Hostage: The Triumph of Light Over Darkness

Hostage: The Triumph of Light Over Darkness

And God said, “Let there be light,” and there was light. God saw that the light was good, and he separated the light from the darkness

Genesis 1:3-4

In your light do we see light.

Psalm 36:9

My cantor once pointed out a curious thing about the ten plagues of Egypt. Between the eight calamities that promise death and disease and the tenth one, the death of the firstborn, all doubtlessly horrible state of affairs, sits the seemingly innocuous ninth plague—darkness. If God was gradually turning up the pressure on the Pharaoh, why did something so trivial come near the very end? That’s because darkness is subtle, but it catches up. Being involuntarily submerged in it for prolonged periods is not like closing eyes to go to sleep. It’s a disorienting and torturous experience.

I thought about that insight when I approached the recently released translation of the Israeli bestseller Hostage by Eli Sharabi. Sharabi is a genocide survivor—and I don’t use this expression lightly—who was kidnapped into Gaza tunnels from Kibbutz Be’eri.

On October 7, 2023, Hamas-led Gazans slew over 130 out of 1077 residents of the southern Israeli community, including the author’s wife Lianne and his daughters Noiya and Yahel, while taking thirty others captive. Lianne, Noiya, and Yahel were among more than 1200 murdered during the Simchat Torah Massacre, and Eli, among the 254 taken hostage from the Jewish state.

Sharabi’s book tells the story of the 491 days he spent as a guest of Hamas. Hostage is a laconic account of how he focused on love to find inner strength to survive and help others. It’s a quick read that probes many important questions about human tenacity.

His experience was as horrifying as expected—the hostages were tortured both physically and psychologically. Many, including Sharabi’s brother Yossi, whose body was only recently returned for a dignified burial, have perished in the hands of Gazans.

Yet when I try to imagine the kind of horrors hostages had to endure, darkness seems central to understanding the ordeal. I think of it in both the literal and metaphorical sense—the dim terror tunnels and disorienting helplessness of a human being cut off from the outside world. Darkness is synonymous with ignorance, and light symbolizes knowledge; the latter feeds the spirit. There is a third meaning of light, separate from the literal and the informational ones—it’s the flicker that promises salvation, in this case, literal salvation from Hamas. It’s true love that brings hope.

Sharabi says that as he was dragged into Gaza, he had a pretty good idea that a terrorist attack of unprecedented proportions was underway. But his reading was incomplete, and much happened between his kidnapping and release—the war in Gaza itself, the continuous barrage of rockets from both Gaza and Lebanon, the Hezbollah pager operation, and the subsequent implosion of the Assad regime, the first Iranian strike on Israel, which had the Jewish state hunkered down in bomb shelters.

Some of the hostages were released—did he know about it? Did he know that Israel, along with the civilized people of the world, had been rallying for their release? That the parents of his friend Hersh Goldberg-Polin spoke at both Democratic and Republican national conventions? That the newly elected Donald Trump started talking about Gazalargo?

No, he did not. But Sharabi, who is fluent in Arabic, had a background in military intelligence and worked as the CEO of his kibbutz, was probably best prepared—as anyone could be—to withstand darkness. These qualities allowed him to rise above his circumstances and naturally positioned him as a leader of the small group of younger hostages with whom he was held.

On the other hand, he writes that the Thai captive who spoke neither Hebrew nor Arabic nor even English had the hardest time of all. Thrown into the pit without the ability to communicate effectively, he was most disconnected and frightened.

Sharabi explains that although they had no direct access to news, the hostages studied their environment for clues. They knew a war was going on because they could hear it. They got a visual confirmation once, when, after one particularly loud explosion, the mosque, which contained their terror tunnel, collapsed, and the hostages had to be evacuated. Emerging above the ground, Sharabi saw ruins. Yet when they were moved once more, the hostages went through a busy street where life went on as normal.

Gazans exploited the captives’ isolation, messing with their heads, lying about the direction of the conflict. They bragged about their own forces, bragged about Hizbollah and Iran coming to their aid, and fantasized about Israel being on the verge of collapse. Sharabi knew that it was nonsense because he had a good understanding of Israel’s capabilities.

Plus, the hostages studied their wardens’ behavior to get a read on what was happening outside. Towards the end of his 491-day stay in the dungeons, their mood soured, so he knew that Israel had prevailed militarily. It was not the end of their ordeal because their country still had to secure a diplomatic victory that would include a hostage release. Their interment went on longer, but they persevered because they built their culture around survival.

To exercise even minimal control of the environment, one has to orient oneself in the passage of time. An ability to distinguish night from day is not a given in the tunnels. Measuring weeks and months of captivity is another challenge.

The hostages started their mornings with a prayer, repeated the current date to each other multiple times during the day, and celebrated Shabbat. Ravers and kibbutzniks are not the most observant bunch, but one of them, Elia Cohen, a son of an orthodox family, became a prayer leader. Those very practical steps for tracking time connected them to their community above the ground. Sharabi explains:

I don’t know if I feel God in those moments. But I feel power. I feel connection. To my people. To our tradition. To my identity. It connects me to my family. To my childhood. To my roots. It reminds me why I must survive. Who I’m surviving for. It brings back glowing memories of childhood. Of my father. Of my mother. Of a white tallit during the Shabbat prayers. Wine in a goblet. Candles on the windowsill. Opening the arch. Torah scrolls. A cantor singing. A white tablecloth spread over a table overflowing with good food. Everything that feels so far from here.

His belief in a higher power might not be iron-clad, but Sharabi took another leap of faith, telling himself that his wife and daughters, from whom he was torn when they were in the middle of a massacre, are alive and waiting for him. That’s the light that gave him the sense of purpose, enabling his return.

He made another assumption, so basic that he leaves it unsaid. Along with all the other kidnapped, he believed that his country would turn heaven and earth to bring them home. Communal ties formed through faith and history, reinforced through daily and weekly rituals, dispersed the darkness. There was never any doubt—it’s the normative Israeli assumption that underlines the resilience of the Jewish state. Even when he learned that his nuclear family had been sadistically murdered, Sharabi still had his nation, and his nation loved him. That was never in question.

So, when on one side of this conflict we have love, knowledge, and action—people who share a deep bond for each other and for God and act in their environment accordingly—on the other side is their opposite. Sure, they formally have a religion, just not the kind that prohibits them from butchering a girl dancing at a party or taking a mother and her babies hostage—and then murdering the babies with bare hands.

Sharabi shows how Gazans are unable to gather accurate information about the world. Surely, they live in a dysfunctional economy, and their circumstances were meager even before the war. But it’s the spiritual and intellectual poverty that is most shocking.

Sharabi’s captors are convinced that every Israeli wants to kill them all—demonstrable nonsense, considering that their neighbors have to means to achieve that goal, have had the means to achieve it for decades, and don’t use them. At the same time, they believe that Israel’s end is just around the corner and that somebody will come to their help. They call the hostages “Jewish pigs” and believe that all of Israel will belong to them—and not just Israel:

Some of them are more extreme, or perhaps only more honest, and say that their mission doesn’t end there, between the river and the sea. They dream of establishing an Islamic empire that will conquer the whole world. In their minds, not only is there no such thing as Israel; there is no such thing as France or Britain or Sweden either. The whole world should be Muslim.

It’s an evil position to hold, even if the West might just surrender to Islamism. Their hate—the ideas they hold about Jews and others—is grounded not in disciplined study, but in prejudice.

Gazans’ system of beliefs is garbage, and it will do them some good to search inside their wretched souls for what ails them. Sure, they are products of a close-minded society, but they, too, have choices. Sharabi explains that even a hostage has a choice. He made up his mind to survive and encouraged his comrades to follow him.

Likewise, Gazans made the choice to exist in darkness. They can seek information about their neighbors from varied sources. They didn’t—even those who had jobs in Israel used this opportunity not to enlighten themselves but to spy for Hamas.

It’s humanly possible to separate light from darkness. Not in the literal sense, but to choose love and knowledge. Evil is a choice. Sharabi’s book shows the alternative. Give it a read.

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