Even those who don’t read Hebrew know that, like Arabic, it is read from right to left. But not so the Hebrew in an unusual Dead Sea Scroll, which scholars believe belonged to members of a long-vanished Jewish sect. Israel Hayom reports:

Written in Hebrew from left to right, an unusual direction, the scroll includes Greek, Aramaic, and ancient Hebrew scripts, along with coded messages. Oren Ableman, a curator-researcher with the Judaean Desert Scrolls Unit [of the Israel Antiquities Authority], suggests that the scroll’s writing style was intended for a select audience, likely the sect’s leadership.

The scroll presents a worldview in which a person’s birth date influences his physical traits and the balance of light and darkness in his soul. Each date is associated with specific levels of these qualities, affecting individuals born on those dates. According to Ableman, the scroll might have been used as part of an initiation process for new members of the community, who referred to themselves as “sons of light.” Prospective members were evaluated based on their birth date and physical characteristics, such as head shape, to determine their suitability.

Jim Davila, a scholar of this era, describes the scroll as “a physiognomic tractate, a work that claims to deduce what a person is like on the basis of . . . physical characteristics (length of fingers and toes, eye color, height, voice, etc.),” and notes that similar works “circulated in Hebrew in the Middle Ages.”

Even if the agreement with Hamas to secure the release of some, and possibly all, of the remaining hostages—and the bodies of those no longer alive—is a prudent decision for Israel, it comes at a very high price: potentially leaving Hamas in control of Gaza and the release of vast numbers of Palestinian prisoners, many with blood on their hands. Nadav Shragai reminds us of the history of such agreements:

We cannot forget that the terrorists released in the Jibril deal during the summer of 1985 became the backbone of the first intifada, resulting in the murder of 165 Israelis. Approximately half of the terrorists released following the Oslo Accords joined Palestinian terror groups, with many participating in the second intifada that claimed 1,178 Israeli lives. Those freed in [exchange for Gilad Shalit in 2011] constructed Gaza, the world’s largest terror city, and brought about the October 7 massacre. We must ask ourselves: where will those released in the 2025 hostage deal lead us?

Taking these painful concessions into account Michael Oren argues that they might nonetheless be necessary:

From day one—October 7, 2023—Israel’s twin goals in Gaza were fundamentally irreconcilable. Israel could not, as its leaders pledged, simultaneously destroy Hamas and secure all of the hostages’ release. The terrorists who regarded the hostages as the key to their survival would hardly give them up for less than an Israeli commitment to end—and therefore lose—the war. Israelis, for their part, were torn between those who felt that they could not send their children to the army so long as hostages remained in captivity and those who held that, if Hamas wins, Israel will not have an army at all.

While 33 hostages will be released in the first stage, dozens—alive and dead—will remain in Gaza, prolonging their families’ suffering. The relatives of those killed by the Palestinian terrorists now going free will also be shattered. So, too, will the Israelis who still see soldiers dying in Gaza almost daily while Hamas rocket fire continues. What were all of Israel’s sacrifices for, they will ask. . . .

Perhaps this outcome was unavoidable from the beginning. Perhaps the deal is the only way of reconciling Israel’s mutually exclusive goals of annihilating Hamas and repatriating the hostages. Perhaps, despite Israel’s subsequent military triumph, this is the price for the failures of October 7.