all areas of ethics, morality, and Hashkafa, which is one of the many reasons I wanted to get his input on our topic today. Rabbi Twersky, thank you so much for joining us. Thank you, it's a pleasure and an honor to be with you. Thank you so much. So Rabbi Twersky, something that's on my mind as we talk a lot about morality as we're in the midst of this war with Hamas and also it could be that this is the beginning of a more intense war phase of the war against Iran, is that distinction between the enemy and the quote-unquote innocents who are citizens who happen to live in the country with that enemy. So when it comes to Hamas, we have Hamas and we have the quote-unquote innocent Palestinians. In Iran, we have the government of Iran, the radicals of Iran, and we also have quote-unquote the innocents. And it turned out that the innocents in the Gaza Strip, many of them were not so innocent, they participated on October 7th, they participated in holding the captives, and they continue participating when they have the processions and letting the captives out, et cetera, et cetera. So how should we think about those quote-unquote innocent Palestinians or the innocents in Yemen or the innocents in Syria, innocents in Iran? What are your thoughts on that and obviously a ramification of that is when we're at war, which we may be in abeyance right now but we are in a state of war against all of them, how do we think about when we are actively trying to protect ourselves by attacking them? Yeah, I think there are at least two relevant perspectives here. The first one is the one that you touched upon in presenting the question. You know, the Rambam writes based on various Maamorei Chazal in Hilchos Gneivah that it's forbidden to buy stolen goods, that it's אסור לקנות מן הגנב. And then the Rambam characterizes this—and this is not typical in terms of Mishneh Torah, it's not the only such example, but it's not typical—the Rambam then characterizes this as avon gadol hu, that to buy stolen goods is something which is really a very great and serious infraction, sin, שהרי מחזיק ידי עוברי עבירה because in so doing he's strengthening the hand of sinners. Now the Rambam is talking about someone who only comes into the picture ex-post-facto, the ganav already stole in the Rambam's scenario. ואף על פי כן the Rambam says, you know, there's a category of being מחזיק ידי עוברי עבירה, of strengthening, lending support. You know, Hamas came to power in Aza, they were democratically elected. It's not just a question of being מחזיק ידי עוברי עבירה, but it's empowering them in the first place. So it's a קל וחומר בן בנו של קל וחומר. The Rambam is talking about ex-post-facto being מחזיק ידי עוברי עבירה, yes because it incentivizes them for the future and he's talking about it with regard to gneivah and he characterizes it as an avon gadol. We're talking about empowering them ab initio, empowering them l'chatchilah and the avon and their trade is not only gneivah, their trade is murder and rape and torture. All those who help, who helped bring Hamas to power and by overwhelmingly support them continue to position them to try to retain and exert power are not innocent. They're worse than מחזיק ידי עוברי עבירה, they're empowering them in the first place. So clearly one doesn't have to be wearing a bandana or waving a machine gun to be guilty and complicit in what's happened. So that's one perspective that clearly this label of innocent is one which is overused and overextended and misapplied. That's one halakhic perspective on the issue. The other halakhic perspective on the issue, which addresses even in theory and practice whatever the metzius is, actual innocence. So the Torah in Parshas Shoftim in Sefer Devarim where the Torah speaks of milchama, so the Torah says that we're interested in peace, v'karasa eileha l'shalom. If peace is not forthcoming, so then the Torah says ואם לא תשלים עמך, if the city that you are poised or that you need or in our case the war has been imposed upon you, lo. tashlim imach if they don't want peace with you, veasessa imcha milchama they'll wage war against you, vetzarta aleha. So then you lay siege to the city. The Sifrei and Rashi, Rashi and in his perush on Chumash quotes the Sifrei. The Sifrei says vetzarta aleha and I'm actually reading now from the Sifrei, vetzarta aleha af lehar'iva even if it's going to cause famine, af lehatzmia even if the water supply will be cut off, ואף להמיתה במיתת תחלואים and even if it will cause plague and death. Now clearly when one lays siege to a city, one doesn't have the ability to differentiate between different people in the city. So what do we see here? We see that the Torah tells us, and this is halacha, that part of the harsh, brutal, terrible reality of war is that war is waged against a collective entity. There's no possibility for surgical precision when effectively fighting a war, when effectively engaging in self-defense. A siege on a city affects everyone in the city without the possibility of differentiating. That's part of the harsh, brutal, terrible reality of war. It's something which is intuitive to everyone. It's the way every nation in the world has always waged war throughout history. The examples abound. And it's only this hypocritical double standard which is applied to Tzahal, which is applied to Medinas Yisrael, which is applied to the Jewish people, where people are questioning the civilian casualties. It's an unfortunate, tragic, lamentable aspect of the harsh and brutal reality of war, a reality which is not one that we're responsible for, that Tzahal initiated. Absolutely, I think that's a critical point. Very, a lot of critical points, but that especially. We didn't start the situation, we didn't start this whatsoever. And certainly we do have that double standard. Another area where we seem to have a double standard, but maybe this isn't an external double standard, maybe it's something that we've created, and this is the issue of swapping of terrorists, Hamas terrorists, Palestinian terrorists, for our innocent. And that's been talked about a lot. A lot of rabbanim have given shiurim on that, the exchanges, etc., a thousand for one, sixty for one, etc., and the Gemara, the Mishnah in Gittin, אין פודין את השבויים יותר על כדי דמיהן. But now we have something else that's going on as we've gotten through towards the end of Phase 1 and Phase 2, that we are at the point of exchanging bodies of our captives, those who were murdered by Hamas, for live terrorists who have life sentences on their heads. And I wanted to get your thought on that concept of swapping of bodies for Hamas terrorists. Is that something that is appropriate al pi halacha, al pi hashkafa, or is that getting into an area that maybe halachically would not be mandated and there are other reasons that that would be done? You know, every one of us, all our hearts are broken for the hostages, live and those who have, rachmana litzlan, have already been killed, and not only for the hostages, but yibadel lechayim for their families. You know, it's been one type of Gehennom for the hostages, but it's another type of Gehennom, but also a Gehennom, for their families. And every Jew feels it, every civilized person should feel it. Those deep empathetic feelings notwithstanding, halacha, and we recognize that even after a hostage, rachmana litzlan, has been killed, that the family under normal circumstances can't begin to have closure until they're able to bring their family member to Kever Yisrael. And that impulse is totally understandable and totally normal and we recognize all that. All that notwithstanding, the priority is protecting lives, protecting the lives of everyone in Medinas Yisrael and beyond. And to when cold-blooded murderers whose hands hands are dripping Jewish blood where there doesn't seem to be any question that they will take advantage of the freedom that they're given to try to just continue in their murderous ways. It's not justified to jeopardize lives, as painful, as excruciatingly painful as it is and as desirable or even necessary as it is for closure, but it's not justified to jeopardize lives to expose people to the vadai sakana, the definite danger of murderers on the loose to facilitate kvurah. The other problem in the sugya in Gittin that you referenced, the Mishnah and then the Gemara there about אין פודין את השבויים יתר על כדי דמיהן, so the Gemara suggests that one of the two possible reasons for why one is not allowed to agree to a disproportionate ransom is because it incentivizes the enemy to try to take more captives. If Hamas not only is able to elicit from us a disproportionate price for a live hostage but even for dead hostages, so what incentive do they have to keep them alive? It's the same exchange, the same exchange rate between them. Yes, so then what, so we're talking again about incentivizing them. So not only are they incentivized to take more captives, they're not even incentivized to keep them alive because the body is currency for them also, as grotesque a formulation as that is, but that's the way they operate. That's their reality. Right, absolutely. Thank you for that input. I want to go back to what we talked about before, Iran, and that distinction or the non-distinction between those who are in the government running the government, Hamas, and those who are supporting and enabling the government. If we can move over to Iran a little bit further away from Israel, if we can talk about what the possibilities are, maybe limitations, if Israel and hopefully it will be the United States that will do it, but if Israel or the United States is going to be proactive in taking out not only the nuclear facilities but all the conventional weapons as well, because as we've seen those can be very, very deadly as well. What are going to be the limitations that Israel would have if we're looking at halakha, hashkafic limitations if you want to do a very thorough job? And there are, I think I checked, this may be incorrect, but about 90 million people living in Iran. I'm not sure exactly, I think I checked that. There are a lot of people living there and those weapons are spread out, buried deep, and to be effective it's going to be not accurate surgery, but it's going to have to be more significant. So what do we, what limitations do we have when it would come to something like that, and maybe we don't have the same argument as that they're being tomech, that they are really enabling the government, but they haven't thrown them over, but maybe the elections, we'd have to look into the politics in Iran. How do we go about thinking about that? Again, potentially the same two perspectives that we spoke of when talking about the innocents in Aza would apply here as well. Number one, who's innocent and who isn't innocent, who's מחזיק ידי עוברי עבירה and who isn't. Even those who are opposed to the regime, what alternative they're interested in, it's not clear that the alternative that they'd be interested in is any more interested in our survival than the current regime, but be that as it may, that at least for me is an unknown. But again, one perspective is who's innocent, who isn't innocent, but more importantly is the second perspective we spoke of based upon the Sifrei on the pasuk of v'tzarta aleha. One can't, when one is at war with a country, it is impossible, the harsh, brutal reality of war doesn't allow for those distinctions. Medinas Yisrael, Tzahal would be totally, totally in the right to do what they need to do in this war of self-defense to prevent Iran from getting nuclear weapons because everyone knows what rachmana litzlan Iran wants to do with their nuclear weapons, and so much death and destruction has already been wrought by their conventional arms. War is waged against a country and the harsh, brutal reality of as the pasuk, as the Sifrei indicate, just doesn't allow for to differentiate. Obviously Tzahal would never ever entertain the possibility, they're not going to gratuitously bomb purely civilian targets. No one's talking about that. It's something which isn't even remotely ever considered in the IDF and anything which is militarily necessary is part of what the Sifrei says, rtzoncha l'hara. Is that to fight a winning war, again, a war which has been imposed upon us, not one that anyone wanted, one fights the collective entity. I would mention, in terms of this perspective, that there's actually an analog to this in Dinei Shamayim, that this is true not only in Dinei Adam but it's true in Dinei Shamayim as well. That the Rambam says that just as in the beginning of פרק ג הלכות תשובה, that just as each individual has zechuyot and avonot, he has merits and demerits, he has ma'asim tovim but he also Rachmana litzlan has aveirot, so so too a medina. What's a medina? Any political unit or entity, a city, a state, a country, a medina also has zechuyot and avonot and a medina also collectively is labeled tzadeket or rasha'ah. And then the Rambam says that not only does Hakadosh Baruch Hu judge individuals, Hakadosh Baruch Hu judges collective entities. V'chen medina reading from פרק ג הלכות תשובה הלכה ב, וכן מדינה שעונותיה מרובים מיד היא אובדת שנאמר זעקת סדום ועמורה כי רבה.
And this is even true of the macrocosm, even true of the whole world. So even in Dinei Shamayim, Hakadosh Baruch Hu judges a country as a collective entity and there is no differentiation necessarily made. So that's what the question arises, so how did Noach escape when the world was being judged? Okay, so that question is dealt with but that gets us a little bit too far afield. Right, absolutely. I do want to add on one additional variable to this, and I do understand we have to do what you have to do in war and we have the collective and need to go against the collective and that Sifrei is very powerful, very powerful makor exactly for what we're dealing with here at the beginning of the war, somebody that I daven with said they should just close them off and say we're giving you nothing, no food, nothing, give us our captives and we'll give you some food. And it turns out that I thought he was crazy at the time, you can't just do that. But why did I think he was wrong? Because of the international community. And that's the variable that I want to add on here is that certainly we have the makora halachically, hashkafically to do what we need to do, but as we've seen, immediately after October 7th, even though we were innocent, we did incur the wrath of a significant majority of the nations of the world and it got worse and worse over time. And the question is, we have rights as the Rav has talked about, but the ire of the international community will inevitably be upon us. And the question is, do we have limitations because of that? We do have the concept of chillul Hashem that even if something maybe is muttar, but you have to be careful about how you do it, what you do. It's a question that comes up often times in the workplace. I'm doing the right thing, but I'm going to be viewed negatively because of it. Do I have to change my actions because of that? Is that going to be a chillul Hashem or do we define a chillul Hashem simply as if I'm doing the right thing, there's no chillul Hashem and I don't have to worry about what other people are thinking? So we have that on in the workplace, we have that on an individual level and now we have it on a country basis, and I wanted to get your input on given that we have a halachic right, a hashkafic right to do what we need to do against Hamas, against Iran, around against the Houthis and all of the other cousins that we have in this difficult neighborhood that we live in, but how about that additional ire and wrath of the international community? Do we have to be concerned about that? I think it needs to be evaluated on two levels. It needs to be evaluated on a theoretical halachic level and what's called a more practical halachic level. On the theoretical level, as your question correctly indicated, chillul Hashem can and at times is a function of perception. So the Rambam writes in Sefer Hamitzvot when he talks about the chiyuv of yehareg v'al ya'avor to incur martyrdom when faced with a choice between bowing down before an avodah zarah or surrendering one's life. So the Rambam says even though when one would be bowing down, one would not be deifying the idol, one would not be subscribing To the belief system of the ovdei avodah zarah, but to create such a perception, to create such an impression, Rambam says that's enough, yehareg v'al ya'avor, that no one should think that we're surrendering to this avodah zarah ideology. So it's certainly correct that at times chillul Hashem is a function of perception. But there's a crucial, crucial caveat when when the perception is is not a a when there's no basis for the perception, when it's just hypocrisy and antisemitism which is fueling the ire because every other country in the world, every other country in the world, excuse me, when attacked responds exactly in the way that Tzahal is being criticized for doing. So that kind of hypocritical criticism is one that we don't have to be mindful of. That's not that's not a chillul Hashem because the criticism is totally disingenuous. If if there was a genuine misunderstanding and and the criticism were sincere, so then one would have to weigh that. But when it's so disingenuous and so hypocritical it it it doesn't it doesn't carry any weight. That's on the theoretical level. On the practical level, so and and here there is a, I think the halachic analysis and and conclusion depends upon political assessment as well. International opinion is relevant not not again, before we talked about is it relevant on a moral level, but it's relevant on a potentially on a political and military level in the terms that Medinat Yisrael needs the supply of arms in order to be able to defend all all of you know all all of her citizens. And on that level, you know on that practical level, it's a different question. So the question is not whether there's any moral substance or or standing to the criticism, the question is whether the political and military implications are such that it would endanger our national security. So there already the halacha would need to work you know hand in hand, glove and glove with you know with a political military analysis. Okay fascinating. So on the first level, on the theoretical level, just do what you need to do because the ire is ill-based, it is hypocritical, it's based on antisemitism. But tachlis practically speaking, if the benefit to us is going to be less than the detriment because of the ire if we can't get the military aid and the political aid that we need, then the politicians then have to make a decision what is going to be more beneficial or detrimental to us. And hopefully that's done, hopefully that deliberation and consideration is is a pure one and and that the only factors considered are you know what what is is best and and increases the prospects for a safe Medinat Yisrael. Absolutely. Rabbi Twersky, I want to thank you so much for joining us, so many brilliant insights, it really gives us a real framework to understand what's going on. Thank you so much. Thank you.