In the heat of the 2014 Gaza conflict known as Operation Protective Edge, Lieutenant Hadar Goldin, a brave 23-year-old Israeli soldier, was murdered by Hamas militants on August 1st. Just an hour after a ceasefire was declared, Hadar was captured and killed in a brutal ambush near Rafah. Hamas abducted his body into a tunnel, leaving his family and the entire nation in agonizing limbo.
For over eleven years, Hadar Goldin’s family held onto hope amid relentless efforts to bring him home. Even as the government moved on and focused on other priorities, Hadar’s family and their faithful friends refused to forget, working tirelessly to secure his return, honoring his memory in faith and resilience. The Goldin family’s long ordeal finally ended a few weeks ago when a US-brokered ceasefire deal between Israel and Hamas included the return of Hadar’s remains.
The news cycle has already moved on. An IDF soldier was finally buried. For most people, there is little left to discuss. But I believe there is something we must learn from Hadar, something critical for Israel’s future.
The men of Jabesh-Gilead faced complete annihilation. Nahash the Ammonite had surrounded them with superior forces, and they had no hope of victory. In desperation, they sent messengers racing to the recently anointed King Saul, begging for salvation. But what could Saul do? He had just been crowned king of a loose confederation of tribes that barely functioned as a unified nation. His “army” was a collection of farmers with limited weapons and no military training. Most Israelites had never fought together in coordinated battle. The professional Ammonite forces would slaughter them.
Any reasonable leader would have calculated the odds and declined. Build up strength first. Consolidate power. Wait for a better opportunity. Don’t risk everything on your first military campaign when defeat would destroy your kingship before it even began.
Saul’s response defied all practical wisdom:
The gamble worked.
Why did Saul take this risk? He was a new king leading a confederation of tribes with little history of unity. His army could hardly be called an army—they lacked proper weapons and training. The threat was not existential; Jabesh-Gilead was a peripheral border area, and Nahash’s grotesque demand, while horrifying, endangered only that community. Saul could have waited, consolidated power, built strength, and then confronted the Ammonite enemy from a position of security. Why risk everything immediately?
In the life of a nation, as in the life of an individual, there are two essential options: to focus solely on survival, or to aspire to greatness. These two approaches create entirely different mindsets.
A survival mindset tells you to keep quiet when your ceasefire is violated. Accept the insult when your honor is attacked. Settle for the minimum when your fallen soldiers are held hostage. “This is how you survive,” the logic goes. What it doesn’t tell you is the price: your enemies will mock you, your honor will be trampled, and when the moment comes, they will attack with full force because they know you won’t fight back.
Nahash the Ammonite understood what many modern strategists have forgotten. He wasn’t just threatening to maim the people of Jabesh-Gilead. His explicit goal was “to make it a reproach against all Israel.” By gouging out their right eyes, he would leave them half-blind, unable to fight effectively, marked forever as Israel’s shame. Yet the grotesque physical mutilation mattered less than the message it sent: Israel is weak, Israel cannot protect its people, Israel will accept humiliation rather than fight. Nahash knew that a nation’s honor is intangible—but it is real. Destroy the honor, and you destroy the nation’s will to resist.
When Joe Biden orchestrated the weak and disastrous pullout from Afghanistan, he signaled a lack of national pride. His unwillingness to stand up and crush the terrorists who murdered US Marines badly damaged American honor and told the world that America was weak. The consequences followed swiftly. Terrorists like Hamas, sensing the weakness, attacked Israel and US allies with renewed boldness.
Saul grasped what Biden forgot. He went to war against the Ammonites not because they posed an existential threat to Israel’s survival, but because they had humiliated the people of Jabesh-Gilead. This was Saul’s great moment, one that remains under-appreciated. He chose to reclaim the glory of Israel in the face of an evil threat, understanding that a people who tolerate dishonor invite destruction.
Later, King David would follow the same path. When the Ammonites shamed his envoys, David declared war (II Samuel 10). Not because of strategic necessity, but because of national honor. The biblical heroes did not adopt a diaspora mindset that lowers the head. They acted with biblical uprightness.
“I don’t want to be free without worries, without responsibility,” Hadar Goldin wrote when he was just a teenager. “That is small, it is not real, it does not grow. I want to be a free person who is a servant of God and Israel is with him, to step beyond my smallness and join the greatness of my people.”
Hadar demanded an entirely different path than the survival mindset. He yearned for the glory of Israel, for the greatness of God’s people and God’s honor. It was the driving force of his life and ultimately his death. After Hamas murdered him, his family took up the same fight. They waged a struggle that was righteous beyond measure. They did not seek petty, personal revenge. They stood on a principle: to defend the most basic national honor—the honor of our fallen soldiers—while exacting a price from Hamas, not from our own soldiers or civilians.
But the Goldin family was repeatedly rejected. While they fought for the honor of their son and the nation, the State of Israel adopted a policy of appeasement. For years, vast sums of money flowed to Hamas in Gaza with Israeli approval. The prevailing belief among Israeli leadership was that this would keep Hamas from attacking—that cash would buy calm. This was a terrible miscalculation rooted in a fundamental misunderstanding of national honor. Hamas saw Israel’s willingness to send them money even as they held Hadar’s body in a tunnel as weakness. They learned that holding Israeli bodies brought them financial rewards, not consequences. This encouraged them to plan October 7th. After a shocking massacre and a war lasting over two years, we all understand the heavy cost of choosing survival over honor.
Tzur Goldin, Hadar’s twin brother, reflected: “For nine years we watched as a small minority fought for what should have been obvious—to bring home a soldier who fought for his country. Already in 2019, there was intelligence showing exactly where Hadar was located, and only October 7th pushed decision-makers to address this operationally and politically. And when we shouted that terrorists must not be released without returning our sons, no one listened. And look at this astounding statistic: from the day Hadar was kidnapped until October 7th, 1,006 terrorists were released from Israeli prisons—this is according to the Israel Prison Service—and Hadar was still left there. The Goldin family only ‘disturbed’ the quiet. It must be said honestly: the State of Israel left captives behind. And that lesson is one our heroic soldiers carried with them through two years of war.”
The state chose the path of survival. Hadar and his family chose the path of greatness.
Ten months before October 7th, Hamas organized a massive rally marking 35 years since its founding. At the event, one of the organization’s operatives stood alongside Yahya Sinwar and displayed Hadar’s personal weapon. Sinwar stood before 30,000 Gazans, holding Hadar’s weapon, waving it, threatening Leah Goldin. “We will kidnap more of your sons, we will bring disaster upon you,” he declared. The masses—Israel haters—roared with excitement.
When the Goldin family brought this to IDF officials, they were told: “It’s just psychological terror. It’s not important.”
Ten months later—October 7th.
As Tzur correctly explained, “The decision to give up on four captives led to a situation of 251 captives. In Gaza, an entire generation of kidnappers was raised because we did not teach them the lesson that Hamas had to learn: that if they hold captives, it must become a burden for them, not an asset—and that they will pay a heavy price for it.”
This is the lesson of Saul and the Ammonites. When Nahash threatened to gouge out eyes as a reproach against all Israel, Saul understood that tolerating such dishonor would not bring peace. It would invite further humiliation and ultimately threaten the nation’s very existence. Whoever does not rise like a lion to defend the honor of the nation fails to protect the lives of its citizens.
Hadar fell when Hamas violated the ceasefire during Operation Protective Edge. Even today, Hamas breaks ceasefires and agreements, yet instead of crushing the enemy, the State of Israel continues to yield to external pressures, further harming its honor and independence. Now, with Hadar’s body returned, we pray that his honor will not once again be compromised by deals that release hundreds of terrorists—contrary to everything Hadar believed and what his family fought for.
When a great people understands its mission and its value, it cannot endure violations of its honor. This is not petty revenge or improper pride—it is recognition that a people bearing a message to the world must act to fulfill its role. As Rabbi Abraham Isaac Kook wrote, “If we know our greatness, we know ourselves; and if we forget our greatness, we forget ourselves. A people that forgets itself is certainly small and lowly…”
The people of Israel have revealed their greatness and enormous courage in this war. Now, with Hadar’s return home, the honor and dignity of the State of Israel must be restored—to defeat evil and illuminate the world.
