In my younger years, I never thought of running a business but somehow, that's what I ended up doing. When you create a business, you learn to think a bit differently. A job means a salary and the thinking is - can I live on this amount? Can I maybe save a little on the side? Does it have potential for growth? etc.
When you run a business, there's a whole other dimension that has to be considered. What are the costs, the profit margins? What are the ramifications of each decision I make? And what happens if I am wrong?
But, self-educated in the field of business management, I learned from my mistakes. For example, once I had an amazing "employee" and dear friend who joined the company. Her past job gave her a car as one of the perks and so it was agreed that my company would do the same.
I debated between leasing and purchasing and decided the company would purchase the car. Instead of taking a loan to purchase it, I spent almost all of our fluid capital, and struggled for months to get back to a good cash balance. Lesson learned.
Every decision has ramifications. I've always loved that word. Israel is now weighing the agreement of our lives, literally but are we thinking of all the ramifications, the hidden costs?
On October 18, 2011, Gilad Shalit was released from 5 years of captivity in Gaza in exchange for 1,027 terrorists, including Yahya Al-Sinwar. Israel rejoiced and welcomed home a son of Israel, someone we feared we would never see come home alive.
Almost exactly 12 years later, that very same man would mastermind the greatest massacre of Jews in 80 years. Over 1,200 Israelis and foreign nationals were murdered. Jews. Christians. Muslims. More than 250 (252 actually) were kidnapped. People were burned alive, tortured, raped, mutilated. The barbaric act has scarred our entire nation for generations, likely centuries and more to come.
And now, Israel is about to agree to release 1,000 "detainees", 48 terrorists who were released during the Gilad Shalit exchange and 22 Palestinians serving life sentences...22 murderers. Over one thousand...for 33 dead and alive hostages.
These murderers will be, so the agreement claims, "exiled" to Turkey, Qatar and/or Egypt. How long does it take to travel from Egypt to Gaza? This shall not be mentioned.
And for these 1060 (some say the number will be closer to 1200), Israel will get 33 of the 98 hostages being held in Gaza. And the condition of these 33? We don't know. And the identity of these 33? We don't know. We know that some are dead and have been led to believe some are alive. We are to get some elderly, some sick, some women...and bodies.
Congratulations to Biden, some of the bodies will be Israeli-American citizens.
This is stage 1 of a three part agreement. Next stage will see more the return of more hostages and bodies, but not the young men, the soldiers who were taken. If the agreement holds between Israel and a genocidal, quite insane terrorist organization, the remaining balance will be released in the third and final stage.
It is likely that the only ones who believe we will actually get to a third stage are the desperate families of hostages that are likely to be released in the first phase. For them, as they have said numerous times, no price is too high. Just pay it. At all costs. This is their message, their anthem, their demand.
Just pay it.
Had we not paid the price for Gilad Shalit, we would have mourned one young man, and perhaps not the 1,200 murdered innocents of October 7 and more than 400 soldiers we have lost in battle in the last 15 months.
At what cost? No one asks the most important question, "at what cost?".
I can say that I am not the world's best business person but I learned from my mistakes and built a solid business that I'm very proud of. Will we be proud of this agreement in a few months? Will we be forced to pay an even higher price for the release of these 33 than we paid for Gilad Shalit?
In the year 1286 CE, Rabbi Meir ben Baruch of Rothenburg (Maharam) decided that it was time to move his family to the promised land, to the land of Israel. He was 66-years-old and likely wanted to die and be buried in our ancient (and modern) homeland. The land of his forefathers, the land of his descendants.
Upon hearing of Rabbi Meir's plans, the archbishop of King Rudolf I of Habsburg instructed that Rabbi Meir be imprisoned. The king knew the Jews would pay well for their beloved Rabbi and demanded the sum of 20,000 marks (a value of over $8,000,00 today) for his release.
Aware of the repercussions of such a deal, the cost of redeeming one rabbi for such an exorbitant amount of money, Rabbi Meir forbade his followers from paying the ransom for him and instead, remained in prison. He died in prison some 7 years later, in 1293. And still, even in death, the king refused to surrender his body.Fourteen years later, Alexander Suskind Wimpfen of Frankfurt paid the ransom with the request that when he dies, he should be buried next to the great Rabbi. And so it was done.
What we are to learn from Rabbi Meir's refusal to be redeemed was that giving in to terrorism can ultimately lead to greater acts of terrorism. In all deals - business and life, it is important to address the issue of "at what cost?"
Had we known that the cost of Gilad Shalit's freedom was the lives of 1,200 innocents, the torture of 250 people for so many months, and the agony of the families and all of Israel, would we have done it? Should we have?
At what cost do we redeem these 33, or even 98 souls? Will we be asking ourselves in another 12 years, whether the price was worth paying? Jewish law says that redeeming prisoners is one of the highest and most important causes but this directive must be balanced with the question of future lives lost.
Could I look into the eyes of the parents and loved ones of these 98 and ask them if they have considered the cost for the lives (or bodies) of their loves ones? No, absolutely not.
Who am I to say such a thing, to cause them such pain?
But many hostage families are asking this question for us. At what cost?
Aware of the demand to return the hostages "at all cost", something many of the hostages themselves would not agree with, these families have bonded together to create the Tikvah Forum (tikvah means hope in English) and they too have a right to be heard.
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