They said they would return them.
Shiri Bibas. Ariel Bibas. Kfir Bibas.
A mother. A four-year-old child. A nine-month-old baby.
For 503 days, the world spoke about them as though they were an issue to be resolved.
For 503 days, their names were whispered in prayers, their faces taped to windows, their absence turned into a wound no one could close.
And for 503 days, the world watched.
Talked.
Debated.
Negotiated.
As though their lives, their deaths, their bodies, their dignity, could be placed on the table like any other demand.
And then, finally, the announcement—they would be returned.
Except not all of them.
Ariel was returned. Kfir was returned.
Shiri was not returned
Shiri was not.
Instead, they gave someone else.
An unidentified body. A placeholder.
And suddenly, this is what the world is talking about.
Not that she was stolen.
Not that Ariel and Kfir spent their last days in a place no child should ever know.
Not that their father, Yarden, was taken too, held for 484 days, then released—only to be made to wait twenty more before being told his wife and sons were never coming home.
No. That is not the focus.
The focus is on this final insult—as though that is the real horror.
As though it wasn’t always unbearable.
As though we have not already been here, a hundred times before, adjusting to every new obscenity, shifting our outrage to the latest moment while everything before it fades into the background.
Because that is how the world absorbs the unacceptable.
By letting each horror replace the last.
By letting the previous atrocity slip into history the moment a new one arrives.
By making sure that what was once unthinkable is now just another stage in a long, long process.
“Tzedek, Tzedek Tirdof” (Deuteronomy 16:20) - Because Without Pursuit, Justice Is Consumed
“Justice, justice you shall pursue.”
Not establish.
Not preserve.
Pursue.
Because justice does not hold its place naturally.
Because justice is not a fact of existence. It is not something that, once set in motion, will continue on its own.
Justice is something that must be run after.
It must be chased.
It must be dragged back into place every time the world tries to make room for something more convenient, something more tolerable, something easier to live with.
Because the moment justice is not pursued, something else takes its place.
And that something else does not arrive all at once.
It comes in pieces.
It comes in small adjustments.
In slight shifts in language.
In the gradual erosion of outrage.
It comes not as a single moment of collapse, but as a long, slow process of accommodation.
Until what was once intolerable becomes a crisis to be managed.
Until what should have been unthinkable becomes something to negotiate.
Until what should have broken the world becomes just another news cycle.
This is why the Torah does not just say Tzedek Tirdof—pursue justice.
It says Tzedek, Tzedek Tirdof.
Twice.
Because it must be pursued and pursued again.
Because one act of justice is not enough.
Because one moment of clarity is not enough.
Because one generation’s refusal to accept evil is not enough.
Because the moment we stop running toward justice, the ground beneath us gives way.
Because the moment justice is not actively chased, the world does not hold steady—it falls.
Step by step.
Stage by stage.
Adjustment by adjustment.
Until justice is no longer recognizable.
Until it is no longer something that must be pursued—because it is something the world has learned to live without.
And So, the World Moves On
The Bibas family is gone.
And already, the conversation shifts. Already, the process absorbs them. Already, the next stage begins.
Unless we refuse.
Unless we pursue.
Because justice does not remain. It must be chased.