To the modern reader, the biblical injunction “And thou shalt love the Lord thy God” seems strange: how can one of the most fundamental human emotions be commanded? In his new book on the subject, Jon D. Levenson first places the verse from Deuteronomy in its historical context and then proceeds to examine how it has been understood by Jewish thinkers through the ages. (Interview by Debra Liese).

[Seen in the context of other documents from the ancient Near East], “love” has a technical, legal meaning in Deuteronomy and elsewhere in the Hebrew Bible. . . . [However], the technical usage doesn’t preclude the emotional or affective connotations that the word has for most people. To put it differently, sometimes loving may simply mean loyal service and faithful obedience, but we need to guard against over-generalizing from such passages, just as we need to guard against interpreting “love” in this context as a purely subjective, emotional state without normative behavioral correlates.

I try to show that in Deuteronomy God falls in love with Israel—I don’t think the language is exclusively technical but rather [that] it connotes passion—and demands a response that has its own affective character. In other words, we have to reckon with both an outward and an inward dimension. . . . In fact, the movement is in both directions. Actions awaken and deepen emotions, and emotions generate and make sense of actions.

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.