מה אקוב לא קבה א-ל, ומה אזעום לא זעם ה' (דיון בדיני ממונות בגטו קובנא)

Discusses a halakhic ruling by rabbis in the Kovno ghetto concerning a ransom payment. Lithuanian partisans killed most of the Jews in nearby Jonava, and held 350 Jews hostage, asking for a payment of 100,000 marks. The Kovno Judenrat rejected the demand, because it would further impoverish the Jews of Kovno and it was unlikely in any case that the 350 hostages would survive the Holocaust. However, the head of the rabbinic court, Rabbi Avraham Dov Ber Shapira, who later perished in the ghetto, handed down a halakhic decision that the ransom should be paid, as did Rabbi Shraga Feivel Gibraltar. Discusses the technicalities of their decision, noting that both stated that Jews should be willing to make sacrifices in a time of peril. The ransom was paid and the 350 Jews were interned in the Kovno ghetto.