The Painful Wisdom of Limiting Ransom: A Mishnah for Our Time
Our wise and holy Sages understood something that feels unbearable to acknowledge: that unlimited compassion for individuals can sometimes endanger the entire community. Their ruling in the Mishnah Gittin (4:6) states bluntly: "They must not ransom captives for more than their value, for the good of society."
This teaching has never been more painfully relevant than today, as Israel grapples with the agonizing issue of the price paid for hostages held by Hamas.
The Wisdom Behind the Rule
The Talmudic Sages offered two primary explanations for this difficult law. The first is pragmatic: paying exorbitant ransoms creates a perverse incentive structure. When captors know that a community will pay any price, kidnapping becomes a profitable enterprise. Each rescue purchased at an inflated price finances the next abduction, the next tragedy, the next family's nightmare.
The second reason cuts deeper: such payments can bankrupt a community, leaving it vulnerable and unable to protect or sustain itself. Our Sages understood that a society that impoverishes itself to save individuals may lose the capacity to save anyone at all.
The Unbearable Weight of Moral Calculation
To modern ears, this sounds impossibly cold. We in the West live in an age that rightly celebrates the infinite value of each human life. The Torah itself teaches that one who saves a single life saves an entire world. How can we place limits on such salvation?
Yet our Sages were not callous utilitarians. Jewish law places the redemption of captives (pidyon shvuyim) among the highest of commandments. The Rambam writes that there is no greater mitzvah than redeeming captives. Communities would sell Torah scrolls-their most sacred possessions-to free those in bondage.
But even this supreme commandment has boundaries. The rabbis recognized that certain acts of compassion, however well-intentioned, can unleash greater suffering. A ransom paid today may fund tomorrow's terror. Hostages freed this week may be replaced by new victims next month.
The Modern Dilemma
Israel faced this ancient dilemma in its starkest form. Each hostage has a name, a face, a family sitting in anguished vigil. Their suffering is immediate and visible. The future victims of a dangerous deal remain abstract, unknown, not yet taken.
This asymmetry of visibility creates enormous moral pressure. The families of hostages-whose pain commands our deepest sympathy-understandably demand that everything possible be done. Political leaders face calls to "bring them home at any cost." The media broadcasts the anguish of waiting parents and spouses.
But our Sages anticipated this very pressure. They understood that the most visible suffering is not always the most important consideration. The children who will be kidnapped because we made kidnapping profitable, the soldiers who will die in the next war funded by our ransom payments, the communities that will be destroyed by the terrorists we embolden-these victims remain invisible until it is too late.
The Courage to Say No
Perhaps the most difficult aspect of our Sages' teaching is that it requires leaders to make choices that will be condemned as heartless. To tell a mother that her child cannot be saved at any price. To resist public pressure and emotional manipulation. To accept that one will be vilified for following what wisdom and experience teach is the right course.
This is not cruelty disguised as prudence. It is the terrible responsibility of leadership. It means to protect not just those we can see suffering now, but those whose suffering we can prevent in the future.
When Exceptions Apply
Jewish law does recognize exceptions. If the ransom can be paid without the negative consequences the rule was meant to prevent-if it will not encourage further kidnappings or endanger the community-then the restriction may not apply. If the captive is a person of unique importance to the community, different calculations may apply.
These exceptions are not loopholes but acknowledgments that moral rules must be applied with wisdom, not rigidity. Each situation requires careful judgment about both immediate compassion and long-term consequences.
A Teaching for All Nations
While this dilemma is acute for Israel, its wisdom extends beyond any single conflict. Democracies worldwide face similar pressures: to negotiate with terrorists, to make concessions to hostage-takers, to prioritize visible suffering over invisible future harm.
Our Sages' teaching is not that we should be indifferent to captives' suffering. It is that we must weigh present compassion against future consequences. That we must resist emotional blackmail even when it comes from a place of genuine anguish. That protecting society sometimes requires saying no to demands that feel morally overwhelming.
The Pain of Wisdom
There is no comfort in this teaching, no way to apply it without heartbreak. The families of hostages deserve our compassion and support, even when we cannot meet their demands. Leaders who must enforce these limits deserve our understanding of the impossible position they occupy.
Our Sages who formulated this law were not distant theoreticians. They lived in times of persecution and captivity. They knew the faces of those they could not save. Yet they had the courage to establish limits that would protect future generations, even at the cost of present anguish.
In our age of immediate emotion and viral outrage, we need this ancient wisdom more than ever. Not to harden our hearts, but to think clearly even when our hearts are breaking. To remember that the captives we can see are not the only ones who matter. To have the courage to protect those not yet taken.
This is what our Sages meant by "for the good of society"-not a cold calculation, but a tragic wisdom: that sometimes we must accept unbearable pain today, to prevent even greater suffering tomorrow.
Yonaton Behar, marketing and public relations expert, is originally from Queens, NY, and lives in Har Bracha, where he translates many of the writings of Rosh Yeshiva Rabbi Eliezer Melamed.