When Care Becomes a Commodity: What Real Healing Looks Like

There’s been so much joy, relief and collective exhale watching the living hostages come home to their families. After too many months of horror, seeing them back in the light of day, surrounded by family and love, it feels like we are able to breathe again. These are moments of pure humanity; moments that remind us all what we were hoping, fighting and praying for these past two years.

And yet, as I watched those same scenes, another feeling crept in, one that felt important to name. Alongside the tears and the embraces, shortly after, were images of returned hostages being handed brand-new iPhones, iPads and Apple Watches. The gifts were most certainly given with love, offered by people who have done more for these families than most of us ever will or could. Still, something about it felt...off.

It’s not judgment. It’s not cynicism. It’s a human reaction; that subtle dissonance between the depth of what these people have endured and the material way we often try to meet that pain. Seeing someone who was chained by terrorists, starving in a dark tunnel for two years being handed a shiny screen or a fancy car, for me, highlights a gap that’s hard to ignore. It’s the difference between gestures that make us feel better and care that actually helps them recover.

I know these gestures come from a good place. I believe that the people offering them are compassionate, generous and often the first to show up when others don’t. This isn’t about blame or about questioning their intentions. It’s about noticing something that runs deeper, something cultural. We’ve built a world that shows care through things. 

And of course, sometimes that’s okay. A warm meal, a gift or a small gesture can mean the world in the right moment. But when the pain is this deep, when the trauma cuts to the core of what it means to be human, I find myself wondering whether the same language still fits.

When someone has endured trauma of that scale, surviving 10/7, captivity and unthinkable loss, the act of giving them luxury items feels mismatched. It’s not that generosity is wrong; it’s that our cultural language of care often defaults to the tangible when what’s needed is intangible. We reach for gifts because they’re visible, because they prove our compassion to the world. But healing doesn’t need proof, it needs presence.

I’ve written before about our growing obsession with luxury and how we’ve learned to equate love, success, happiness, even compassion with what can be bought. This moment feels like a continuation of that same question: What happens when care becomes another kind of commodity?

Among all the gestures we saw, one felt profoundly different to me: When Matan Angrest, one of the returned hostages, received a pair of tefillin. It wasn’t about material value but about meaning, faith, grounding, connection. For someone who had been stripped of agency and identity, the act of holding something sacred and personal carried a kind of healing no luxury item could touch. It met a spiritual need, not a social one; it was about restoring meaning, not replacing loss.

Beyond all of this, there’s the question of what truly helps. In the months since October 7th, Israel has seen a painful rise in suicides and mental health crises. The wounds of this war are emotional as much as physical and they run deep. The pain doesn’t end when the cameras turn off; for many, that’s when it finally begins.

If we have resources to give, maybe the most powerful gift isn’t another gadget or big ticket item but access to therapy, trauma, care and community support- the kinds of help that can actually save lives. The impulse to give is beautiful. But how we give matters. Long lasting healing can’t come from material things; it comes from being cared for in ways that reach the soul.

Part of this instinct to give these kinds of gifts comes from something collective. As societies, when meeting with victims of heinous acts we feel an overwhelming mix of guilt, relief and responsibility. Gifting becomes a kind of restitution. A way to say, “We couldn’t protect you, but here’s something tangible now.” It’s deeply human to want to do something, anything, in the face of what we can’t fix. But no object, no matter how sincere or expensive, can meet the scale of what’s been endured.

And there’s another layer too: the gift of attention. In the rush to celebrate survival, we sometimes turn trauma into a public story before the person living it has had a chance to breathe. Survivors become “celebrities” or national symbols. They are invited to events, praised, photographed, held up as symbols of resilience. Some may welcome that visibility, but for others, it can feel like another kind of exposure, a performance of healing before healing has even begun.

What’s hard and what I think many people don’t fully see is that when someone has been through profound trauma like this, their nervous system and sense of agency are deeply impacted. People who’ve endured captivity, terror and total loss of control are often in a state of survival for a long time after. 

They’re desperate to reconnect, to feel safe, to belong again. In that state, it’s almost impossible to evaluate dynamics of power or recognize when something might not feel right.

So even when a gesture is given with love, the public nature of it, the filming, the branding, the attention, can unintentionally turn survivors into symbols instead of people. 

They might not see that in the moment because they’re overwhelmed by gratitude, by the relief of finally being met with kindness after unimaginable cruelty. But that’s exactly what makes it so delicate: Trauma makes people more vulnerable to being idealized, used or displayed, even by those with the best intentions.

Visibility can look like honor, but it can also be dangerous. Publicity doesn’t always equal care. For someone still rebuilding safety, fame can be another form of loss, another way the world takes before it gives back. Being seen by everyone can start to feel like being owned by everyone, leaving little room for the privacy and safety that real healing requires.

This isn’t about accusing anyone of harm. It’s about understanding how trauma works and how easily good intentions can become complicated when visibility and vulnerability intersect. Survivors deserve care that restores their sense of safety and autonomy, not care that risks turning them into content.

In the days after I first shared these thoughts with my social media community, many people said they felt the same unease, not with the generosity itself, but with the broadcasting of it. The videos of gift-giving, complete with music and captions, felt to some like it shifted the focus away from the survivors’ recovery and dignity and more toward the spectacle of giving.

I understand why organizations do this. Sharing their work publicly helps with fundraising, builds awareness and inspires others to help. People want to see where their money goes and what impact it has and that’s fair. But there’s a fine line between documentation and performance. Especially with something as delicate as the return of hostages, we need to ask whether the visibility serves the survivors or the image of the giver.

I believe there’s a better way to tell these stories. One that honors the work without turning human suffering into a stage.

Real healing doesn’t come wrapped in a gift box or PR moment. It happens slowly: in therapy sessions, in the arms of family, in protected spaces where people can feel safe again. It’s slow, unphotogenic and often invisible. But it’s the kind that lasts.

The people doing this work, the rescuers, the advocates, the volunteers, they are heroes in every sense. They act from love, courage and faith. Nothing in this reflection takes away from that. I just think it’s important to talk about how we, as a collective, express care and to ask whether the ways we show love actually serve the people we’re trying to comfort.

Some people told me they worried that raising these questions might discourage others from giving or helping. I actually think it does the opposite. It invites us to think more deeply about how we show care- not to stop giving, but to give more meaningfully.

Even if you don’t agree on my take, I think it’s worth talking about. Honest conversations about care, dignity and healing matter.

I’m not claiming I’m right about any of this. These are just feelings I wanted to name in case others have felt the same. Because if we can hold both gratitude and discomfort, joy for their return and reflection on what true care looks like, we might start to heal as a society, not just as individuals.

I truly believe everyone’s doing their best. And I also believe we can learn to love in ways that don’t rely so much on things, attention or display. Love lives in presence, protection and patience.

The kind of care that truly matters doesn’t need to be seen, it just needs to last.

Praying for the return of ALL of the hostages, strength and healing for them and their families and peace and safety for Jews everywhere. 

❤️❤️