Born in 1899 and raised in the heart of Orthodox Jerusalem, Samuel K. Mirsky came as a young man under the influence of Abraham Isaac Kook and his disciples, who sought to infuse a number of modern ideas, including Zionism, into Orthodox Judaism. He emigrated to the U.S. in 1926, and spent the rest of his career as a teacher at what was soon to become Yeshiva University. Deeply committed to religious Zionism, the Hebrew language, Jewish education, and the synthesis of modern and traditional scholarship, Mirsky published hundreds of articles, founded and edited four journals, and produced scholarly editions of classical rabbinic works. He also harbored a unique vision of what it meant to be a Jew in America, as his grandson, Yehudah Mirsky, writes. (Free registration may be required.)

In 1939, deeply moved by the celebrations of the 150th anniversary of the U.S. Constitution, [Mirsky] published in the pages of [the Hebrew journal] Hadoar a paean to the Constitution, noting its quasi-religious character and its leavening of hope with a healthy skepticism about human limitations. He added that the Constitution must be internalized by each individual, and that this is all the more important amid the gathering shadows of what he called “the Leviathan of the states.”

A month later he wrote that democracy is not only a procedure but a spirit, and is inseparable from Torah. . . . Just as the Torah educates to trust, in an ultimate sense, none but God, so too democracy teaches the illegitimacy of any human tyranny, and that the state exists to serve human dignity. God’s universal fatherhood is the ultimate source of fraternity. The social contract is no more a fiction than is the covenant at Mount Sinai. He concludes: “The foundation of Jewish religion and the foundation of social and political democracy are one and the same.”

How does this celebration of America square with his Zionism? In 1953 he put forth . . . a suggested fusion: “Democracy from America, and Torah from Zion.” . . . The democracy to be learned from America, when joined to the spirituality of Torah, would achieve its fullest synthesis, he hoped, in the longed-for realization of mishpat ivri [a modern legal system that incorporated elements of halakhic jurisprudence] in the new state of Israel.

[Elsewhere, he wrote that] for Israel to attract Diaspora Jews it would have to undertake the renewal not only of Jewish peoplehood but of Judaism: “If no new heavens will be created along with the new world, and there be no soul to the people of the state and spirit for its inhabitants, there will, God forbid, be no Jewish unity.”

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.