Although the Hebrew Bible is very much concerned with rituals, the word itself (along with ceremony and rite), rarely occur in the standard English translations. Moreover, there is no word in biblical Hebrew that is the precise equivalent of any of these terms. Peter Leithart speculates about the reason:

A great deal of the Pentateuch, after all, is concerned with what theologians call “ceremonial law,” what we would instinctively identify as “ritual” matters. . . . [T]he lack of a specific biblical vocabulary of “ritual” raises the suspicion that the Bible does not isolate ritual as a distinct sort of activity in the way that we do. In anthropological theories of ritual, it is often assumed that ritual activities are symbolic and expressive forms of action, distinct from the functional and pragmatic activities of daily life. Almost by definition, “ritual” has come to mean “merely symbolic” or “non-functional.” The fact that the Bible does not employ a distinct vocabulary of ritual suggests that it assumes continuities between ritual and other types of activity that moderns find hard to grasp.

Early Friday morning, Israel attacked military installations near the Iranian cities of Isfahan and nearby Natanz, the latter being one of the hubs of the country’s nuclear program. Jerusalem is not taking credit for the attack, and none of the details are too certain, but it seems that the attack involved multiple drones, likely launched from within Iran, as well as one or more missiles fired from Syrian or Iraqi airspace. Strikes on Syrian radar systems shortly beforehand probably helped make the attack possible, and there were reportedly strikes on Iraq as well.

Iran itself is downplaying the attack, but the S-300 air-defense batteries in Isfahan appear to have been destroyed or damaged. This is a sophisticated Russian-made system positioned to protect the Natanz nuclear installation. In other words, Israel has demonstrated that Iran’s best technology can’t protect the country’s skies from the IDF. As Yossi Kuperwasser puts it, the attack, combined with the response to the assault on April 13,

clarified to the Iranians that whereas we [Israelis] are not as vulnerable as they thought, they are more vulnerable than they thought. They have difficulty hitting us, but we have no difficulty hitting them.

Nobody knows exactly how the operation was carried out. . . . It is good that a question mark hovers over . . . what exactly Israel did. Let’s keep them wondering. It is good for deniability and good for keeping the enemy uncertain.

The fact that we chose targets that were in the vicinity of a major nuclear facility but were linked to the Iranian missile and air forces was a good message. It communicated that we can reach other targets as well but, as we don’t want escalation, we chose targets nearby that were involved in the attack against Israel. I think it sends the message that if we want to, we can send a stronger message. Israel is not seeking escalation at the moment.