In this week’s Torah reading, Abraham tasks his servant Eliezer with traveling to Abraham’s homeland (northern Mesopotamia) to select a wife for his son Isaac. Eliezer serendipitously meets Rebecca at a well and is taken to her family’s home. There he presents a marriage proposal, and in doing so he retells the story—previously told by the narrator—of Abraham’s assignment to him and of his encounter with Rebecca at the well. There are numerous differences between Eliezer’s account and the earlier one, and these have been subjected to careful analysis by such great rabbinic commentators as Isaac Abarbanel (1437–1508) and Samuel David Luzzatto (1800–1865), as well as by modern academic scholars. These differences, however, were either ignored or dismissed by the major medieval commentators, generally known for their meticulousness and their focus on the plain-sense reading of the text (p’shat). Martin Lockshin explains why:

The medieval commentators turned to p’shat in the first place because they opposed what they saw as over-reading of the Bible in classical Midrash [talmudic-era rabbinic exegesis]. They consistently dismissed what has been labeled the midrashic principle of omni-significance, the idea that everything in the Bible has to have significance. As Samuel ben Meir (1085–ca. 1158) often wrote, “according to the p’shat, there is no reason to analyze this further.” By this, he meant that, on the [plain-sense] level, nothing more could be legitimately read into or out of the text than what he wrote in his commentary. Samuel ben Meir often knowingly offered prosaic interpretations of biblical texts in order to demonstrate that not everything was significant.

Thus, it seems that the Jewish creators and strongest proponents of p’shat exegesis in the 12th century were so opposed to midrashic over-reading of the Bible that they on occasion under-read the text, as happened in the case of Abraham’s servant, causing them to miss fine points that were then left for later exegetes to discover. This investigation suggests that while it is problematic to over-read a text, it is equally problematic to under-read it.

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.