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- [00:04]
A
You are listening to an art media podcast.
- [00:10]
B
To try to understand Israel is to try to understand what 843 days, 12 hours and 6 minutes means. Were you as moved?
- [00:19]
C
Well, let me answer the question delicately. I was moved by how moved the country was. And I mean that I was actually blown away by how overwhelmed people were by this. 700 soldiers went into Gaza to find his body. Hundreds of volunteers, and it's over.
- [00:43]
B
This wait is over. This period is over. Hi, friends, this is Daniil Hartman and Yossi Kalein Halevi from the Sholem Hartman Institute. And this is our podcast, for heaven's Sake, in collaboration with ARC Media. Today is Wednesday, January 28th, and we're entitling today's episode 843 Days, 12 Hours, 6 Minutes. That was the last number of the hostage clock in Hostage Square when it was shut down. And it's over. This wait is over. This period is over. And we heard of Ron Gvili's the retrieval of his body while we were in the middle of a meeting. And in the meeting was our colleague Elliot Goldstein, whose cousin Hirsch Poland Goldberg, who was killed. And he's been wearing a masking tape on his chest.
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C
As did you.
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B
As did I. And he's been counting. I felt I had to take off the tape when all the live hostages were returned. I wanted to symbolize, I know not everybody was home, but if all the living hostages were home, there was a dayenu. There was a sense of giving thanks. We needed a different way to continue to remember to all the dead hostages. Because it's not the same. It's not the same emotionally, it's not the same ethically. There's different categories. There's nothing we can do. But Elliot is sitting there and as he's about to begin his presentation, he takes his right hand and he pulls off the masking tape. And he says, After 843 days, this is the first day that I'm going to take this off. And then he says, shekhianu. And it was very powerful and. And in many ways it symbolized something very deep going on in this country. That's what we want to talk about today. Want to talk about? Why is this so important now? In the midst of all of this? We're possibly on the verge of a major war with Iran. The government is. If it doesn't pass today, or maybe they'll extend it to tomorrow. The first reading of the budget, the government falls by law. The ultra orthodox draft. There's so many issues to be exhausted by life and death issues, life and death, future issues. And for two days, the lead story is the return of Ron Gvili Today, as we're talking just a little short while ago, the funeral, which was broadcast live all over the country, this last hostage. And you know, like, there's so many momentous issues. And I heard this morning the latest Call me back podcast of Dan Sonor with Mark Dubowitz and Yonatan Adiri. It is just outstanding. Like, if you want to know what you're supposed to think about vis a vis the Iranian attack or not, and in general, for the last three, four weeks, the nuts and bolts, the facts, the political structure of the way you think about whether they're going to attack and what is needed. And it was just outstanding.
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C
Well, Mark has really been one of the heroes of the struggle against Iran. And we mentioned his organization last week or two weeks ago, the foundation for the Defense of Democracy. They've been out there from the beginning.
- [04:26]
B
It was thoughtful, the right questions. It was just a pleasure. I'm sitting there, you know, just like every second I'm learning. But like here it's like as if the country like, okay, we don't have time to learn right now. Iran, Okay, I know you're really concerning me. This is really important. But I have something much more important to talk about now, and that is we got Ron Gvili's body back. And to try to understand Israel.
- [04:51]
C
Yeah.
- [04:52]
B
Is to try to understand what 843 days, 12 hours and 6 minutes means. Were you as moved?
- [04:59]
C
Well, let me answer the question delicately. I was moved by how moved the country was. And I mean that I was actually blown away by how overwhelmed people were by this. 700 soldiers went into Gaza to find his body. Hundreds of volunteers. They included a major who had been severely wounded. He lost an eye, was badly burned in a tank and asked to participate in the search. And the army sent him in. It included Idanadi, who's one of Israel's leading singers, who likewise and Foud, a military hero, Special forces, who was very badly injured early on in the war and asked to participate in this closure, as you put it, the search for Ron's body. And I was watching the funeral and watching hundreds of people lining up on the streets as the convoy is passing. And there was this little boy, maybe 10 years old, holding an Israeli flag and saluting. And it was so touching. And you realize what this means for this country. And I think you can read between the lines that it didn't quite mean the same thing for me as it has for why didn't it. What was it when you indicated that you felt the need to distinguish between the return of the last living hostage and the remaining bodies that were still being held by Gaza? That line really for me sums up the problem that I have with our. I don't want to use demeaning language.
- [07:02]
B
But don't worry, if you do, we'll edit it out.
- [07:06]
C
For me, there's this unhealthy emphasis on bodies. Now I understand the sanctity of the body in Judaism, but there still is a difference between a living hostage and a dead hostage. And that has all kinds of implications. First of all, spiritually, once the soul departs, what it means to us symbolically is one thing, what it means objectively is another. And to treat the body as if it is actually the person, let's just say I'm not there. I understand the families need closure.
- [07:49]
B
The kind of family is alive, but still I hear you.
- [07:53]
C
So that's one piece of it. There's another practical piece to it. Let me frame it as a competition between values. There's the value of the sanctity of the body, but there's also the value of not allowing ourselves to be held for ransom, to be blackmailed. And we know that there's nothing we can do about how this society relates to living hostages or very little that we can do with that. But I believe we need to begin a national conversation on do we equate bodies with living hostages? And maybe we need to start prioritizing our values here.
- [08:40]
B
Yossi, when I hear you, it's, it's so clear that you're right. I don't feel what you're feeling because I was one of those who was deeply moved. But of course you're right. And if you notice with Hadar Goldin, how many years was his body held?
- [08:56]
C
Yeah, yeah.
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B
What was it, eight years?
- [08:58]
C
Oh, more like, even more.
- [09:01]
B
It's like so. And did the country give in and do some huge deal to bring his body back? So I think everybody knows that if at issue is the life of our soldiers, the life of our people and bodies we should make, as painful as it is. And what we owe the families, we owe the families. And it's clear, you know, and our audience knows, you know, when we were waiting two years to get my brother in law's body back. So I have a sympathy to that, but I could understand that too. I could appreciate that. And it's, and, and we don't talk about it. And I think it's important that we do think like a grown up country, you know, it's just, it's. There's something to that. Why were we all so moved? And with Hadar Goldin we had time. Even though when he came back it was also a remarkable, even I'm using the word he, you know, when his body, when he, it felt like he was coming back. I think with Ron Gvili there was, it wasn't Ron himself. I think being the last one symbolized something that people in this country are yearning for. They're yearning for some form of closure to this tear that has ripped us not apart from each other but as really there's this. October 7th is a hole that we don't know what to do with. The country's in a post traumatic syndrome story.
- [10:34]
C
And it's just, it's interesting because we haven't been PTSD for the last two years. We've been in the trauma. Maybe now with the, with the last return.
- [10:45]
B
I actually think we are ptsd. I think we've been and I think we're trying to, it's like you're just trying to put it all together. It's like, you know, it's like there's this grotesque picture of a soldier who has a, a horrific stomach wound just trying to push all their. Hold their stomach back in, you know, after being bombed by an rpg. Like we're just trying to hold it together, get up in the next morning, hold it together. Like I felt like the last body just we're able to hold it together. But it's not just closure. I think we're also looking for some clarity, some purity, some good in the midst of all of this. You know, this was. I've said it, you know, we've all said it. This was the most just war Israel ever fought. It's a no brainer. I'm not saying everything we did was just. No. And this is not the time to judge how wrong we were when we should have stopped the war. I don't care. We've talked about that ad nauseam. Now I think we're going to have to figure certain things out, especially for the future. But it hasn't been a good war.
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C
Yet.
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B
It really hasn't. The first few months there was this, you didn't even feel the goodness because you were in such pain. But it hasn't been an uplifting good war. It was the burden of our country. It was. Here it is. They're coming for us again. They're coming for our kids, for our family. We have to do it. It was a noble war, but it didn't feel like a good war. The world was attacking us. The divisions inside were horrific, horrific before the war, after the war, the way the government conducted, the partisanship in the midst of battle, the attacks on Israel, what was happening to civilians in Gaza, what was happening to us. It had a noble beginning, and it just sort of shifted, schlepped on, and it was bringing us down. And I feel people, they just want to reclaim some goodness in our life and bringing this body back, this boy back, this hero back. Unbelievable hero. You hear a story, you know, the last family waiting.
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C
He was among the first take charge against the terrorists on October 7th.
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B
That story, like, I think we just. I think we want some goodness in our life and some way to transcend all the crap. Just. It's just so much like Netanyahu heaps up the crap. The opposition, each of us are heaping up so much stuff and hatred all the time. And it was just for one moment, I think we got to say, okay, there's no. I'm not talking whether I'm just. Bibi, not Bibi. I'm not talking about when the war should have ended. Could it have ended earlier? Did you get Ron Gvili back? Ron Gvili. And you know what? When the soldiers said, the soldiers who were part of this operation, this was their fifth time serving in Gaza over the last two and a half years. You have to realize fifth. This is their fifth round. And they said this was the most important and meaningful operation they conducted in their lives. Now, what do you mean on October 7th, when you were pushing Hamas back, that wasn't more meaningful. So I think we want to have some closure and goodness back. The question is, Yossi, is this going to work? Does Ranvili give us that, or is it just a fantasy?
- [14:21]
C
You've put it beautifully, Daniil. And there is that yearning. When I was watching the funeral, I wanted to be in that spirit and listening to Ron's mother speak, who's an extraordinary woman, the strength and nobility, the nobility. You know, she spends the first five minutes of her eulogy thanking people and by name. And then she stops and she says, please forgive me if I've left anyone out. And this is what's on her mind. It was so powerful. And she's talking to Ron and she's saying, I know what you would say to me now. You would say, stop grieving and be proud. And so, Ron, I feel like crying just saying it, but she didn't cry. And you just realize there are Such strong people in this country. You can't believe what's here. And so Ron's brother addressed our enemies, and he said, what were you thinking? Did you really think you would be able to destroy these people? You're listening to this, and yes, I'm with you. This is exactly what we need. And then, yeah, okay, this is the problem, because built into the funeral was its negation. They referred, for example, the family who has been part of Netanyahu's counter organization, that he set up a much smaller group of families to oppose the mainstream hostage family group. This is the first time in Israel's history that grief has been politicized. He did that. Not only did he tear this country apart, he tore the families of the hostages apart. And Netanyahu is sitting there, and this is the only funeral that he's ever been to of any of the hostages. And why did he come to this funeral? Because it was safe, because he knew that this family was in his camp. And when they referred in the eulogies to the war, they used his terminology. They called it the war of renewal, rebirth. Now half this country, or more, refuses to call it that. Families of fallen soldiers have told the army, if you dare put that name on tombstones, we're going to chisel it.
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B
Out, because just remind people in military cemeteries, you put the name of the war where the soldier died on the tomb.
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C
So we can't even agree on the name. I hear them saying, and I feel like I'm being assaulted, so where's the closure? And there's Ben Greer. This was a police funeral. He was a policeman.
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B
He was a member of the SWAT unit.
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C
Yeah. So of course, Ben Vere, the Minister of Police, is going to be there. But where does that leave this longing for healing and closure? Daniil? And so this funeral was so complicated, and I hate to even give voice to this. It feels sacrilegious. But that was the experience, you know.
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B
Like, for me, I could block it out. Yeah, I could block it out. And you're right, it's not national healing. We haven't healed our huge, huge problems. Our partisanship is not just, you know, tribal. It's a deep ideological partisanship about what's the path forward for this country.
- [18:05]
C
And you know what, Daniil? I could take a deep breath and swallow this. But yesterday, Netanyahu poses for his victory pose. I promised to bring them all back. I've brought them all back. Well, no, you actually didn't bring them all back, because some of them came back as corpses.
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B
They say what was it 50 or.
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C
So who were alive when they were taken in captivity? And we all know that there could have been an earlier deal, not that different from the deal that we eventually got. But he was playing politics. And so. I'm sorry, Mr. Prime Minister, you didn't bring them all back. And not only that, but don't only show up for the successes. We've talked about this before. To have a prime minister who refuses to take personal responsibility, think about what he's done to this country.
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B
First, we were. Wait, so we got you started.
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C
Oh, you did, you did. Listen. No, no, but listen, this is a new insight. Danil. I haven't said this about him yet, but there are two stages to which he has riveted this country to his attempt to evade responsibility and scrutiny. The first was his attempt to try to end the trial for corruption. The second is his attempt to forestall the creation of a commission of inquiry. What both of those have in common is they would both examine him and his accountability. So everything we're going through in this country is about Netanyahu trying to avoid one form of responsibility or another. And so we come to this moment and he's trying to co opt it.
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B
His press release last night had an obscene quality to it. You heard what Bennett said to him. He said a great leader doesn't ingrandize themselves, they ingrandize their people.
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C
Right?
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B
He's just like, who brought this? Who brought Ronville? Is it you? Or is it these soldiers? Is it the dedication of hundreds of thousands of people?
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C
So listen, we're desperate for closure. We're desperate for some semblance of. Of healing and unity. It's not going to be with this government. It can't be.
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B
See, I'm a little different than you psychologically. In case our audience doesn't. And I hear you, and there's not a single thing that you say that I don't agree with. I just have to tell you, I don't feel I'm carrying baggage. The reason why I despise this government is not about the past. It's because I'm thinking about our future. What type of future do I want? I'm not micromanaging responsibility for October 7th. I want a commission of inquiry because I want us to learn from it. I'm not like plottzing so that another commission could say to Netanyahu, you're guilty. I don't need that.
- [21:02]
C
I don't need doesn't do it for me. I don't need his guilt. But. But I need to Restore a sense of responsibility and leadership.
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B
I'm with you there. I'm with you on everything. I'm there. I think we need to do that. I'm there. But my primary motivation is, I want to know how, with everything we knew, how the whole system fell apart. Because right now I'm watching the country. Do you know how many parallel moments, therefore. But where. But the. What is the saying there.
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C
There but for the grace of God.
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B
Grace of God. Go with I. You know, we have drones coming over the Egyptian border bringing in weapons all the time. We have half the border with Jordan with an incomplete security fence we have in Judea and Samaria. You talk about disarming Hamas in Gaza. Do you know how many weapons you have in Judea and Samaria? And therefore. But the grace of God goeth I either whether it's a settlement in Judea and Samaria or a town over the Green line, makes no difference. Where a group of 10 or 15 people can't go in and commit a slaughter, there's problems we're not dealing with. And this government, again, just recently, they announced that they're going to decommission the Civilian Security Defense Forces of the settlements of the kibbutz Marangas.
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C
Now, that was extraordinary.
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B
You just look at it. It's just, what are you doing? I. I'm not interested in the past.
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C
No, but there's a direct line. So what you're saying.
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B
So this is why I want to.
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C
Know a country that does not hold its leadership responsible for failures is going to commit the next wave of failure.
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B
So that's why I appreciate that. That's why I'm not arguing with you. Like I so hunger. And I know I'm not going to get it. I won a campaign for elections which talks about what do you want to do? Makes them accountable for their record, but you're not dealing with the fundamental questions. Okay, you get credit for Iran. You do. You get credit for Iran. And I was listening to this, I might have been also with Dan Sonora where someone said that if Iran is defeated, Netanyahu wins the next election. It's like big, big things, but there's so many structural flaws that aren't being dealt with. I want us to have a campaign in which, you know, I want to talk about leadership for the people. And therefore this Ron Gvili, this closure. I appreciate the partisan fissures are there, but I think the way we're going to move forward, and at the end of the day, we're going to have to move forward and at the end of the day, the next government, by definition, the meaning of a coalition government, is sitting with somebody whose policies you think are wrong and trying to compromise and say, you're wrong about this, and I'm wrong. What are we gonna do? How are we gonna handle and what we're gonna do? We need to learn from this. It's like, there isn't a closure unless you accept that there's a closure. Unless you take, you know, could you put a V? But I hear you're like, you're. No, because you're not with me.
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C
I know the problem, Danielle, is not sitting with people we disagree with. We do that all the time. The opposition is composed of left, right, and center. Bennett's government was a coalition of people who disagree with each other. The divide with this government is not over policy. It's over that wonderful Yiddish word, Menschlachkeit, decency. That's the divide. It's over corruption and fanaticism. That's very different.
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B
I know that. But at the end, we might even have Likud members in the government at some point. You don't resolve conflicts of this type. You make a decision to. You don't let bygones be bygones. I'm not saying that. And I'm not saying that I'm going to whitewash your failures. I'm not saying that either. But at some point, you have to decide. I want to talk about the future. I am so worried. Not about what happened yesterday. I'm so worried about Israel, of tomorrow, about. About. On every level of that level of healing. So maybe Ron Gvili gave me that moment. But I also think that for a lot of people, the ability to feel good again, and I think that's part of the destructiveness of our current political realities in Israel also, so many places around the world. And I feel it from you, too. It's like, because reality is so negative, it's bringing us down all the time. Like, there are. It's almost. It's like, I'm a behaviorist. I'm not a Freudian. You know, give me a moment of good.
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C
So is Judaism.
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B
So give me a moment of good. Like, I'm in. I'll take it. I don't think that it's gonna fix all the problems, and I don't think they all went away. But I do think that there's also a decision now. Of course, you could be frightened that if people do this, think this way, they'll just vote for Netanyahu again. You know how angry do you have to be? And I'm not claiming that. And I'm not claiming that everything is legitimate and that pluralism every you closure.
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C
At this moment works in his favor.
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B
Yeah, I know, but I feel.
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C
And then there really will not be closure.
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B
I hear you. I'm just worried about an election campaign which continues the rhetoric of the last few years. And you know what? Whoever wins, you don't win. So let's say you get 61 seats or 62 seats. So now instead of one side closing the streets and demonstrating, the other side will close the streets and demonstrate the hatred. It's just.
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C
I'm not there, Daniil.
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B
I know.
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C
My main worry is that the government that brought us the hatred and the schism for the last three years is going to have another four years to do it.
- [26:48]
B
Okay. Oh, I'm very worried about that too. I am too. But maybe the closing word about Ron Gvili is that it's good you're home. Whether you're home or whether it's your body, I'm happy you're home. I'm happy that for the first time in what did someone say? I don't. 11, 8, I don't know how many years we don't have somebody who should be home, who's not home. Everybody came back, all our citizens are here. And if it's the closure that I want, maybe not. Is it goodness, I'll take it. I'll park myself with a little goodness for 48 hours. There's also a self congratulatory dimension to it which is, you know, I don't need that. You know, look how moral we are. We care about that as distinct from that doesn't do it for me either. But I so much pray that there could be these moments, you know, and you prayed and we know that in the horizon possibly, you know, like in Israel, everybody knows somebody. Everybody knows somebody who knows everything, who knows the country's greatest secrets. That's why I'm always amazed why Iran has to find spies. They'll have to find spies who will spy on someone. Just find a spy who like all of us, knows everything.
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C
I have it on the best sources. Exactly. Thursday night at the American.
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B
Thursday night we have Saturday night. You know, I have a colleague of mine, Tal Becker says what he would love to have is he'd love to have a computer program that every pundit who says something factual of some that he knows or she knows that while they're talking like above their head, there should be. What's the percentage of like how many times were they wrong? So I don't want to do that to you. Whether they was. Is it going to be Thursday night? I thought it was going to like. We just canceled. We were supposed to have a staff retreat and we said we don't want to take people out of their homes this week because I want to start running in the middle of the night back home while your family or kids are in sirens. So we slept at home and we did it. A day retreat. I don't know. There's so much out there. A moment of goodness, a moment. A moment of nobility. A moment to say, they're all home. I'll take it.
- [28:57]
C
All right. All right. I'll go with you there.
- [28:59]
B
Yossi. A pleasure to be with you.
- [29:01]
C
Great to be with you.
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D
What are we supposed to do and say and be during this time?
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B
Judaism has so much complexity to it and so many layers to it that.
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E
No one layer stands by itself.
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B
What you have is Jews who for the very first time feel like their.
- [29:16]
D
Value system is out of sync with the broader sector. I'm your host, Alana Steinhein. Welcome to Texting irl, where we wrestle with the dilemmas of Jewish life through the lens of classical and modern Torah texts. I am so fortunate that I have a friend and a colleague who I can talk to. Jacob Feinsman, Diana Ginsberg, Dalia Lithwick, helping us think through these big questions.
- [29:37]
B
Why are you guys part of this? What calls you personally to it? What are some of the other things that you work on? What's at stake for you?
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C
I think one of the challenges is.
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B
To figure out how much failed democracy.
- [29:48]
D
We as Jews can tolerate.
- [29:50]
B
We have to find opportunities to make enemies into friends.
- [29:54]
D
The model is so majestic in this text.
- [29:58]
A
Listen now to Texting irl, a podcast from the Shalom Hartman Institute, available wherever you get your podcasts.
- [30:05]
D
Welcome to the beauty of Jewish interpretation.
- [30:07]
B
Exactly.
- [30:17]
A
Here are some other things that are happening at the Shalom Hartman institute. Last week, 16 outstanding leaders began their three year journey toward Rabbinic ordination as part of the stage second cohort of the Shalom Hartman Institute's Rabanut North America. They engaged in learning with senior leadership of the institute, immersing themselves in what this moment in history demands of Rabbinic leadership. This new cohort joins the inaugural cohort of 13 students already on their way to ordination and to serve their communities as thoughtful, courageous leaders. To learn more about our students and Rabanut North America, click on the link in the show. Notes.
- [30:54]
E
For Heaven's Sake is a product of the Shalom Hartman Institute and ARC Media. It is produced by me, Daniel Goodman, with help from Miriam Jacobs, Adar Taylor Schechter, and Aviva Katmanaur, and studio support from Go Live Media. Our episode was edited by Josh Allen, Maital Friedman is our executive producer, and our music was composed by Yuval Samo. Past episodes can be found@arcmedia.org where you can explore more of Arc Media's podcasts. You can watch the video versions of our episodes on our YouTube channel. Follow the YouTube link in the show Notes. Also, to receive updates on new episodes, please follow the link to arcmedia.org and subscribe to Arc Media's weekly newsletter. For more ideas from the Shalom Hartman Institute, visit our website@shalomhartman.org SA.