Everyone who has met the families of the kidnapped and spoken to them has felt the insane pain that has accompanied them since Simchat Torah. These families have neither day nor night. Their nerves are stretched to the limit every moment.
Not knowing the fate of their loved ones and what they are going through is mind-boggling. Family members waver between hope and despondency, between progress and retreat, and their worry grows.
The hearts of the masses of Israel go out to these families. Many feel the need to identify with them and do something for them. The entire nation of Israel is supporting the unfortunate families, and offering prayers for the safe return of the kidnapped to their homes.
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Learn from your mother
This experience was shared by all who accompanied the families on their journey last week to pray at the Rebbe's Zion. The hearts were torn as they heard the stories of the families and the descriptions of the unimaginable suffering they were going through. Not a dry eye was left at the sight of the prayers and tears at the holy Zion.
Chabad followers who accompanied the families' journey did everything in their power to encourage and strengthen them, to instill faith and hope in them, and to express the support of the entire people in their pain and cry. The multitudes of Jews who came to the Rebbe's Zion joined in the prayer of the families of the abductees and also petitioned the One who sits on high that the redeemed of God would return and come to Zion in glory, very soon.
But precisely because we all want so much to see the hostages released, we need to be careful not to apply pressure in the wrong places. Every mother knows that sometimes pressuring a child to eat will have the opposite result – he will avoid eating. The mother wants with all her heart that the child will eat, but she understands that she must avoid demonstrating her strong desire, and that she must show him that she is indifferent to the question of whether he will eat or not, and then the result will be that the child will indeed eat.
We must certainly exert all possible pressure abroad, and strive to enlist countries, organizations, and public figures to exert pressure on Hamas. Such pressure is certainly positive, because it presents the terrorist organization in all its ugliness and inhumanity, at a time when it is desperate for international legitimacy.
This pressure should make him understand that holding the hostages is a burden on him, not an asset.
The blood speculators
In contrast, internal pressure on the Israeli government to agree to accept the dictates of terrorist organizations could achieve the opposite. The terrorists could conclude from this that it would be beneficial for them to harden their positions, raise more and more demands and demands, and delay the release of the hostages.
It is impossible to come to these families with complaints, because the terrible pain is unbearable for them. But the organizations surrounding them need to understand that excessive pressure works against the families' basic interests, and only distances the chance of seeing the kidnapped return home soon.
We must not show the cruel blood moneylenders how much we long to see our loved ones. On the contrary, they should get the feeling that we have all the time in the world to beat them to their utter destruction. Then, hopefully, they will surrender and agree to the release of the kidnapped on terms that Israeli society can meet, and without jeopardizing the future security of the people.
