Pidyon shvuyim

That means he's telling you, let's say you do the biggest mitzvah possible, Talmid Torah, or you're doing the greatest mitzvah, whatever you wanna call it.

Say Pidyon Shvuyim, you, you Mekarev people, whatever it is.

Why can't that be greater than teshuvah? And that should be also Noet L'Kabzot.

Why does it have to be davka teshuvah? Why is the Ben HaChananel and the Rambam holding davka teshuvah? You don't know of bigger mitzvot? You could do many mitzvot that are great, tremendous mitzvot.

The money gets stolen.

Pidyon shvuyim happens later, as you see in the later Gemara.

It doesn't mean that you'll collect the money and the guy will run off to China.

It means that it won't get built.

And it's especially important when we're talking about Colorado because, you know, there was a horrible firebombing of a A weekly march for hostages when there were Israeli hostages in Gaza still in Boulder.

And there were some people who said, "Well, that wasn't an antisemitic event." But I think what that position of saying, "Well, it's not antisemitic," or, "It didn't happen during a religious ritual," or, "It didn't happen in a synagogue," what that's missing is the fact that those Jews who were there, they were actually observing a Jewish, a mitzvah, a Jewish commandment, which is Pidyon Shvuyim, or the return of hostages, which is no different when it comes to commandments than, let's say, keeping Shabbat.

But then when we talk about the state of Israel, which is a country just like every other country, and like every other country, it's bound to international human rights and international law and human rights law, and like every other country, it violates that.

And so in the case of Israel, we've seen since October 7th, which was in itself a war crime, Israel has then launched a war that included many war crimes, I think that is, is clear, and that left just horrendous destruction and death in Gaza.

Nothing to talk about.

If you have a relative who is captured, for example, chad v'chalak, The Tzibor is not going to be Pideh.

If the guy has a relative who could be Pideh, who could redeem the person, that person's got to do it.

And tough luck.

Anyway, I just couldn't resist that.