The following is a transcript of Episode 97 of the For Heaven’s Sake Podcast. Note: This is a lightly edited transcript of a conversation, please excuse any errors.

Donniel: Hi, this is Donniel Hartman and Yossi Klein Halevi of the Shalom Hartman Institute. And this is For Heaven’s Sake, our special edition, Israel at War. Today is day 51, and also day three of the ceasefire. And you really have to mention day three because it’s changed the way all parents and spouses and significant others are breathing. I don’t know how many people you come in touch with, Yossi, on an ongoing basis, but all of my family and friends who have children in Gaza, they’re breathing. It’s, there’s just another mood. This isn’t day 51 of the war.

This feels more like day three of a completely different calendar. And our theme for today in the midst of this day three, what brought about the day three, is the hostage release. And our theme for today, Yossi you picked the title “Hostage nation,” which was a very powerful title. Because that’s where we are. The whole nation is focused on the hostages. There’s nothing else. 

I’ve never seen anything like this. I’ve lived in Israel since 1971. I’ve been through wars, I’ve been through tragedy. I’ve been through special moments. I’ve been through hostage releases. I’ve never seen a total society completely focused on the hostages, how they’re feeling, following them, following the details of their releases, watching every single detail. 

100,000 people showed up last night at a vigil for the hostages. These are numbers. There’s something different. How are, first, what is the Israel that you’re experiencing? And then, Yossi, let’s try to analyze what’s going on.

Yossi: You know, we used to speak in Israel about the “national campfire,” the soldiers or the youth movement activists sitting around the campfire. Today the national campfire is the news, TV news. We’re all sitting around the screen watching for hours into the night, waiting for the first steps into freedom of the hostages, waiting for the transfer of the hostages to Israeli hands, waiting for that moment when we can actually get a good look and see are they healthy, are they intact, reasonably intact, and waiting for that first moment of an embrace with family and friends. 

So there’s something though strange about spending hours and hours before a screen. And I really felt the strangeness of it last night when there was a six-hour delay in the release. Right? Hamas, for inexplicable reasons, delayed the release of the hostages. And yet we all sat in front of the screen, listening to the anchor and the commentators, treading water, trying to fill up the airtime with something to say.

Donniel: You know, Yossi, it’s true. Do you know how many people I know who’ve sworn themselves off of television? They said, the only way I could get through this war is if I’m gonna overcome this addiction. I can’t stay on the television, I can’t watch it. Everybody is back to the television. 

Friday, Shabbat started at five to four. The first hostage release was at four. And I don’t know if you know, in every community Shabbos is announced 18 minutes before it officially starts. And in Jerusalem you have another 18 minutes. So everybody’s milking out the 18 minutes, the 36 minutes. Could I see a face? Did they get to? Are they in the hands of the Red Cross? Did they move? Where are they? Everybody is thinking about trying to strategize. What TV could I leave on? Who do I know who could update me?

There was an intensity that we need to understand. It’s an intensity that I experienced. It’s an intensity I experienced in my family when how many people are, what number? Oh, it’s only three or is it four? How many children? Why not all 30? The whole, this whole process of 13 a day has created a calendar, you know, we are a people of time. We’re a people who use time, but this calendar of four days, 13 a day, or 14. This whole ritual has taken over our society. It’s an obsession, it’s an intoxication, it’s something. I see it in myself, it’s something. And we have to understand what is going on. This is not like any other moment I have ever experienced in Israeli society.

Yossi: No, it also lacks the celebration with which we greeted previous hostage releases. Think of the release of Gilad Shalit, the Israeli soldier who spent five years in Hamas captivity, was exchanged for a thousand terrorists, and yet we turn that into a national celebration. Today, we’re not celebrating. We are obsessed. We’re obviously joyful for the release of each hostage, but there isn’t this mood of national celebration.

Donniel: I actually do feel some celebration, but I’m not so certain about it. So I’m not arguing with you. I think it’s complicated. So it’s different. What is, you know, like we have the famous mah nishtanah halayla hazeh, why is this night different from all other nights? Why is this hostage release capturing all of our attention, all of our souls? It’s not our attention, our whole being, is at one with them right now. What does this mean about this moment and about Israeli society?

Yossi: So, you know, I think that first of all, we have to understand the place of the hostage in the Israeli psyche. Having Israelis held at the mercy of our enemies negates the Israeli ethos, the promise of Zionism, of Jewish self-protection. And if you think about the Entebbe rescue of 1976, when we sent commandos halfway across Africa to free a hundred Israeli hostages. What we were doing at Entebbe was negating the mythic power of the hostage situation to threaten the Zionist ethos. We turned the hostage situation into its opposite, into a reaffirmation of the Israeli ethos.

Donniel: It was, Yossi, if I could stop you for one second, it was a victory. It was, miyagon l’simcha, like we say on Purim, from mourning to celebration. The moment transformed the feeling, yes. 

Yossi: It was a reversal. We reversed tragedy and shame into a reaffirmation of our ability to defend ourselves. That’s not happening here. What is instead happening, I feel this very strongly, is first of all the ongoing hostage situation is prolonging the agony of October 7th. It’s as if October 7th didn’t end on October 8th. It’s still going on. And there’s also something deeper than that, I feel, which is a sense of profound failure. We failed on October 7th as a nation to protect our fellow citizens on the Gaza border.

And the fact that 240 of them were then taken into captivity only magnified the failure. Their helplessness really reflected our helplessness, our shame. And so what we’re experiencing now is, yes, a partial mitigation of the tragedy, but the hostage situation stands. The threat to our credibility as a nation that has promised the Jewish people that we’d never be helpless again has not yet been reversed. It hasn’t been reversed.

Donniel: Right. So let me think about with you together about what I hear you saying. October 7th gave birth to a war. It traumatized us, but we are now on November 26, 7, 8.

Yossi: Who knows, it could be October, it could be December, total. I don’t even know what month it is.

Donniel: We’re not in… Oh, you don’t even know the date anymore. That’s true. It was Thanksgiving. We’ll relate to that. 

But in many ways, the war moved us beyond October 7th. The hostages are keeping us in October 7th.

Yossi: Great way to put it, exactly.

Donniel: It’s like you mourn. Like, it’s interesting, even when you see some of the families, because every night we meet another family, many families on each channel who suffered on October 7th. And as anybody who’s gone through tragedy in mourning has experienced, one of the great frustrations is that you don’t stay in the same level of mourning. 

Time is a blessing and it’s a curse. You wanna hold on, but you see the families getting used to the fact that their loved ones are dead. There is a process of moving on, but the hostages were still on October 7th.

Yossi: Yes, yes, and the war, yes, and the war, but no, the war.

Donniel: That’s what you’re saying. It’s a different. The experience is that the war is something else. There’s a war.

Yossi: But the war is an attempt to undo October 7th, and we can’t, we can’t. We can’t as long as the hostages are there, yes.

Donniel: I know, but we couldn’t. But the reality is we’re doing a deal. No, we’re doing a deal. We’re not redeeming our soldiers, our captives, so we’re telling them the only reason why we’re doing it is because we were so powerful and Hamas is scared. We’re trying to weave it into a Zionist victory, but it’s not. 

And so your take on this is that there is this is a return to the intensity of the October 7 shame. I think that’s very, very deep. 

I wanna offer another side to it, which, see, I am experiencing tremendous joy at every face of a hostage that I see. I have this unbelievable angst on me. What happened to them? What did these children experience? Were they treated okay? And when we see them, like, are they going to be able to smile? Are they gonna wave? How do they look? Do they look okay? 

You know, I read body, so I’m like, I’m staring at the TV. What is their body language saying?

Yossi: What do you see? What do you see on the faces of the children?

Donniel: And I see actually normal kids. And I can’t tell you, it’s this unbelievable feeling of relief and joy. And joy. Maybe they have a chance at a life. They might have a chance at a life that they’re not broken. 

I remember, again, I reference this, but I remember when my brother-in-law’s plane was shot down and he, at the end we got his body back and his co-pilot was alive and he returned. I remember for years, 

Yossi: He was in captivity, the copilot.

Donniel: Both were in captivity for two years and Israel gave 4,000 Syrian soldiers to return them and I remember the first time he came to the memorial for my brother-in-law. And he was the shadow of a person. I remember his face. I remember years it took for him to not look broken. 

And every face of these children and mothers and grand, I was looking at their face. Do they look that way or do they not? And I had such a sense of joy. They’re okay, they’re okay. And a big part of what I’ve experienced here is that, this is just such a crazy country. I don’t know what to do with this country. You love it, you live in it, it just drives you nuts. I think that part of this obsession, this focus, is that these people are our children. 

This is not the mitzvah. There’s a mitzvah of pidyon shvuyim. There’s a mitzvah of redeeming hostages in the tradition. But the whole discussion is a question on what is the obligation of the community to its hostages. This doesn’t feel like a community debating the issue of hostages. You don’t need a mitzvah of pidyon shvuyim, of redeeming hostages for your children. You don’t need a, like, no one has to tell me you have to, yes, you know, you have to pay, you have to, you’re responsible for.

There’s a question to what extent the community is going to take responsibility and express loyalty to every member of the society. What you see here, what I’m experiencing, is this is not Israel. This is not a national policy question going on right now. This is a family standing up and mourning, worrying, anxiety, celebrating.

I think it’s the fact that there’s children here, that these are our children, that it’s mothers, these are our mothers, it’s grandmothers, it’s ours. And it is also in the aftermath of October 7th and all the horrific stories that we heard of barbarism, we didn’t know what to expect. This could have been a continuation of that animal behavior. 

And so we’re sitting here. I feel this is a national family, not a community or a political process being unfolded here. I’m not denying what you said, that there is a political sense.

Yossi: Well, I think that there’s something, there’s, no, I wouldn’t call it a political sense. I think that there are two aspects of the family response here. The first is, as you say, it’s intuitive. It’s, there’s no thinking. It’s simply an embrace of our children. 

But I also think there’s, going back to this sense of shame that something of our family nature was violated on October 7th, that we abandoned these people. And so, in the way in which we’re embracing the hostages, we’re reaffirming the ongoing vitality, the credibility of our family sense.

Donniel: So, but Yossi, let’s think for a moment what this means. And by the way, even though I was emphasizing the family, I think all of us have different parts. We’re political animals, communal animals, family. There’s so many complex, multiple things going on simultaneously, and I think that’s absolutely true. But as we look forward, I don’t want to get into this conversation here about what Israel’s policy should be towards hostages and war. 

Also, there’s debates what we should release. It’s just besides the point right now. The country said, of course, we’re gonna release people. And they tried, a couple of news stations tried to say, oh, this man, you’re releasing somebody who stabbed. It’s like they were just like silenced out of the room. Like, don’t talk. This is not a political analysis. This is, I’m reclaiming my children. I’m bringing my children home. Just shame on you. Just stop it. 

And there was no room for any of that. But as we move forward, you know, one of the great difficulties of Israel going to war is that we don’t function like a normal people. There’s this intensity of feeling going on all the time. Like I said, this is day three of the ceasefire. And then Hamas is going to suggest to us day five and day six and day seven. And I don’t see any force in the universe stopping us from taking a day five, six, or seven. I don’t think we’re going to take day 15. But the shifts that it’s going to require to be able to continue the war, to go back to the war, is in the context of this family consciousness, is not going to be a simple one, Yossi. It’s not simple.

Yossi: It’s interesting, Doniel, you know, you mentioned earlier about the question of the terrorists. No one is paying attention to the release of terrorists. That’s not the issue here. What is the issue, and you do hear this debated in the TV studios and in conversations, is what will ongoing ceasefires mean for our ability to wage an effective war and defeat Hamas? 

And that does weigh on us. And what we have here is a clash of two Israeli values. There’s the value of pidyon shvuyim, of redeeming the captive, of maintaining the Israeli family ethos. And there’s the value of not allowing a genocidal regime to remain on our border. And the longer the ceasefires go on, the more uneasy many of us are going to be. And the more that these two values are going to come into conflict.

Donniel: Or another way of looking at the conflict is the conflict between the collective and the family. It’s not even an ideological one. There’s an emotional conflict going on.

Yossi: Yes. Or two different kinds of collectives. There’s the national security collective and there’s the family collective.

Donniel: Even on an emotional level because a lot of what, you know, when you mentioned shame, a lot of the impetus for the war is also, you use the term to enable Israel to be seen as to reclaim its position as a powerful country that people have to be aware of, for without that we can’t survive in the Middle East. But there’s also a reclaiming of the shame of the loss.

Not the loss of life, the loss of, we lost, like in its own little mini-war, October 7th and 8th was a great victory for Hamas. And so you might even have these two conflicting feelings, the shame of the hostages and the shame of the loss and how they get played out and how, you know, I so much wish that we had Israeli politicians who could talk this way. 

You know, just talk, you know, instead of like dressing up like, blah, blah, and just saying, we’re gonna show with these declarations. There’s a real conflict going on here, Yossi. You can’t belittle it. You’re not, we’re not. It’s not a simple one. It’s not a simple story. And then in the midst of this, you’re gonna have more weight to, okay, could we really win? What are the consequences? Israeli society is going to be faced with very, very difficult decisions. And it’s not a policy, I really don’t believe it’s a policy decision. I think the difficulty is an emotional decision.

Yossi: Right, right. It’s a competition of values. And what I hear you saying, Donniel, is that on October 7th, we lost two forms of credibility, both of which are essential for our existence. One was our military credibility, our deterrence capacity, and the other was the credibility of the Israeli family and our ability to protect each other. And this is what’s weighing in the balance now.

Donniel: And so as Yossi and I, we’ve been trying to communicate to you, it’s just a hard time. It’s not a complicated time. It’s a hard time. It’s a hard time emotionally. It’s a hard time to make sense of your feelings. It’s a hard time to give space for all your different feelings. 

For the last two days, there was a simplicity. I felt a joy. I saw the faces. And every day, though, you have this little wonder. Are they letting the people who are better out first? Like, what game, because we’re dealing here with an enemy, what game are they playing? What are we going to see? And until all the children and women aren’t let out, and then I want to use my own bias, I also have a bias to people whose pronouns are him and his also. I want our boys home. I want our wounded soldiers home. I want our wounded citizens home. This is not over. 

Today is day three of a ceasefire, day 51 of an ongoing war, the day in which some of our children are coming home. And the beginning, it’s not the end of anything. This is just the beginning of much more. We’re gonna have to find a lot of strength.

Yossi, it’s wonderful to be with you. 

Yossi: Always.

Donniel: And my friends, this is For Heaven’s Sake — Israel at War. For more ideas from the Shalom Hartman Institute about what’s unfolding right now, sign up for our newsletter in the show notes or visit shalomhartman.org/israelatwar. And hopefully today and the next days, we’ll see more of our children and our family coming home.