WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:02.520 Welcome back to the Deep Dive. I want to start 00:00:02.520 --> 00:00:06.200 today by just acknowledging where we are in time. 00:00:06.320 --> 00:00:08.160 It feels like we're standing on the other side 00:00:08.160 --> 00:00:11.859 of a very long, very dark tunnel, you know, squinting 00:00:11.859 --> 00:00:13.699 a little bit at the light. That's a really good 00:00:13.699 --> 00:00:16.460 way to put it. It's Wednesday, January 28th, 00:00:16.460 --> 00:00:19.760 2026. And to really understand the moment we 00:00:19.760 --> 00:00:22.359 are in right now, I want you to, if you can, 00:00:22.420 --> 00:00:24.500 just close your eyes for a second and visualize 00:00:24.500 --> 00:00:28.679 a small physical object. An object that really 00:00:28.679 --> 00:00:30.800 for the last couple of years has been completely 00:00:30.800 --> 00:00:32.700 unavoidable. Completely. It's something that 00:00:32.700 --> 00:00:34.799 if you were walking down the street in Tel Aviv 00:00:34.799 --> 00:00:37.140 or, I don't know, New York or Miami or London, 00:00:37.240 --> 00:00:39.740 any time in the last two years, you absolutely 00:00:39.740 --> 00:00:42.469 saw it. It became part of the visual landscape 00:00:42.469 --> 00:00:45.909 of the post -2023 world. You saw them on grandmothers 00:00:45.909 --> 00:00:48.229 in the supermarket. You saw them on teenagers 00:00:48.229 --> 00:00:51.149 at music festivals. You saw them on professors 00:00:51.149 --> 00:00:53.969 in lecture halls. They were everywhere. Exactly. 00:00:53.969 --> 00:00:56.109 I'm talking about the dog tags. But we have to 00:00:56.109 --> 00:00:58.570 be really specific here. We aren't talking about 00:00:58.570 --> 00:01:02.009 standard military issue ID tags that soldiers 00:01:02.009 --> 00:01:04.629 wear under their fatigue. No, these were different. 00:01:04.829 --> 00:01:06.810 These were different. They were public. Yeah, 00:01:06.950 --> 00:01:10.000 everywhere. Rectangular pieces of metal, usually 00:01:10.000 --> 00:01:12.680 hanging on a simple ball chain that carried a 00:01:12.680 --> 00:01:15.719 very specific, very heavy weight to them. A tangible 00:01:15.719 --> 00:01:19.359 weight. Yeah. But also a symbolic one. A huge 00:01:19.359 --> 00:01:21.719 symbolic weight. They had an inscription that 00:01:21.719 --> 00:01:26.000 became a mantra, bring them home now. Often right 00:01:26.000 --> 00:01:31.060 below that, a phrase in Hebrew, which translates 00:01:31.060 --> 00:01:34.180 to my heart is held captive in Gaza. My heart 00:01:34.180 --> 00:01:36.640 is held captive. Just think about that phrase. 00:01:36.739 --> 00:01:39.420 It's not I am worried about Gaza or I stand with 00:01:39.420 --> 00:01:41.799 the hostages. It's an internal state. It's so 00:01:41.799 --> 00:01:44.680 visceral. My heart is captive. And today we are 00:01:44.680 --> 00:01:46.000 doing something a little different. We're not 00:01:46.000 --> 00:01:47.859 just looking at the news headlines or the, you 00:01:47.859 --> 00:01:51.099 know, the military analysis. We are basing this 00:01:51.099 --> 00:01:53.859 entire deep dive on a really profound piece of 00:01:53.859 --> 00:01:56.530 scholarship. by Dr. Iqbal. He's a professor of 00:01:56.530 --> 00:01:58.250 religious studies and the co -founder of Miami 00:01:58.250 --> 00:02:00.689 Interfaith. He wrote this incredible essay that 00:02:00.689 --> 00:02:02.810 analyzes the event that just happened this week, 00:02:02.849 --> 00:02:06.329 the return of the final hostage, but he strips 00:02:06.329 --> 00:02:09.610 away the military strategy, the politics, the 00:02:09.610 --> 00:02:12.150 polling data. All the usual noise. All of it. 00:02:12.710 --> 00:02:14.870 And he looks at it entirely through the lens 00:02:14.870 --> 00:02:18.110 of theology. And Dr. Iqbal is such a fascinating 00:02:18.110 --> 00:02:21.009 guide for this journey because he says right 00:02:21.009 --> 00:02:23.030 up front, he's an outsider. He's not Jewish. 00:02:23.110 --> 00:02:26.030 He's a Muslim scholar. Right. And he writes about 00:02:26.030 --> 00:02:29.150 organizing these interfaith dialogue sessions 00:02:29.150 --> 00:02:32.810 with his colleague, Rabbi Jamie Aklepi, right 00:02:32.810 --> 00:02:36.770 after October 7, 2023. He describes walking into 00:02:36.770 --> 00:02:39.770 these rooms and just seeing these tags on almost 00:02:39.770 --> 00:02:41.689 everyone's neck. And he admits he was confused. 00:02:42.090 --> 00:02:44.539 Totally. He just didn't get it at first. Which, 00:02:44.639 --> 00:02:47.219 if you think about it, is a really fair reaction 00:02:47.219 --> 00:02:50.180 for someone outside that specific cultural bubble. 00:02:50.340 --> 00:02:52.680 To an outsider, they look like political merchandise. 00:02:53.060 --> 00:02:55.580 Or solidarity jewelry. Yeah, maybe even, you 00:02:55.580 --> 00:02:57.680 know, a statement of militarism. Right. That's 00:02:57.680 --> 00:02:59.280 the first place your mind goes. You see a metal 00:02:59.280 --> 00:03:01.360 tag you associate with the army. You think war 00:03:01.360 --> 00:03:04.509 support. But Dr. Iqbal argues that if you actually 00:03:04.509 --> 00:03:06.689 stop and study the theology, if you look at the 00:03:06.689 --> 00:03:09.189 history of symbols in Judaism, these weren't 00:03:09.189 --> 00:03:11.610 political statements at all. They were a response 00:03:11.610 --> 00:03:14.770 to a specific historical trauma. A collective 00:03:14.770 --> 00:03:17.009 trauma. A collective trauma that has been... 00:03:17.419 --> 00:03:20.800 just bleeding for two years and just came to 00:03:20.800 --> 00:03:24.080 a resolution two days ago on January 26th, 2026. 00:03:24.419 --> 00:03:26.759 The day the clock stopped. The day the clock 00:03:26.759 --> 00:03:29.120 literally stopped. I saw the footage online. 00:03:29.180 --> 00:03:31.759 It was eerie. For our listeners who haven't been 00:03:31.759 --> 00:03:33.719 glued to the live feeds for the last 48 hours, 00:03:33.840 --> 00:03:36.219 let's just set the scene in Tel Aviv. For two 00:03:36.219 --> 00:03:39.139 years, this place, Hostages Square, has been 00:03:39.139 --> 00:03:41.599 the epicenter of this national grief. A public 00:03:41.599 --> 00:03:44.840 wound. Totally. And it has been dominated by 00:03:44.840 --> 00:03:46.840 this massive digital clock. It wasn't telling 00:03:46.840 --> 00:03:49.280 the time of day, it was counting up. Seconds, 00:03:49.280 --> 00:03:52.479 minutes, hours, days. Since the abduction on 00:03:52.479 --> 00:03:55.580 October 7, it was this relentless ticking reminder 00:03:55.580 --> 00:03:59.219 of absence. And two days ago, after 843 days, 00:03:59.340 --> 00:04:01.340 the power was cut. The screen went dark. Because 00:04:01.340 --> 00:04:04.020 the remains of Staff Sergeant Ranjvili were returned 00:04:04.020 --> 00:04:07.020 to Israel. Ranjvili, he was 24 years old, a police 00:04:07.020 --> 00:04:09.419 officer who was killed defending Kibbutz Illumim 00:04:09.419 --> 00:04:11.800 way back on that very first day of the war. On 00:04:11.800 --> 00:04:15.539 October 7th itself. Yes. And for 843 days, his 00:04:15.539 --> 00:04:18.040 body was the last question mark, the last hostage 00:04:18.040 --> 00:04:20.980 held by Hamas, the final piece of the puzzle. 00:04:21.220 --> 00:04:22.920 I think we need to just sit with that number 00:04:22.920 --> 00:04:26.939 for a moment. 843 days. It's staggering. It's 00:04:26.939 --> 00:04:29.899 more than two years. Dr. Iqbal calls it an eternity 00:04:29.899 --> 00:04:33.160 of agonizing uncertainty. Think about what that 00:04:33.160 --> 00:04:35.220 does to a family, to a community. I can't even 00:04:35.220 --> 00:04:38.079 imagine. Waking up every single morning for 843 00:04:38.079 --> 00:04:41.600 days, not knowing if your son, your brother is 00:04:41.600 --> 00:04:44.420 alive or dead, whole or in pieces, buried or 00:04:44.420 --> 00:04:47.370 abandoned somewhere. It's a psychological torture. 00:04:47.610 --> 00:04:49.850 So here's the mission for this deep dive. The 00:04:49.850 --> 00:04:52.889 headline on CNN or the BBC is simply body returned. 00:04:53.310 --> 00:04:57.230 But the story, the real story, is why it matters 00:04:57.230 --> 00:05:00.500 so much. The why. is everything here. Why did 00:05:00.500 --> 00:05:02.959 an entire nation hold its breath for two years 00:05:02.959 --> 00:05:05.720 over a corpse? Why did people halfway around 00:05:05.720 --> 00:05:08.740 the world wear those metal tags? Right. Dr. Iqbal's 00:05:08.740 --> 00:05:10.699 thesis is that this obsession with the body, 00:05:10.779 --> 00:05:13.060 this refusal to leave the dead behind, isn't 00:05:13.060 --> 00:05:15.740 just a quirk of Israeli society or Jewish culture. 00:05:15.959 --> 00:05:18.860 He argues that this theology of death, and specifically 00:05:18.860 --> 00:05:21.319 the shared reverence for the body, might actually 00:05:21.319 --> 00:05:23.699 be the secret key to peace between Jews and Muslims. 00:05:23.980 --> 00:05:25.579 Which sounds completely backwards when you say 00:05:25.579 --> 00:05:27.879 it out loud. It's so counterintuitive. Totally 00:05:27.879 --> 00:05:30.500 backwards. You'd think peace comes from the living, 00:05:30.660 --> 00:05:33.259 from negotiations, from planning for the future. 00:05:33.500 --> 00:05:36.279 But his argument is that the way Jews and Muslims 00:05:36.279 --> 00:05:40.079 treat the dead is a shared language. It's a frequency 00:05:40.079 --> 00:05:42.899 they both hear, even when the politics are jamming 00:05:42.899 --> 00:05:46.339 every other signal. It's this one place of common 00:05:46.339 --> 00:05:48.759 ground. OK, so let's unpack this. We have to 00:05:48.759 --> 00:05:51.600 start with the dog tags. Dr. Iqbal calls the 00:05:51.600 --> 00:05:54.379 phenomenon of wearing them a transformation of 00:05:54.379 --> 00:05:58.029 consciousness. That feels like a big claim for 00:05:58.029 --> 00:06:00.949 a piece of metal on a chain. What does he mean 00:06:00.949 --> 00:06:04.069 by that? It's a huge claim But I think he backs 00:06:04.069 --> 00:06:05.670 it up. He's pointing out a shift that happened 00:06:05.670 --> 00:06:08.230 in the Jewish world. To understand why those 00:06:08.230 --> 00:06:11.069 tags became so ubiquitous, so necessary feeling, 00:06:11.430 --> 00:06:13.730 you have to understand the Holocaust. Right. 00:06:13.790 --> 00:06:15.629 But not the way we usually learn it in history, 00:06:15.730 --> 00:06:18.610 class dates, battles, numbers. He's talking about 00:06:18.610 --> 00:06:21.050 the specific mechanism of the Holocaust, the 00:06:21.050 --> 00:06:23.189 psychological machinery of it. He uses a term 00:06:23.189 --> 00:06:24.930 in the essay that I hadn't encountered before, 00:06:25.029 --> 00:06:27.569 and it really stopped me in my tracks, necrocide. 00:06:27.769 --> 00:06:29.800 It's a chilling word, isn't it? Necrocide. It 00:06:29.800 --> 00:06:32.579 is. Break that down for us. What distinguishes 00:06:32.579 --> 00:06:35.680 necrocide from genocide? Because they sound related, 00:06:35.800 --> 00:06:38.060 obviously. They're absolutely related. But necrocide 00:06:38.060 --> 00:06:41.439 is a specific subset of genocide. So genocide 00:06:41.439 --> 00:06:44.060 is the killing of a people, the destruction of 00:06:44.060 --> 00:06:47.040 a group, a genus. The people themselves. Yes. 00:06:47.339 --> 00:06:49.759 Necrocide is the killing of death itself. It 00:06:49.759 --> 00:06:51.920 is the systematic desecration and annihilation 00:06:51.920 --> 00:06:54.699 of the body. Think about the Nazi infrastructure. 00:06:55.319 --> 00:06:58.379 Yes, they use gas chambers to kill. But the gas 00:06:58.379 --> 00:07:00.779 chambers were followed immediately by the crematoria, 00:07:00.800 --> 00:07:04.420 the industrial ovens. The smoke. The smoke. The 00:07:04.420 --> 00:07:07.259 ash. The goal of the Nazis wasn't just to end 00:07:07.259 --> 00:07:09.959 a biological life. That was only step one. Step 00:07:09.959 --> 00:07:12.639 two was to erase the physical evidence that a 00:07:12.639 --> 00:07:14.839 human being ever existed. To make them vanish. 00:07:15.060 --> 00:07:17.459 To turn a person into nothing but particulate 00:07:17.459 --> 00:07:19.699 matter. To scatter them so there was no grave, 00:07:19.720 --> 00:07:22.120 no marker, no place for a child to come and say 00:07:22.120 --> 00:07:24.240 Kaddish, the mourner's prayer. It was the ultimate 00:07:24.240 --> 00:07:26.620 erasure. It's not enough to kill you. I have 00:07:26.620 --> 00:07:28.459 to annihilate your death. So the trauma isn't 00:07:28.459 --> 00:07:31.360 just we died. The trauma is we were discarded. 00:07:31.480 --> 00:07:35.029 We were treated as waste. Precisely. The crematorium 00:07:35.029 --> 00:07:37.350 became the ultimate symbol of Jewish vulnerability. 00:07:37.990 --> 00:07:40.529 It meant you were unburied. You were abandoned. 00:07:40.709 --> 00:07:43.050 Your physical form, the only thing you leave 00:07:43.050 --> 00:07:46.790 behind, was just gone. And Dr. Iqbal argues that 00:07:46.790 --> 00:07:48.990 the phrase, never again, which we hear all the 00:07:48.990 --> 00:07:52.170 time, is usually interpreted as, never again 00:07:52.170 --> 00:07:55.069 will we be slaughtered. But deep in the theology, 00:07:55.310 --> 00:07:57.170 deep in the subconscious, it means something 00:07:57.170 --> 00:07:59.889 else. It means, never again will Jewish bodies 00:07:59.889 --> 00:08:03.259 be abandoned. That's the vow. That is the core 00:08:03.259 --> 00:08:06.379 trauma that October 7th reopened, the fear of 00:08:06.379 --> 00:08:08.579 being left behind, unburied, unaccounted for. 00:08:08.720 --> 00:08:11.279 That recontextualizes everything for me, honestly. 00:08:11.459 --> 00:08:15.079 When I saw those tags in 2024 or 2025, I just 00:08:15.079 --> 00:08:17.579 thought about solidarity with the living hostages. 00:08:17.759 --> 00:08:19.759 But you're saying it was a theological shield. 00:08:19.920 --> 00:08:21.920 It was a reaction to the threat of erasure. It's 00:08:21.920 --> 00:08:25.279 a deep, almost instinctual response. And it links 00:08:25.279 --> 00:08:27.759 directly to this central concept in Jewish law 00:08:27.759 --> 00:08:30.519 called kavod hamet. Kavod hamet. That translates 00:08:30.519 --> 00:08:33.139 to dignity of the dead. Right. And this is where 00:08:33.139 --> 00:08:34.899 the theology gets really beautiful and really 00:08:34.899 --> 00:08:36.879 specific. It's not just a nice idea. A bit of 00:08:36.879 --> 00:08:39.299 a vague feeling. Not at all. In Jewish theology, 00:08:39.659 --> 00:08:41.940 the body isn't just a shell. It's not like a 00:08:41.940 --> 00:08:43.860 banana peel you throw away once you eat the fruit. 00:08:44.039 --> 00:08:48.080 The body is a vessel. It housed the selem elekim, 00:08:48.220 --> 00:08:51.370 the image of God. The divine spark. The divine 00:08:51.370 --> 00:08:54.070 spark. So the body itself is sacred property. 00:08:54.529 --> 00:08:57.789 You don't own it. You're just its guardian. And 00:08:57.789 --> 00:09:00.409 because it's sacred, you don't burn it. You don't 00:09:00.409 --> 00:09:02.590 discard it. You don't leave it in a field. You 00:09:02.590 --> 00:09:05.230 return it to the earth intact with reverence. 00:09:05.269 --> 00:09:07.629 And there are specific rituals for this, right? 00:09:07.710 --> 00:09:09.350 It's not just a general feeling of respect. It's 00:09:09.350 --> 00:09:12.669 codified law. Oh, it's incredibly specific. The 00:09:12.669 --> 00:09:15.669 laws are detailed and ancient. And Dr. Iqbal 00:09:15.669 --> 00:09:18.429 highlights a few rituals that really, I think, 00:09:18.470 --> 00:09:21.090 explain the dog tags perfectly. Let's start with 00:09:21.090 --> 00:09:23.549 the practice of shamira. Shamira. OK, meaning 00:09:23.549 --> 00:09:27.570 guarding or watching. Yes, both. Guarding. From 00:09:27.570 --> 00:09:29.570 the moment a Jewish person dies until they are 00:09:29.570 --> 00:09:32.289 buried, they are never left alone. Not for a 00:09:32.289 --> 00:09:34.149 minute. You mean practically speaking, like in 00:09:34.149 --> 00:09:36.850 the morgue, in the funeral home. Someone is physically 00:09:36.850 --> 00:09:41.110 in the room. Literally in the room. 24 hours 00:09:41.110 --> 00:09:44.960 a day. There are volunteers. From the community, 00:09:45.039 --> 00:09:46.720 they're called shamrim guards. They organize 00:09:46.720 --> 00:09:49.820 shifts. They sit with the body, often reciting 00:09:49.820 --> 00:09:52.799 psalms. Why? What's the theological idea behind 00:09:52.799 --> 00:09:56.080 that? The theological idea is that the soul is 00:09:56.080 --> 00:09:58.659 in transition. It's confused. It's vulnerable. 00:09:58.820 --> 00:10:01.240 It's hovering between worlds. It doesn't quite 00:10:01.240 --> 00:10:03.220 know where it is. So you're keeping it company. 00:10:03.419 --> 00:10:05.340 You do not abandon your brother in the dark. 00:10:05.440 --> 00:10:08.019 You stay with them until they are safely in the 00:10:08.019 --> 00:10:10.379 earth. It's an act of profound community care. 00:10:10.580 --> 00:10:13.519 That is... Honestly, that's incredibly tender. 00:10:13.679 --> 00:10:15.840 The idea that you wouldn't let someone be lonely, 00:10:15.940 --> 00:10:18.240 even in death. It is. It's beautiful. And then 00:10:18.240 --> 00:10:20.500 you have Tahara, the ritual washing. This is 00:10:20.500 --> 00:10:22.980 another key piece. This isn't done by a mortician 00:10:22.980 --> 00:10:25.620 or a medical examiner in a clinical setting. 00:10:25.700 --> 00:10:28.159 Right. It's done by the Shevra Kedisha, which 00:10:28.159 --> 00:10:31.379 translates to the Holy Society. These are trained 00:10:31.379 --> 00:10:33.740 volunteers for the community. Men for men, women 00:10:33.740 --> 00:10:35.700 for women. So it's peers from your own community. 00:10:35.879 --> 00:10:38.990 Yes. Your neighbors, the person you see in the 00:10:38.990 --> 00:10:41.690 synagogue, they come and they perform this ritual. 00:10:41.789 --> 00:10:43.970 They wash the body, they cleanse it, they dress 00:10:43.970 --> 00:10:47.330 it in simple white shrouds. And get this, the 00:10:47.330 --> 00:10:49.809 source mentions that before they close the coffin, 00:10:50.120 --> 00:10:53.279 They ask the corpse for forgiveness. For forgiveness. 00:10:53.399 --> 00:10:56.179 Forgiveness for what? Yes. They apologize in 00:10:56.179 --> 00:10:58.460 case they move the body too roughly, in case 00:10:58.460 --> 00:11:00.460 their thoughts weren't pure enough during the 00:11:00.460 --> 00:11:02.720 ritual, in case they weren't gentle enough in 00:11:02.720 --> 00:11:06.179 handling this sacred vessel. Wow. That is the 00:11:06.179 --> 00:11:08.539 level of reverence we are talking about. The 00:11:08.539 --> 00:11:11.159 body is treated with absolute sanctity even after 00:11:11.159 --> 00:11:13.899 life has left it. More than sanctity. It's treated 00:11:13.899 --> 00:11:16.159 like a guest of honor on its final journey. So 00:11:16.159 --> 00:11:18.100 let's bring this all the way back to the dog 00:11:18.100 --> 00:11:21.059 tags. Dr. Iqbal makes a direct connection between 00:11:21.059 --> 00:11:24.039 Shamira, this concept of guarding, and the act 00:11:24.039 --> 00:11:26.440 of wearing the tags. How does that work? Well, 00:11:26.519 --> 00:11:28.980 think about the situation on October 7th and 00:11:28.980 --> 00:11:31.100 the months, the years that followed. You have 00:11:31.100 --> 00:11:33.840 hostages in Gaza. Some are alive, suffering in 00:11:33.840 --> 00:11:36.159 tunnels. Some are dead, their bodies held as 00:11:36.159 --> 00:11:39.080 bargaining chips. Miley's cannot sit Shamira. 00:11:39.240 --> 00:11:41.059 Of course not. They're not there. They cannot 00:11:41.059 --> 00:11:43.259 be there to guard them. They cannot perform Tahara. 00:11:43.399 --> 00:11:45.720 They cannot wash them. The body is abandoned. 00:11:46.000 --> 00:11:48.519 It is the nightmare scenario of the crematorium 00:11:48.519 --> 00:11:51.419 all over again. The ultimate vulnerability. So 00:11:51.419 --> 00:11:53.500 the community steps in. The community becomes 00:11:53.500 --> 00:11:56.740 the shamroom. That's the argument. By wearing 00:11:56.740 --> 00:11:59.360 that metal tag against your skin, by feeling 00:11:59.360 --> 00:12:01.639 the cold weight of it every single day when you 00:12:01.639 --> 00:12:03.879 wake up and when you go to sleep, you are performing. 00:12:04.480 --> 00:12:07.440 A continuous vigil. It's a remote guarding. It's 00:12:07.440 --> 00:12:09.759 a remote guarding. You are saying, physically, 00:12:09.980 --> 00:12:13.120 with your own body, I am not leaving you alone. 00:12:13.440 --> 00:12:16.240 Even if I can't be there, I am carrying you. 00:12:16.460 --> 00:12:19.419 My heart is captive with you. That gives me chills. 00:12:19.580 --> 00:12:22.200 It transforms the object from a political slogan, 00:12:22.360 --> 00:12:24.690 which is how I first saw it. Into a religious 00:12:24.690 --> 00:12:27.210 ritual. It's almost like a prayer you wear. It's 00:12:27.210 --> 00:12:30.490 a spiritual refusal to abandon the captive. It's 00:12:30.490 --> 00:12:33.710 a constant physical reminder of an unfulfilled 00:12:33.710 --> 00:12:35.870 religious obligation. And look at the inscription 00:12:35.870 --> 00:12:38.490 again. My heart is held captive. Right. That's 00:12:38.490 --> 00:12:40.610 not just poetry. It's not a metaphor. It ties 00:12:40.610 --> 00:12:43.250 directly into another major concept. Pity and 00:12:43.250 --> 00:12:47.049 Schwim. Pity and Schwim. The redemption of captives. 00:12:47.440 --> 00:12:49.340 I've heard that phrase used a lot in the news 00:12:49.340 --> 00:12:51.879 coverage. That's a commandment, right? A mitzvah. 00:12:51.960 --> 00:12:54.159 It's one of the highest mitzvahs in Judaism. 00:12:54.720 --> 00:12:58.019 It's considered a massive obligation. Maimonides, 00:12:58.159 --> 00:13:00.299 the great medieval scholar, laid this out very 00:13:00.299 --> 00:13:02.580 clearly. What did he say? He said that if you 00:13:02.580 --> 00:13:05.419 have money collected to build a brand new synagogue. 00:13:06.090 --> 00:13:08.490 A holy house of God, the center of community 00:13:08.490 --> 00:13:11.269 life, and you hear that a member of your community 00:13:11.269 --> 00:13:13.230 has been taken captive. You have to divert the 00:13:13.230 --> 00:13:15.429 funds. You are obligated to take that money, 00:13:15.570 --> 00:13:17.950 all of it, and use it to buy that prisoner's 00:13:17.950 --> 00:13:21.169 freedom instead. The human body takes precedence 00:13:21.169 --> 00:13:23.960 over the holy building. You paused the prayer 00:13:23.960 --> 00:13:26.419 to free the captive. That puts the last two years 00:13:26.419 --> 00:13:29.320 into perspective. The entire society was oriented 00:13:29.320 --> 00:13:31.899 around this specific commandment. The protests, 00:13:32.240 --> 00:13:34.779 the international diplomacy, the negotiations, 00:13:35.039 --> 00:13:38.000 the obsession. It was all pity and shvim in action. 00:13:38.200 --> 00:13:40.159 It was a whole nation trying to fulfill the highest 00:13:40.159 --> 00:13:42.919 commandment. And visually, Dr. Iqbal points out 00:13:42.919 --> 00:13:44.500 something very sharp that I hadn't considered. 00:13:44.659 --> 00:13:47.960 The dog tags. They recall the numbers tattooed 00:13:47.960 --> 00:13:50.279 on arms in the concentration camps. Yeah. I can 00:13:50.279 --> 00:13:52.299 see that. The marking of the body. It's a marking 00:13:52.299 --> 00:13:54.620 of the body. But this time it's voluntary. It's 00:13:54.620 --> 00:13:57.240 chosen. It's a symbol of commitment rather than 00:13:57.240 --> 00:14:00.039 a symbol of dehumanization. It's saying, you 00:14:00.039 --> 00:14:02.419 marked us to erase us. I will mark myself so 00:14:02.419 --> 00:14:04.759 I don't forget you. It's an act of defiance against 00:14:04.759 --> 00:14:07.100 that history. So we have this intense, historically 00:14:07.100 --> 00:14:10.740 loaded, deeply felt Jewish theology driving the 00:14:10.740 --> 00:14:13.379 need to get Randville back. But here is where 00:14:13.379 --> 00:14:15.860 the story shifts and where I think Dr. Iqbal's 00:14:15.860 --> 00:14:18.419 perspective is most valuable. This is the pivot 00:14:18.419 --> 00:14:20.659 point of the essay. He isn't writing this from 00:14:20.659 --> 00:14:22.779 inside the synagogue. He's a Muslim scholar. 00:14:23.000 --> 00:14:25.419 And he takes us into that dialogue room in Miami. 00:14:25.620 --> 00:14:28.460 Yes, the Miami interfaith sessions. This is where 00:14:28.460 --> 00:14:30.279 it gets really interesting. So you have Jewish 00:14:30.279 --> 00:14:32.860 participants wearing the tags, carrying all this 00:14:32.860 --> 00:14:35.279 trauma we just discussed. The Holocaust, the 00:14:35.279 --> 00:14:38.080 fear of abandonment, the sacred duty of burial. 00:14:38.240 --> 00:14:40.840 All of that is in the room with them. It's palpable. 00:14:41.139 --> 00:14:44.440 And across the table, you have Muslim participants 00:14:44.440 --> 00:14:47.159 from the Miami community. And I imagine the vibe 00:14:47.159 --> 00:14:50.000 in that room was tense. Kent is putting it mildly. 00:14:50.220 --> 00:14:53.220 The source describes a real wall going up almost 00:14:53.220 --> 00:14:56.059 immediately. The Muslim participants saw the 00:14:56.059 --> 00:14:59.480 tags and their guard went up. They saw a military 00:14:59.480 --> 00:15:02.279 symbol. So they got. They thought, militant, 00:15:02.279 --> 00:15:06.120 pro -war, you support the bombing of Gaza. You 00:15:06.120 --> 00:15:09.460 support the IDF. They saw a political threat 00:15:09.460 --> 00:15:11.980 sitting across from them, wearing a symbol of 00:15:11.980 --> 00:15:14.720 the army they saw as an oppressor. Which, let's 00:15:14.720 --> 00:15:16.899 be honest, is a completely logical assumption 00:15:16.899 --> 00:15:18.679 if you don't know the theology we just spent 00:15:18.679 --> 00:15:21.320 15 minutes unpacking. If you see a military -style 00:15:21.320 --> 00:15:23.700 ID tag, you think military. It's a perfectly 00:15:23.700 --> 00:15:26.679 logical conclusion. But then, because they were 00:15:26.679 --> 00:15:28.899 in a dialogue setting, the conversation happened. 00:15:28.980 --> 00:15:31.740 They started talking. And the Jewish participants... 00:15:32.009 --> 00:15:34.230 guided by the rabbi, didn't talk about military 00:15:34.230 --> 00:15:36.789 strategy. They didn't talk about borders or Hamas 00:15:36.789 --> 00:15:38.990 brigades. They talked about death. They talked 00:15:38.990 --> 00:15:41.049 about burial. They explained the fear of the 00:15:41.049 --> 00:15:43.690 crematorium. They explained Kavod Hamet, the 00:15:43.690 --> 00:15:46.409 need to return the body to the earth, the agonizing 00:15:46.409 --> 00:15:49.490 need to have a grave to visit, a place to mourn. 00:15:49.549 --> 00:15:51.210 And that's when the light bulb went on. That's 00:15:51.210 --> 00:15:53.970 when everything changed. Because that is a language 00:15:53.970 --> 00:15:56.570 Islam speaks fluently. Let's look at that. Does 00:15:56.570 --> 00:15:59.169 Islam have a similar concept of the body? I know 00:15:59.169 --> 00:16:01.370 there are very strict burial laws in Islam as 00:16:01.370 --> 00:16:04.169 well. It's remarkably similar. It's almost a 00:16:04.169 --> 00:16:07.549 mirror image in many ways. Dr. Iqbal quotes the 00:16:07.549 --> 00:16:09.490 famous verse from the Quran that said, whenever 00:16:09.490 --> 00:16:12.970 someone dies, indeed we belong to Allah and indeed 00:16:12.970 --> 00:16:16.070 to him we return. Acknowledging the source and 00:16:16.070 --> 00:16:18.769 the destination. Exactly. The theology here is 00:16:18.769 --> 00:16:21.850 that the body is alone from God. It's a trust. 00:16:22.330 --> 00:16:25.549 And the mana, you live in it, you care for it, 00:16:25.570 --> 00:16:27.909 but you don't own it. At the end of your life, 00:16:28.049 --> 00:16:30.210 you have a duty to return it to the creator in 00:16:30.210 --> 00:16:32.970 a dignified way. And the rituals, do they mirror 00:16:32.970 --> 00:16:34.889 the Jewish ones we talked about, like Tahara? 00:16:35.070 --> 00:16:37.429 It's almost a perfect parallel. In Islam, you 00:16:37.429 --> 00:16:39.370 have ghusl. This is the ritual washing of the 00:16:39.370 --> 00:16:41.389 body. It has to be done with extreme tenderness, 00:16:41.610 --> 00:16:43.730 usually by family members or people of the same 00:16:43.730 --> 00:16:46.720 gender. You use water. sometimes with camphor 00:16:46.720 --> 00:16:49.419 or scented oils. It's intimate and respectful. 00:16:49.639 --> 00:16:51.919 So again, it's the community, the family, not 00:16:51.919 --> 00:16:55.179 a stranger. Yes. The community takes care of 00:16:55.179 --> 00:16:58.259 its own. Then you have the kafon, the wrapping 00:16:58.259 --> 00:17:00.559 of the body in simple white cloth. Just like 00:17:00.559 --> 00:17:03.120 the Jewish shrouds. No fancy suits, no jewelry. 00:17:03.340 --> 00:17:06.579 Exactly. Rich or poor, king or pauper, everyone 00:17:06.579 --> 00:17:09.279 gets wrapped in simple, clean white cloth. It's 00:17:09.279 --> 00:17:12.440 the ultimate equalizer in death. And then the 00:17:12.440 --> 00:17:15.420 burial must be swift. Ideally within 24 hours. 00:17:15.680 --> 00:17:17.740 Okay. I've always wondered about that rush. I 00:17:17.740 --> 00:17:19.779 assumed it was a practical thing. You know, hygiene 00:17:19.779 --> 00:17:22.759 in hot climates, desert traditions. That's the 00:17:22.759 --> 00:17:24.880 secular explanation you often hear. And it might 00:17:24.880 --> 00:17:27.140 be part of it historically. But the theological 00:17:27.140 --> 00:17:29.579 reason is all about compassion for the deceased. 00:17:29.920 --> 00:17:32.799 How so? The belief is that the soul has separated 00:17:32.799 --> 00:17:35.579 from the body and is waiting to begin its journey 00:17:35.579 --> 00:17:39.200 back to its creator. Delaying the burial is seen 00:17:39.200 --> 00:17:41.990 as keeping the soul in a state of distress. of 00:17:41.990 --> 00:17:44.190 limbo it's like leaving someone waiting at a 00:17:44.190 --> 00:17:46.390 train station for days on end so it's an act 00:17:46.390 --> 00:17:48.730 of mercy it is an act of mercy to the deceased 00:17:48.730 --> 00:17:51.250 you hurry to bury them not to get rid of them 00:17:51.250 --> 00:17:53.309 but to help them on their journey to give them 00:17:53.309 --> 00:17:56.349 peace so when the muslim participants in miami 00:17:56.349 --> 00:17:58.369 heard the jewish participants talk about the 00:17:58.369 --> 00:18:01.890 agony of waiting of not being able to bury their 00:18:01.890 --> 00:18:05.130 dead for days weeks months years they understood 00:18:05.130 --> 00:18:10.109 viscerally In their bones, the political symbol 00:18:10.109 --> 00:18:13.950 of the dog tag just melted away. Yeah. Underneath 00:18:13.950 --> 00:18:16.589 it, they didn't see an enemy soldier or a political 00:18:16.589 --> 00:18:18.869 opponent. They saw a fellow human being with 00:18:18.869 --> 00:18:21.970 an unfulfilled sacred duty. They saw a shared 00:18:21.970 --> 00:18:24.190 religious obligation. They realized, wait a minute, 00:18:24.289 --> 00:18:26.309 you aren't wearing that because you want to destroy 00:18:26.309 --> 00:18:28.230 my people. You're wearing that because you were 00:18:28.230 --> 00:18:30.750 in agony over your need to bury your brother. 00:18:31.180 --> 00:18:33.759 That is such a powerful shift. It moves the entire 00:18:33.759 --> 00:18:36.819 conversation from my side versus your side to 00:18:36.819 --> 00:18:39.900 we're all humans who need to bury our dead. It 00:18:39.900 --> 00:18:41.839 humanizes the other through the shared experience 00:18:41.839 --> 00:18:45.119 of grief. It creates a bridge. Dr. Iqbal calls 00:18:45.119 --> 00:18:47.740 it a moment of understanding. Now, let's be crystal 00:18:47.740 --> 00:18:50.140 clear. It didn't solve the geopolitical crisis 00:18:50.140 --> 00:18:52.079 in the Middle East. Of course not. It didn't 00:18:52.079 --> 00:18:54.920 stop the bombs. But in that room amongst those 00:18:54.920 --> 00:18:57.059 specific people, it changed the temperature. 00:18:57.769 --> 00:19:00.089 It allowed them to see each other as human beings 00:19:00.089 --> 00:19:03.150 bound by similar sacred laws. It allowed them 00:19:03.150 --> 00:19:05.269 to speak. Which brings us to the actual logistics 00:19:05.269 --> 00:19:07.670 of this return. Because while the theology is 00:19:07.670 --> 00:19:09.509 beautiful and shared in a conference room in 00:19:09.509 --> 00:19:12.730 Miami, the reality on the ground in Gaza was 00:19:12.730 --> 00:19:16.150 messy. It was violent. It was complicated. Messy 00:19:16.150 --> 00:19:18.549 is a massive understatement. When we talk about 00:19:18.549 --> 00:19:20.230 the return of Rancho Vili this week, we aren't 00:19:20.230 --> 00:19:22.289 talking about a simple handover at a border crossing 00:19:22.289 --> 00:19:24.769 with a handshake and a somber moment. We are 00:19:24.769 --> 00:19:27.250 talking about a massive military and intelligence 00:19:27.250 --> 00:19:30.309 operation that took place inside a hostile war 00:19:30.309 --> 00:19:32.150 zone. The source material. mentioned something 00:19:32.150 --> 00:19:34.450 that I found staggering, and I had to read it 00:19:34.450 --> 00:19:36.150 a few times. It says that Israeli authorities 00:19:36.150 --> 00:19:39.329 spent days exhuming approximately 250 bodies 00:19:39.329 --> 00:19:42.529 from a cemetery in Gaza just to find him. Let's 00:19:42.529 --> 00:19:46.170 just pause on that. 250 graves opened. 250 bodies 00:19:46.170 --> 00:19:48.509 disturbed. My initial reaction to reading that 00:19:48.509 --> 00:19:50.890 was shock. I mean, it feels extreme. It feels 00:19:50.890 --> 00:19:52.990 like a violation, especially knowing what we 00:19:52.990 --> 00:19:54.710 now know about the Islamic reverence for the 00:19:54.710 --> 00:19:58.029 dead and the need for a swift, undisturbed burial. 00:19:58.269 --> 00:20:01.380 It is extreme. And from a purely secular perspective 00:20:01.380 --> 00:20:03.940 or a purely military strategy perspective, it 00:20:03.940 --> 00:20:07.140 makes zero sense. Think about the cost. Think 00:20:07.140 --> 00:20:09.819 about the resources. Why expend those resources? 00:20:10.140 --> 00:20:14.140 Why risk soldiers' lives in a hostile zone for 00:20:14.140 --> 00:20:17.200 a body? Why generate that much anger and hatred 00:20:17.200 --> 00:20:19.220 on the other side by digging up their cemetery? 00:20:19.500 --> 00:20:22.220 It seems completely irrational. It's totally 00:20:22.220 --> 00:20:24.519 irrational from a cost -benefit analysis. But 00:20:24.519 --> 00:20:26.579 if you view it through the lens of necrocide 00:20:26.579 --> 00:20:28.839 and Kavod Hammett... Then it becomes a religious 00:20:28.839 --> 00:20:31.319 imperative. It's not a choice. It's an obligation 00:20:31.319 --> 00:20:33.599 that supersedes almost everything else. You cannot 00:20:33.599 --> 00:20:35.970 leave the body behind. The idea of the mass grave 00:20:35.970 --> 00:20:38.890 or the unknown grave is the ultimate nightmare 00:20:38.890 --> 00:20:41.710 scenario from Jewish history. So the state acts 00:20:41.710 --> 00:20:44.509 on it. The state, acting on this deep subconscious 00:20:44.509 --> 00:20:47.470 theological impulse, goes to lengths that seem 00:20:47.470 --> 00:20:49.569 irrational to the outside world to recover one 00:20:49.569 --> 00:20:51.609 single body. And it's not just about October 00:20:51.609 --> 00:20:53.809 7th either, is it? As you mentioned, there's 00:20:53.809 --> 00:20:56.490 a pattern here in Israeli history. A long, consistent 00:20:56.490 --> 00:21:00.309 pattern. Dr. Iqbal points to Zachary Baumel. 00:21:00.819 --> 00:21:03.500 He was an Israeli tank commander missing in action 00:21:03.500 --> 00:21:06.420 in the first Lebanon war in 1982. Right, 1982. 00:21:06.920 --> 00:21:09.759 His body was missing for 37 years. 37 years. 00:21:10.240 --> 00:21:12.119 Most nations would have declared him dead and 00:21:12.119 --> 00:21:15.099 moved on decades ago. Israel kept looking. They 00:21:15.099 --> 00:21:17.480 ran intelligence operations for decades. They 00:21:17.480 --> 00:21:19.420 eventually got his remains back from Syria in 00:21:19.420 --> 00:21:23.019 2019 via Russia. 37 years. Or Eli Cohen, the 00:21:23.019 --> 00:21:25.759 famous spy executed in Damascus in the 1960s. 00:21:26.019 --> 00:21:28.640 To this day, Israel is still trying to get his 00:21:28.640 --> 00:21:31.460 remains back. Decades of secret negotiations 00:21:31.460 --> 00:21:34.680 just to get his bones back. Time doesn't diminish 00:21:34.680 --> 00:21:36.960 the obligation. It's a debt that never expires. 00:21:37.180 --> 00:21:39.680 But here's the twist in the Ranjvili story that 00:21:39.680 --> 00:21:42.079 Dr. Iqbal really highlights. The source says 00:21:42.079 --> 00:21:44.220 Hamas actually provided the information to find 00:21:44.220 --> 00:21:46.720 him. This is the fascinating and deeply messy 00:21:46.720 --> 00:21:49.559 cooperation of enemies. This, in turn, didn't 00:21:49.559 --> 00:21:51.420 happen in a vacuum. It wasn't just an Israeli 00:21:51.420 --> 00:21:53.460 raid. No, it was part of the deal. It was part 00:21:53.460 --> 00:21:56.400 of the ceasefire negotiations. It was entangled 00:21:56.400 --> 00:21:59.019 with the opening of the Rafah crossing, with 00:21:59.019 --> 00:22:01.160 the release of Palestinian prisoners with aid 00:22:01.160 --> 00:22:03.539 shipments. So it was a bargaining chip. His body 00:22:03.539 --> 00:22:06.200 was a bargaining chip. Explicitly. And Dr. Iqbal 00:22:06.200 --> 00:22:08.500 doesn't shy away from that at all. He says both 00:22:08.500 --> 00:22:11.500 sides instrumentalized a sacred duty. What does 00:22:11.500 --> 00:22:14.460 he mean by that? He means Hamas used the body 00:22:14.460 --> 00:22:17.039 as leverage to prove they were serious about 00:22:17.039 --> 00:22:19.400 the ceasefire terms or to get more prisoners 00:22:19.400 --> 00:22:23.000 released or more aid in. Israel used the ceasefire 00:22:23.000 --> 00:22:26.349 as leverage. to get the body. It was raw political 00:22:26.349 --> 00:22:29.769 currency. That feels so cynical. Using a corks 00:22:29.769 --> 00:22:31.950 as currency. It is cynical. It's ugly. It's the 00:22:31.950 --> 00:22:34.730 reality of war. But Dr. Iqbal finds a sliver 00:22:34.730 --> 00:22:37.150 of hope, a silver lining, even in the cynicism. 00:22:37.529 --> 00:22:39.890 What's the silver lining there? He argues that 00:22:39.890 --> 00:22:42.450 by using the body as currency, both sides were 00:22:42.450 --> 00:22:44.690 admitting that returning the dead matters. How 00:22:44.690 --> 00:22:46.789 so? It feels like the opposite. Think about it. 00:22:46.829 --> 00:22:49.650 For something to be valuable currency, both parties 00:22:49.650 --> 00:22:53.119 have to agree on its value. If Hamas didn't care 00:22:53.119 --> 00:22:55.680 about burial, they wouldn't have kept the body. 00:22:55.799 --> 00:22:57.279 They wouldn't have tracked where it was buried. 00:22:57.339 --> 00:22:59.039 They would have just left it in the field. Okay, 00:22:59.099 --> 00:23:01.099 I see that. And if Israel didn't care, they wouldn't 00:23:01.099 --> 00:23:04.240 have negotiated for it. So even in a war where 00:23:04.240 --> 00:23:07.519 there is almost zero good faith, where both sides 00:23:07.519 --> 00:23:10.940 view the other as inhuman monsters, they both 00:23:10.940 --> 00:23:13.960 implicitly agreed on one thing. This body is 00:23:13.960 --> 00:23:16.799 valuable. This body deserves to go home. It's 00:23:16.799 --> 00:23:19.319 a weirdly profound agreement in the middle of 00:23:19.319 --> 00:23:22.039 a bloodbath, a shared recognition of a moral 00:23:22.039 --> 00:23:25.420 violation. We know keeping this body here isn't 00:23:25.420 --> 00:23:28.279 right. Exactly. Both sides know that keeping 00:23:28.279 --> 00:23:31.079 a body from its grave is a transgression and 00:23:31.079 --> 00:23:33.460 that shared knowledge, even when it's used cynically, 00:23:33.579 --> 00:23:36.119 is a tiny, tiny point of light. It's a shared 00:23:36.119 --> 00:23:38.700 moral language. But we have to acknowledge the 00:23:38.700 --> 00:23:41.539 tragedy here, too. The deep, painful asymmetry 00:23:41.539 --> 00:23:44.319 of this whole situation. Because this story isn't 00:23:44.319 --> 00:23:47.059 just about one family getting closure. No. And 00:23:47.059 --> 00:23:50.039 Dr. Iqbal is very clear and very insistent on 00:23:50.039 --> 00:23:53.339 this point. Rangevili goes home. He gets a state 00:23:53.339 --> 00:23:56.599 funeral. His family sits Shiva. They have a grave 00:23:56.599 --> 00:23:59.269 to visit. They get certainty. Which is invaluable. 00:23:59.750 --> 00:24:02.349 Invaluable. Meanwhile, the operation to find 00:24:02.349 --> 00:24:04.910 him involved deking up a cemetery and disturbing 00:24:04.910 --> 00:24:08.609 250 Palestinian graves. And at the same time, 00:24:08.730 --> 00:24:11.390 thousands of Palestinians are still missing under 00:24:11.390 --> 00:24:13.910 the rubble in Gaza. Their families have no closure. 00:24:14.069 --> 00:24:16.009 They don't have a body to wash. They don't have 00:24:16.009 --> 00:24:18.410 a grave to visit. Their cemeteries may have been 00:24:18.410 --> 00:24:21.930 bulldozed or disturbed. The inequality of who 00:24:21.930 --> 00:24:24.960 gets to mourn is just. It's stark. It's a gut 00:24:24.960 --> 00:24:27.420 -wrenching contrast. One family gets certainty 00:24:27.420 --> 00:24:29.839 while thousands get more chaos and desecration. 00:24:30.119 --> 00:24:32.339 And that tension, that painful asymmetry, leads 00:24:32.339 --> 00:24:34.519 us to the central paradox of this entire deep 00:24:34.519 --> 00:24:36.779 dive. The question that really haunts this whole 00:24:36.779 --> 00:24:38.619 episode. The question of the living versus the 00:24:38.619 --> 00:24:42.500 dead. Exactly. Dr. Iqbal poses this provocative, 00:24:42.640 --> 00:24:45.660 deeply uncomfortable question. If we invest this 00:24:45.660 --> 00:24:47.579 much moral weight, this much energy, this much 00:24:47.579 --> 00:24:50.559 resource in the dead, if we're willing to negotiate... 00:24:50.759 --> 00:24:54.059 Pause fighting, exhume graves, risk soldiers 00:24:54.059 --> 00:24:56.319 and spend millions to bring back one corpse. 00:24:57.019 --> 00:25:00.220 Why don't we invest as much in the living? Oof, 00:25:00.380 --> 00:25:03.859 that hits hard. Because we don't. We don't. It 00:25:03.859 --> 00:25:06.380 exposes a massive failure, a collective moral 00:25:06.380 --> 00:25:09.019 failure. Because here is the great irony. Both 00:25:09.019 --> 00:25:12.359 traditions, Judaism and Islam, actually prioritize 00:25:12.359 --> 00:25:15.279 life over death, unequivocally. Let's look at 00:25:15.279 --> 00:25:17.460 the Jewish side first, the concept of pikish 00:25:17.460 --> 00:25:20.289 nefesh. Pekesh nefesh, the saving of a life. 00:25:20.349 --> 00:25:22.170 In Jewish law, this is the trump card. It's the 00:25:22.170 --> 00:25:24.930 highest value. It overrides almost every other 00:25:24.930 --> 00:25:26.710 commandment in the Torah. Almost everything. 00:25:26.970 --> 00:25:28.970 Almost everything except for murder, idolatry, 00:25:28.970 --> 00:25:31.430 and certain sexual sins. You can break the Sabbath 00:25:31.430 --> 00:25:33.430 to save a life. You can eat non -kosher food 00:25:33.430 --> 00:25:35.829 if you're starving to save a life. You can drive 00:25:35.829 --> 00:25:38.130 a car on Yom Kippur, the holiest day of the year, 00:25:38.170 --> 00:25:39.769 to get someone to the hospital. And the Talmud 00:25:39.769 --> 00:25:42.349 has that famous saying. Whoever saves one life, 00:25:42.450 --> 00:25:46.480 it is as if he saved an entire world. the value 00:25:46.480 --> 00:25:49.400 of single human life is infinite. And in Islam, 00:25:49.579 --> 00:25:52.539 is it the same? It is almost identical. The Quran 00:25:52.539 --> 00:25:56.240 in Surah 5, verse 32 says, Whoever kills a soul, 00:25:56.480 --> 00:26:00.180 it is as if he had slain mankind entirely. And 00:26:00.180 --> 00:26:02.640 whoever saves one, it is as if he had saved mankind 00:26:02.640 --> 00:26:05.480 entirely. The exact same idea. Saving one life 00:26:05.480 --> 00:26:08.279 is like saving all of humanity. Precisely. And 00:26:08.279 --> 00:26:09.819 a teaching of the Prophet Muhammad says that 00:26:09.819 --> 00:26:11.519 the first question a person will be asked on 00:26:11.519 --> 00:26:13.859 the Day of Judgment is about bloodshed. Did you 00:26:13.859 --> 00:26:16.420 spill innocent blood? The sanctity of life is 00:26:16.420 --> 00:26:18.960 paramount. So the theology in both faiths is 00:26:18.960 --> 00:26:22.200 crystal clear. Life comes first. The living take 00:26:22.200 --> 00:26:24.380 precedence over the dead. The theology is clear. 00:26:24.599 --> 00:26:27.180 But the politics failed. The human beings failed. 00:26:27.339 --> 00:26:29.700 That's the tragedy Dr. Iqbal highlights. The 00:26:29.700 --> 00:26:31.640 return of Ranjili was a triumph of Kabod Hama 00:26:31.640 --> 00:26:33.980 dignity for the dead. We nailed that part. We 00:26:33.980 --> 00:26:36.019 fulfilled that obligation. But the war itself, 00:26:36.359 --> 00:26:39.200 the 843 days of fighting. It was a catastrophic 00:26:39.200 --> 00:26:41.819 failure of Pekwash Nefesh. Failure of Koran 5 00:26:41.819 --> 00:26:44.569 .32. We fail to save the thousands of worlds 00:26:44.569 --> 00:26:46.769 that were lost on both sides. He mentions another 00:26:46.769 --> 00:26:50.730 concept from Judaism, tzitzal emet. He translates 00:26:50.730 --> 00:26:54.130 it as true kindness. Yes. In Jewish thought, 00:26:54.410 --> 00:26:57.710 caring for the dead, washing the body, burying 00:26:57.710 --> 00:27:00.769 it, mourning, is considered the truest kindness. 00:27:01.190 --> 00:27:04.369 Why true? Because the dead person can't pee you 00:27:04.369 --> 00:27:06.369 back. They can't write you a thank you note. 00:27:06.509 --> 00:27:09.670 They can't do you a favor later. It is pure altruism. 00:27:09.730 --> 00:27:12.029 You do it simply because it is the right thing 00:27:12.029 --> 00:27:14.190 to do for a fellow human being. It's an act of 00:27:14.190 --> 00:27:17.190 grace. It's a beautiful concept, doing good with 00:27:17.190 --> 00:27:20.829 absolutely no expectation of reward. It is. But 00:27:20.829 --> 00:27:22.670 the challenge Dr. Ipbal throws down at the end 00:27:22.670 --> 00:27:25.049 of his essay is this. Can we extend that true 00:27:25.049 --> 00:27:27.599 kindness to the living? Can we act with that 00:27:27.599 --> 00:27:29.579 same selfless grace towards people who are still 00:27:29.579 --> 00:27:31.960 breathing? Can we treat the living populations, 00:27:32.220 --> 00:27:34.559 the people in found, this destroyed Kibbutzim, 00:27:34.660 --> 00:27:37.680 the people in Khan Yunus, the refugees in Tenzin 00:27:37.680 --> 00:27:40.299 Rafa, with that same level of sanctity we afford 00:27:40.299 --> 00:27:42.559 a corpse? Because right now it seems like we 00:27:42.559 --> 00:27:44.799 treat the dead with more reverence than the refugees. 00:27:45.299 --> 00:27:48.299 That's the paradox, isn't it? We honor the body 00:27:48.299 --> 00:27:50.759 once the life has left it. We treat the empty 00:27:50.759 --> 00:27:53.299 vessel like a holy object. We move heaven and 00:27:53.299 --> 00:27:55.809 earth to bring it home. But while the life is 00:27:55.809 --> 00:27:58.809 in it, while the telemelechim, the image of God, 00:27:58.990 --> 00:28:01.490 is still breathing inside it. We allow it to 00:28:01.490 --> 00:28:03.970 be destroyed. We allow it to starve. We allow 00:28:03.970 --> 00:28:06.589 it to be bombed. We fail it. So where do we go 00:28:06.589 --> 00:28:10.130 from here? I mean, it feels hopeless. The clock 00:28:10.130 --> 00:28:13.710 has stopped. The body is home. The war. Well, 00:28:13.769 --> 00:28:15.710 the war shifts. It changes, but it doesn't end. 00:28:16.509 --> 00:28:20.039 Is there a lesson here? Dr. Iqbal suggests that 00:28:20.039 --> 00:28:22.140 we can actually use this shared theology of death 00:28:22.140 --> 00:28:24.700 to build peace. He does. He refuses to end on 00:28:24.700 --> 00:28:27.660 a hopeless note, which I appreciate. He suggests 00:28:27.660 --> 00:28:30.559 that honoring the dead can be a bridge. How does 00:28:30.559 --> 00:28:32.180 that work practically? Because it feels like 00:28:32.180 --> 00:28:35.000 a nice poetic idea, but how does it work in the 00:28:35.000 --> 00:28:37.119 real world between enemies? Well, think about 00:28:37.119 --> 00:28:39.440 the universality of grief. It's the one thing 00:28:39.440 --> 00:28:41.920 everyone in this conflict shares. Every single 00:28:41.920 --> 00:28:44.599 person. Everyone has lost someone. Everyone has 00:28:44.599 --> 00:28:47.130 a story of a funeral. Or the lack of a funeral. 00:28:47.190 --> 00:28:49.069 Because it's a shared experience. It's the most 00:28:49.069 --> 00:28:52.470 fundamental shared experience. Dr. Iqbal suggests 00:28:52.470 --> 00:28:55.369 that organizations on both sides could work together 00:28:55.369 --> 00:28:57.769 on the dignified treatment of the deceased. Like 00:28:57.769 --> 00:29:00.230 a joint burial commission, something like that. 00:29:00.289 --> 00:29:02.970 Exactly. Or a joint project on identifying remains 00:29:02.970 --> 00:29:06.369 from past conflicts. Or mapping cemeteries to 00:29:06.369 --> 00:29:08.730 ensure they're protected. It's a space where 00:29:08.730 --> 00:29:11.430 enemies can recognize each other's humanity without 00:29:11.430 --> 00:29:13.950 having to agree on borders or security arrangements 00:29:13.950 --> 00:29:16.779 yet. You don't have to agree on who owns Jerusalem 00:29:16.779 --> 00:29:19.880 to agree that a mother should be able to bury 00:29:19.880 --> 00:29:21.779 her son. That's it right there. It's a starting 00:29:21.779 --> 00:29:25.059 point. It's a nonpolitical human level task that 00:29:25.059 --> 00:29:28.599 builds a tiny reservoir of trust where none exists. 00:29:28.880 --> 00:29:31.539 And he brings up some deep vocabulary from both 00:29:31.539 --> 00:29:33.960 traditions that could help. He says we use political 00:29:33.960 --> 00:29:36.980 language too much and it fails us. This is so 00:29:36.980 --> 00:29:39.019 important. We're stuck in the language of politics. 00:29:39.400 --> 00:29:42.400 Two state solution. Demilitarized zones, security 00:29:42.400 --> 00:29:45.059 envelopes, that's the language of policy papers. 00:29:45.240 --> 00:29:47.519 It's sterile. It has no heart. It has no heart. 00:29:48.140 --> 00:29:50.480 Dr. Iqbal says we need to use theological language 00:29:50.480 --> 00:29:52.559 because that's what speaks to the people's souls 00:29:52.559 --> 00:29:54.859 in this region. These are religious societies, 00:29:55.059 --> 00:29:56.960 whether we in the secular West like it or not. 00:29:57.119 --> 00:29:59.799 So from the Islamic side, he lists a few key 00:29:59.799 --> 00:30:03.740 terms. The first is Rama. Rama, mercy. It's one 00:30:03.740 --> 00:30:05.700 of the primary names of God in Islam, Araman, 00:30:05.900 --> 00:30:09.839 the all -merciful. To act with Rama is to emulate 00:30:09.839 --> 00:30:13.369 God. but also sul, which means reconciliation. 00:30:13.410 --> 00:30:16.029 It's an active process of mending broken relationships. 00:30:16.369 --> 00:30:19.430 And a very pragmatic concept he mentioned called 00:30:19.430 --> 00:30:21.990 maslach. Maslach. I find this one fascinating. 00:30:22.170 --> 00:30:24.309 It means public interest or the common good. 00:30:24.710 --> 00:30:27.089 In Islamic jurisprudence, it allows for leaders 00:30:27.089 --> 00:30:29.710 to make treaties and compromises, even with enemies, 00:30:29.950 --> 00:30:32.009 if those treaties serve the greater good of the 00:30:32.009 --> 00:30:34.609 community and prevent further harm. So making 00:30:34.609 --> 00:30:37.250 peace with an enemy isn't surrender. It's maslach. 00:30:37.710 --> 00:30:39.970 It's a wise and religiously sanctioned act to 00:30:39.970 --> 00:30:41.670 protect the community from further death and 00:30:41.670 --> 00:30:43.849 destruction. It gives a religious permission 00:30:43.849 --> 00:30:46.410 structure to stop fighting. And the Quran verse, 00:30:46.490 --> 00:30:50.069 he quotes, if they incline to peace, then incline 00:30:50.069 --> 00:30:53.029 to it. Exactly. It's a command, not a suggestion. 00:30:53.750 --> 00:30:57.130 If the other side offers a hand, you are religiously 00:30:57.130 --> 00:30:59.529 obligated to take it. And from the Jewish side, 00:30:59.690 --> 00:31:03.779 the key term is, of course, shalom. Shalom. But 00:31:03.779 --> 00:31:06.400 not just as a passive greeting like hello or 00:31:06.400 --> 00:31:09.720 goodbye. The Psalms say, seek peace and pursue 00:31:09.720 --> 00:31:15.900 it. The Hebrew is, The rabbis point out something 00:31:15.900 --> 00:31:18.619 fascinating about this verse. For most commandments, 00:31:18.839 --> 00:31:21.319 you wait for the opportunity to come to you. 00:31:21.400 --> 00:31:23.859 You wait for the Sabbath to arrive. You wait 00:31:23.859 --> 00:31:26.750 for a poor person to ask for charity. But peace. 00:31:26.910 --> 00:31:28.509 You have to chase it. You have to run after it. 00:31:28.509 --> 00:31:30.349 You have to hunt it down. It requires active, 00:31:30.410 --> 00:31:32.490 relentless effort. You can't just sit back and 00:31:32.490 --> 00:31:34.349 hope for peace to happen. I love that image. 00:31:34.490 --> 00:31:37.309 Running after peace, not just waiting for a treaty 00:31:37.309 --> 00:31:40.049 to be signed by politicians. And Dr. Iqbal makes 00:31:40.049 --> 00:31:42.230 a crucial distinction here, which is maybe the 00:31:42.230 --> 00:31:45.369 most important takeaway. He warns against conflating 00:31:45.369 --> 00:31:47.450 the religion with the nationalism. The trap we 00:31:47.450 --> 00:31:50.420 all fall into. All the time. He says we have 00:31:50.420 --> 00:31:52.539 to be so careful to distinguish Jewish theology 00:31:52.539 --> 00:31:55.519 from Israeli government policy. They are not 00:31:55.519 --> 00:31:58.039 the same thing. And we have to distinguish Islamic 00:31:58.039 --> 00:32:00.920 theology from Hamas or Palestinian resistance. 00:32:01.240 --> 00:32:03.440 They're not the same thing. Right. When we collapse 00:32:03.440 --> 00:32:05.539 those identities, we lose all the wisdom we've 00:32:05.539 --> 00:32:07.400 just been talking about. We lose the wisdom. 00:32:07.440 --> 00:32:10.619 We just get tribalism. We just get my team versus 00:32:10.619 --> 00:32:13.460 your team. He points out that the diasporic communities 00:32:13.460 --> 00:32:17.160 in Miami, in London, in Toronto have a special 00:32:17.160 --> 00:32:19.599 role here. Because they aren't on the front lines. 00:32:19.700 --> 00:32:21.559 They aren't in the bomb shelters or the refugee 00:32:21.559 --> 00:32:23.900 camps. They have a bit of distance. They have 00:32:23.900 --> 00:32:26.359 the luxury of safety. And with that luxury comes 00:32:26.359 --> 00:32:29.039 a responsibility. They can model what it looks 00:32:29.039 --> 00:32:31.539 like to hold multiple truths at the same time. 00:32:31.680 --> 00:32:35.039 To say, I believe in Israeli security and Palestinian 00:32:35.039 --> 00:32:39.339 dignity. To say, I mourn the Jewish dead and 00:32:39.339 --> 00:32:42.869 the Muslim dead. If it can happen in a dialogue 00:32:42.869 --> 00:32:46.829 room in Miami, if those dog tags can, for a moment, 00:32:46.849 --> 00:32:48.690 become a point of connection instead of division, 00:32:48.930 --> 00:32:50.650 maybe eventually it can happen in Jerusalem. 00:32:50.890 --> 00:32:54.349 It's about small acts of recognition. Yes. Grand 00:32:54.349 --> 00:32:57.259 peace treaties often fail. because there is no 00:32:57.259 --> 00:32:59.119 trust on the ground. They're imposed from the 00:32:59.119 --> 00:33:02.579 top down. But small acts like returning a body, 00:33:02.700 --> 00:33:05.680 like helping to identify a grave, like sharing 00:33:05.680 --> 00:33:08.440 a meal build trust from the bottom up. Dr. Iqbal 00:33:08.440 --> 00:33:10.460 points to history. He says we have to remember 00:33:10.460 --> 00:33:12.859 this isn't impossible. Look at Northern Ireland. 00:33:13.119 --> 00:33:15.059 Catholics and Protestants who slaughtered each 00:33:15.059 --> 00:33:17.339 other for generations. That's right. Now they 00:33:17.339 --> 00:33:20.119 share a government. Look at South Africa. Black 00:33:20.119 --> 00:33:22.980 and white. Apartheid seemed insurmountable. Or 00:33:22.980 --> 00:33:25.380 France and Germany. They killed each other by 00:33:25.380 --> 00:33:28.500 the millions twice in a single century. It was 00:33:28.500 --> 00:33:30.500 unimaginable that they would ever be allies. 00:33:30.700 --> 00:33:32.859 Now they share a currency and an open border. 00:33:33.539 --> 00:33:36.740 Reconciliation happens. It's a long, painful 00:33:36.740 --> 00:33:39.740 process, but it happens. And it always starts 00:33:39.740 --> 00:33:42.279 when you begin to see the other as human. And 00:33:42.279 --> 00:33:44.299 ironically, as we've seen today, seeing how the 00:33:44.299 --> 00:33:47.319 other mourns their dead is often... The first 00:33:47.319 --> 00:33:49.559 most powerful step in seeing them is human. When 00:33:49.559 --> 00:33:52.000 you see a mother crying over a grave, you don't 00:33:52.000 --> 00:33:54.119 see a terrorist or an oppressor. You see a mother. 00:33:54.440 --> 00:33:57.460 And that changes everything. So as we wrap up, 00:33:57.559 --> 00:34:00.119 let's go back to that image in the intro. The 00:34:00.119 --> 00:34:02.740 dog tags. They are being retired now. The source 00:34:02.740 --> 00:34:04.480 mentions they are being collected, being placed 00:34:04.480 --> 00:34:06.819 in repositories and synagogues. They are becoming 00:34:06.819 --> 00:34:09.860 sacred objects of history. Artifacts of a time 00:34:09.860 --> 00:34:11.880 of waiting. They are being taken off necks and 00:34:11.880 --> 00:34:15.179 put into archives. And the clock in Tel Aviv 00:34:15.179 --> 00:34:18.099 has stopped. The digital numbers are dark. That 00:34:18.099 --> 00:34:21.380 constant ticking reminder is gone. It has. The 00:34:21.380 --> 00:34:24.300 count is over. The vigil for Ranjivilli is over. 00:34:24.480 --> 00:34:27.300 So the question Dr. Iqbal leaves us with, the 00:34:27.300 --> 00:34:30.139 question for all of us is, what did we learn 00:34:30.139 --> 00:34:33.699 from these last 843 days? What did we learn from 00:34:33.699 --> 00:34:36.840 these dog tags? Did we only learn how to recover 00:34:36.840 --> 00:34:39.090 the dead? Did we get really good at fulfilling 00:34:39.090 --> 00:34:41.510 Kavod Hamet? Did we perfect the art of being 00:34:41.510 --> 00:34:43.690 efficient undertakers after the fact? Or did 00:34:43.690 --> 00:34:45.510 we learn how to protect the living? Did we learn 00:34:45.510 --> 00:34:47.570 anything about Pekwash Nefesh? It's a haunting 00:34:47.570 --> 00:34:50.489 choice because we can't do both, it seems. It 00:34:50.489 --> 00:34:53.150 feels like we have to choose. It does. The theology 00:34:53.150 --> 00:34:56.210 is there. The resources are there. The true kindness, 00:34:56.369 --> 00:34:58.909 the cheese of Shalomet exists. We saw it in the 00:34:58.909 --> 00:35:01.150 exhumation. We saw it in the negotiation. The 00:35:01.150 --> 00:35:03.610 machinery of care exists. We just have to decide 00:35:03.610 --> 00:35:05.469 to apply it to the people who are still breathing. 00:35:05.820 --> 00:35:09.380 The image of Randville returning home. It's tragic, 00:35:09.539 --> 00:35:12.119 but it's also a reminder of what humans owe each 00:35:12.119 --> 00:35:14.739 other. That even in the midst of total war, we 00:35:14.739 --> 00:35:18.440 can pause for this one sacred act. He was a defender. 00:35:18.840 --> 00:35:22.480 He was a son. And in the end, his return was 00:35:22.480 --> 00:35:25.039 a moment where the war stopped, just for a second, 00:35:25.199 --> 00:35:29.090 to honor a human life that was lost. Dr. Iqbal's 00:35:29.090 --> 00:35:31.809 final words in the essay are beautiful. He says, 00:35:31.929 --> 00:35:34.610 may the memory be a blessing and may the wisdom 00:35:34.610 --> 00:35:36.650 of the dead teach the living how to stop the 00:35:36.650 --> 00:35:39.170 war. That's the hope, isn't it? That the dead 00:35:39.170 --> 00:35:41.789 can teach us what we couldn't seem to learn on 00:35:41.789 --> 00:35:43.630 our own. Thank you for listening to this deep 00:35:43.630 --> 00:35:45.849 dive. It's a heavy one, I know, but I think an 00:35:45.849 --> 00:35:47.869 important one. As you go about your week, maybe 00:35:47.869 --> 00:35:50.090 think about that clock. Think about all the energy, 00:35:50.230 --> 00:35:52.329 all the focus, all the national will it took 00:35:52.329 --> 00:35:54.730 to stop it. And just think about where else that 00:35:54.730 --> 00:35:56.489 energy could go. Take care, everyone. See you 00:35:56.489 --> 00:35:56.829 next time.