The Value of Life

I burst into tears watching Edan Alexander reunite with his mother. In that moment, Edan was not a soldier or a political symbol—he was her child. To his family, he was the most important person in the world. And I found myself asking: How do we ascribe value to a human life?

That question has become harder to answer. In a world shaped by politics, conflict, and economic calculations, we struggle to define the worth of an individual. When considering hostages, consider what price is paid for the release? In this regard, Edan’s release from captivity was extraordinary. In past exchanges, Israel released Palestinian prisoners in return for hostages. But this time, Edan was freed in exchange for vague diplomatic promises—unspoken vows, perhaps, from the United States. We don’t know the price that was paid, only the depth of the relief that came with his return.

The ambiguity of that exchange made me think about how we quantify human life—how we decide whose life is worth what. This is not a modern dilemma. The Talmud confronts it head-on in Horayot 13. The sages ask to whom are you obligated when choosing among captives: parents over teachers, Torah scholars over kings, Priests over prophets. These debates reflect an ancient effort to create a moral hierarchy, even amid tragedy. The debate also includes how much is a human life worth? A limitation on redemption of captives is mandated in the Talmud. At Gittin 45a:13 we learn that captives are not redeemed for more than their actual value, for the sake of the betterment of the world.

This tension between intrinsic worth and assigned value also appears in the Torah. In Leviticus 27, as a person vows themselves to God, their value is translated into silver: fifty shekels for a man, thirty for a woman. The inequality is stark, but the concept itself is striking. Is our worth somehow clarified in the context of devotion, of sacred commitment? Or are we simply trying to find language—however flawed—for life’s inestimable value.

History offers chilling reminders of how life has been reduced to numbers. Rabbi Yitz Greenberg described how the Nazis calculated the cost of killing a Jew to the fraction of a pfennig—the price of the Zyklon B gas used in extermination. To save money, they used less of it, accepting greater suffering as a trade-off. Even as they declared some lives “unworthy of living,” they still assigned them monetary value. A life reduced to arithmetic, stripped of dignity.

Our emotional responses resist logic, but our ethical obligations demand a more expansive approach. We cry for one boy’s return, for one mother’s relief. But our compassion falters as we zoom out. We struggle to hold the pain of communities—Ukrainians killed in war, Nigerian schoolgirls abducted, refugees lost in crossing. The farther from our personal experience, the more abstract the suffering becomes.

Still, these questions of value reach far beyond conflict zones. They are at the heart of domestic policy, too. Every time the U.S. government weighs public health against economic growth, it makes decisions about the worth of a life. Many are trapped in poverty, limited by disabilities, or displaced by conflict. So, we must ask: if we still believe each life holds sacred value, how must we act according to that tenet?

The Torah never questions whether human life matters. It assumes it does. The real question is what we are willing to do—to give, to risk, to change—in order to honor that value. What are we willing to pay, protect, or sacrifice to preserve life, especially when the person is unknown to us? How does that obligation translate into public policy and government action? And whose lives are most valuable?

When there are hostages, we must advocate for each one. When lives are lost, we must mourn them, even if we do not know their names. But most of all, we must expand our capacity for empathy. Our times demand not only that we feel for the individual, but that we learn to feel for the many—to widen our hearts, to deepen our resolve, and to become unwavering champions of human dignity.

Our challenge is to extend our empathy beyond individuals whose stories touch us personally. We must expand our awareness, deepen our compassion, and become champions for preserving all human life—regardless of nationality, faith, or circumstance.