Rabbi Heller's Blog

Today, Israelis and others around the world watched the somber, grotesque, even crushing spectacle of the return of the corpses of the babies Ariel and Kfir Bibas, and what was claimed to be, but was not, the body of their mother Shiri Bibas, as well as that of Oded Lifschitz, after 500 days.  The bodies of Israelis murdered on October 7 and dragged to Gaza, or kidnapped alive to Gaza and murdered there, have been brought back before, but somehow this is different. Soldiers should not have to salute the coffins of children.   As the coffins returned home, Israelis lined the intersections from Gaza to the Abu Kabir forensic institute, where the bodies were taken for identification.  There is a muted feeling across the country, and public entertainments are closed (ironically, this may have been  one of the reasons why an an attack that blew up multiple Israeli buses miraculously resulted in not even a single injury).  What is the nature of this moment?   One way of understanding the impact of this moment is to consider the phrase, found for the first time in this weeks’ portion “You shall not boil a kid in its mothers’ milk.”

“You shall not boil a kid in its mother’s milk,” repeated three times in the Torah, is the root source for  an important element of our observance of kashrut. Its influence ultimately extends to the point of no chicken parmesan, and two sets of dishes.  Ancient sages and modern sages debate the original intent of the verse.  Some, like Maimonides,  suggest that this was a recipe used for pagan celebrations, and so by banning its consumption the Torah warned against participating in these rites.  Others feel that it is simply a “divine decree” which must be followed without question. Some modern scholars (and many medieval Christian thinkers) parse the verse to suggest that it is not a question of the ingredients in which the kid is cooked, but rather that it is still so young that it is still only consuming its mothers milk.  The most common view, however, is that the commandment  reflects a certain spiritual sensitivity.  The Torah understands that eating meat is the nature of human existence, and there must, by definition, be death associated with that practice.  However, boiling a kid in its own mother’s milk reflects a particular level of callousness that is unbefitting a child of Abraham.

While these last two interpretations have different implications for how the commandment would be observed, they share a common thread, that the Torah demands that humans act with sensitivity and sympathy, even towards animals.  Even if one consumes meat, one must have a basic sensitivity for the innocence of a newborn and the bond between mother and child.  This particular dish reflects a callousness that adds insult to injury by demonstrating a disregard for those values, and literally consuming  and drawing sustenance from the suffering.

 In that sense, the kidnapping of the Bibas family represented the height of cruelty, the “kid in its mothers milk,” as the terrorists themselves released video of themselves dragging the terrorized mother and her two redheaded children into captivity.   Months and milestones ticked by: Kfir’s first birthday, the the point where he had been held in Gaza longer than he had lived at home, we held out diminishing hope that they would be returned home alive.  These distinctively redheaded toddlers  became symbols of the effect that Hamas’ attack had on Israeli society. 

The previous ceremonies that Hamas has staged to mark the release of  hostages have been notable for their cruelty and cynicism.  Earlier this month, Hamas operatives forced a man, more dead than alive, to read a statement that he was happy to return home to his wife and daughters,  even as they knew that their operatives had brutally slain them almost 500 days earlier.  Today, as the bodies of these children were paraded through Gaza, local citizens cheered and celebrated against a backdrop of slogans and hateful murals.  On hand for the “festivities” was at least one mass murderer, freed in exchange for earlier hostages, who had returned to Gaza in violation of the terms of his release.  Meanwhile, there were smaller touches of cruelty: the children were returned in switched caskets, that could not be opened with the keys provided, and the fourth casket included a sign with Shiri's “date of arrest." The only crime she was guilty of was being Jewish, and it seems that the body returned was not even hers.  Even the Red Cross, which had previously been complicit in these ceremonies, was reluctant to be a party to this grotesquery.

People eat meat.  In warfare, there are deaths, even deaths of civilians. The question is whether the suffering is intended and rejoiced over.  Israel has taken the greatest possible effort to minimize those deaths in an effort to bring back its own.  In contrast, those who actively seek those deaths and celebrate them with songs and murals, are the definition of boiling a kid in its mother’s milk, taking the death of a mother and child as a source of sustenance and even joy.  As a result, even though over 50 Israeli children were among the hundreds murdered, tortured and burned on October 7, the return of the Bibas boys was somehow even more crushing. Hamas knew this. In other cases, they had released false information to cause distress. They made sure to film the moment that Yarden was told that his children were murdered, because they knew the impact that it would have.

In contrast, Oded Lifshitz, the other hostage whose corpse was returned today, exemplified the positive observance of that verse. On October 7^th, the 84 year old was shot in his safe room in Nir Oz and he and his wife were dragged to Gaza.  Though I doubt that he kept kosher in the traditional sense, Lifshitz understood the spiritual intent of the commandment.  Ironically, during his life, he had been  a prominent peace activist and advocate for Palestinian rights.  He worked towards that goal as a writer for left-wing publications, and in meetings with Palestinian officials.  He served as a volunteer for Road to Recovery organization, which transported Palestinian children who were in need of treatment to hospitals in Israel. Despite seeking to turn cruelty to kindness, Oded Lifshitz perished in cruel captivity.

A negotiation determines the relative value of what is being traded to each of the parties. One of the most essential Israeli values, on display today is that every life is valuable, and “no one is left behind.”  Hamas values cruelty.   As a result, the mutually agreed calculus is that one dead Israeli infant is worth more to Hamas than hundreds of its own people.  Jews and Arabs see themselves as cousins, common descendants of Abraham. It is not befitting a child of Abraham to be so cruel as to subsist on the suffering of mother and child.