2 Friday, February 28, 1986

THE DETROIT JEWISH NEWS

PURELY COMMENTARY

PHILIP SLOMOVITZ

Nathan `Anatoly' Shcharansky: Modern Hero Of Pidyon Shvu'im'

community. In Jewish law, it is
placed above the important duty
of feeding and clothing the poor.
Special collections were made for
extraordinary communal ex-
penses, such as the support of or-
phan children and fitting out a
poverty-stricken girl with clothing
and a dowry (hakhnasath kallah),
but particularly for the ransom of
captives. The Jewish people of an-
cient and medieval times were
frequently subjected to capture by
enemies who extorted ransoms
from the communities.
In the Seventeenth Century,
the Jewish community of Venice
organized a society for redeeming
the captives

Ransom a captive before you feed the
poor. No act of charity is greater: and
money collected for any purpose what-
soever may be used as ransom - even if
collected to build a syrutgoguP.
Joseph Caro, Shulchan Aruch'
Every moment delayed in ransoming a
captive is like shedding his blood.
Joseph Caro, Shulchan Aruch

He is now bearing the Hebrew name
Nathan. That's one of the symbols of
Anatoly Shcharansky's attainment of
freedom.
He is now the most modern achiever
of the most principled Jewish obligation:
that of "Ransoming the Captives." The
meaning of the goal applied in his case,
except that in his case it is the freeing of a
captive, the restoring of justice in which
all of Jewry had a share with mankind as
the total collaborator.
This is, indeed, what has been at-
tained: that Israel and world Jewry, the
United States and libertarians
everywhere, shared in the demand for
Nathan's liberation.
The basic ideal, one of the most oblig-
atory in the Jewish tradition, was bril-
liantly defined by Dr. Philip Birnbaun in
his Jewish Concepts. He is one of the most
brilliant Jewish scholars of our time. His
idealization of "Tzaavot — Wills" is
shared with our readers, in the adjoining
columns. On the present occasion of the
freeing of Nathan Shcharansky, his "Pi-
dyon Shvu'im — Ransoming the Captives"
demands retention, added emphasis, a
sharing with the generation that has con-
tributed toward the battle for justice for
him and must ever be remembered. Here
is the text of it in Birnbaum's definitive
essay:

(hevrath pidyon
shevuyim), for

6.1 :jowl.? i

•
the liberation of Jews incarcer-
ated by pirates. Many other com-
munities, following the example of
Venice, appointed special par-
nasim (communal wardens) to col-
lect funds for the purpose of ran-
soming the captives. The commu-
nity was obliged to pay ransom for
any of its members who sold him-
self into slavery or was taken cap-
tive for debts he owed. It was not
obliged to pay all that was de-
manded for the ransom of a
scholar.
According to a tannaitic
statement, if a man and his father
and his teacher were incarcer-
ated, he takes precedence over his
teacher in procuring ransom,
while his teacher takes prece-
dence over his father; that is, he
must procure the' ransom of his
teacher before that of his father;
but his mother takes precedence
over all of them. A scholar takes
precedence over a king, for if a
scholar dies there is none to re-
place him, while all are eligible for

Ransom Of Captives

The ransoming of captives is
considered to be one of the most
sacred obligations of a Jewish

Exemplary Tzavaot (Wills)

kingship (Horayoth 13a).
The Talmud relates that when
Rabbi Joshua ben Hananya vis-
ited Rome, he was told that a
handsome-looking boy with curly
locks was in prison. He stationed
himself at the doorway of the
prison ... and said: "I will not
budge from here until I ransom
him, whatever price may be de-
manded." He ransomed him at a
high figure, and it did not take
long before the young man even-
tually became a great teacher in
Israel, namely: Rabbi Ishmael be
Elisha (Gittin 58a).
In the tannaitic period it had
been found necessary to enact a
law against paying too high a ran-
som for Jewish captives, lest kid-
napping might become a lucrative
trade. The Mishnah therefore
states: "Captives should not be
ransomed for more than their
value, as a precaution for the gen-
eral good" (Gittin 4:6), The price
might not exceed the value of the
captive if sold as a slave. The tal-
mudic sages forbade the assis-
tance in their attempts to excape,
for fear that the treatment of cap-
tives in general would be made
more • cruel. When emperor
Rudolph demanded a large sum
from the Jews for Rabbi Meir of
Rothenburg, who had been seized
and committed to prison in 1284,
and the Jews were ready to pay
any sum the emperor demanded,
Rabbi Meir, known as the
Maharam, refused to be ransomed.
He spent the last seven years of his
life in prison, revising his literary
works. When he died, the emperor
refused to surrender Rabbi Meir's
body for fourteen years until a
large sum was paid for its redemp-
tion.

Anatoly Shcharansky: Tasting Freedom.

Shcharansky's image became associated
with Ransoming the Captives. In the
age-old Jewish commitment it meant
payment for lives. That entailed the
menace of the enemy's resort to blackmail.
Not in the instance of the released pris-
oner of the USSR. In the Shcharansky ex-
perience there was rejection of payment of
blackmail. It was a battle 'for justice —
won by the libertarian spirit of his fellow
Jews and the freedom lovers everywhere.
That battle continues.

Battle Continues

As long as scientific geniuses like
Alexander Lerner and his associates,
dedicated Jews who wish to learn Hebrew
and to teach it, remain the Prisoners of
Conscience, the fight for freedom and jus-
tice continues.
There are many to be remembered as
targets who must be released from the
agonies of Soviet persecutions. Anthony
Lewis, in a recent New York Times essay
which was also nationally syndicated, re-
called his personal impressions on a visit
'in Russia. He listed a few, including Dr.
Alexander Lerner, who are among the
notably oppressed. His listing, which fol-
lows from his article, is an added appeal
for action, as he stated:

:1187$

From Tobit, the earliest of the Apoc-
rypha Books:

wills and perpetuating them have been
ward. If our children are willing to
published in the last few decades. The
accept our material possessions
Jewish Publication Society of America for
from us, to use as they think best,
My son, do not neglect your
a time specialized in them Schocken pre-
then perhaps we have the right to
mother; provide for her as long as you
sently enriches the collection with Ethical
bequeath our values and our goals
live; try to please her; do not be a cause
Wills: A Modern Jewish Treasury. The
to them too, in the hope that they
of grief to her. Remember that she
well judged and assembled volume was
will choose to accept them and
faced many dangers for your sake.
edited and annotated by' Rabbi Jack
make them their own.
From Sam Levenson:
Riemer of La Jolla, Calif., and Prof.
Ken yehi. ratzon.
Nathaniel Stampfer of Spertus College of
So may it be.
To my parents I owe America. They
Judaica, Chicago.
Let it be noted that the wills assem-
gave it to me and I leave it to you. Take
Rabbi Riemer makes this interesting bled in the Schocken volume are of the
good care of it.
"modern period," giving it special timeli-
From Reb Shmuel Tefilinsky, 20th comment in an epilogue to this column:
ness. Therefore the co-editors added value
Century Jerusalemite Torah Sage (1888-
The ethical wills in this collec-
to the new work by taking into account
1945):
tion were written by people who
the contemporaries.
wanted to make sure that their
Endeavor to the utmost to cleave to
An entire section in the Rimier-
values as well as their, property
God's teachings day and night, to de-
Stampfer
collection is devoted to ethical
would
be
safeguarded
after
they
vote yourselves all the days of your
were gone. They were written by • messages from Holocaust sufferers. For
lives to Torah and to the service of
those who seek renewal of faith there is "A
people who underkood that you
God, and to labor in the Torah in
Mother's Will," which was published in
are not completely dead when you
order to perceive and understand, to
the ghetto newspaper Warsaw-Krakow,
die if you leave behind people who
hearken, to learn and teach and to
dated 1940 and signed merely, "Your
understand what you stood for
"cast your burden on the Lord and he
Mother.":
and who will carry on what you
will sustain you."
believed in.
Judaism, my child, is the
Ethical wills are admittedly
struggle to bring down God upon
Ethical Wills As
risky things to write. No one has a
earth, a struggle for the sanctifica-
Traditional Guidelines
right to impose his values on his
tion of the human heart. This
heirs, even from the grave. The
struggle your people wages not
Ethical wills give human values. Re-
end of life ought to be a time for
with physical force but with spirit,
sort to them is not limited to Jews. They
making peace and for letting go,
with sincere, heartfelt prayers,
have universal commitments. In Jewish
not a time for preaching, for judg-
and by constant striving for truth
traditions they may be the oldest of
ing, or for burdening. But an ethi-
and justice.
legacies. In many respects they attain
cal will can be a-love letter from
So do you understand, my
. sanctity....... , . . , , .
- thetlgar
a
, a sum
of a
. child, how we, are distinct from
olume
Many v's
Ma
'dolitiIittihrdthtdat
tethit
Ot
tVe4404441ri iSagoio:
" " " " " " "

1*

". 6

.1••

There is Prof. Aleksandr
Lerner, the patriarch of the re-
fuseniks, waiting 15 years now for
a visa. Ther
e is Yuri Orlov, who
served seven years in a labor
camp for organizing the Moscow
Helsinki group and is now in
internal exile in Siberia. There is
Anatoly Koryagin, a doctor im-
prisoned for exposing abuses of
psychiatry. And of course there is
Andrei Sakharov.
Just last week unofficial
peace activists in what is known
as the Moscow Trust Group were
set upon. They were on their way
to meet and draft a peace pro> \
posal. Several were taken out of
town, beaten and abandoned. One
was detained in a psychiatric hos-
pital, as two high-school girls in
the group were last month.
There should be no illusions
about human rights in the Soviet
Union. But the question is how to
help. Mr. Shcharansky's release
and President Reagan's reaction
to it point to- the , heat way: by a
combination of pressure and
encouragement.
The •battle for freedom and.justice is
Unending.

•••,•,,