One of the most cited and revered figures in the Talmud, Rabbi Akiva was active in the first decades of the 2nd century CE and died a martyr during the Hadrianic persecutions. Of the many talmudic anecdotes about the great sage, Barry Holtz cites one that features Moses—having just been informed by God Himself that Akiva’s understanding of the Torah will one day surpass his own—magically transported to the back of Akiva’s classroom:

Sitting in that class, Moses is distressed. He understands nothing that is being said. This is a remarkable story in many ways—the time travel, the pairing of Moses and Akiva, the role of God—but nothing is quite as extraordinary as the moment when Moses becomes depressed by his inability to understand the discussion. It is only when Akiva cites Moses’ own authority that Moses is able to revive himself. Not only is Akiva asserting the importance of Moses, but it is no accident that the text has Akiva use the traditional phrase “a law given to Moses at Sinai”—and all this at the exact moment when, according to the midrash, Moses is standing on Sinai about to receive the Torah.

What does it mean that Moses cannot understand the future debates surrounding the very Torah that he is about to receive from God? Moses is so distressed that he wants God to give the Torah through Akiva, not through him. But God will not relent, nor will God explain the reasoning behind that decision: “Shut up,” God essentially tells him, “I’ve made my decision.”

One of the most extraordinary things about this story is that the rabbis who composed it show how well aware they were of the necessary evolution of Torah interpretation over time. Even Moses—the greatest of all the prophets, the person closest to God’s revelation—even Moses will not be able to understand the way that biblical interpretation grows over time. . . . [T]he storytellers’ solution, the concept that comforts Moses in his depression, is, [in the words of Jeffrey Rubenstein], “that the expanded and developed Torah of the rabbinic era somehow inheres in the original Torah revealed to Moses.”

Analyzing the recent direct Iranian attack on Israel, and Israel’s security situation more generally, Michael Oren looks to the 2015 agreement to restrain Iran’s nuclear program. That, and President Biden’s efforts to resurrect the deal after Donald Trump left it, are in his view the source of the current crisis:

Of the original motivations for the deal—blocking Iran’s path to the bomb and transforming Iran into a peaceful nation—neither remained. All Biden was left with was the ability to kick the can down the road and to uphold Barack Obama’s singular foreign-policy achievement.

In order to achieve that result, the administration has repeatedly refused to punish Iran for its malign actions:

Historians will survey this inexplicable record and wonder how the United States not only allowed Iran repeatedly to assault its citizens, soldiers, and allies but consistently rewarded it for doing so. They may well conclude that in a desperate effort to avoid getting dragged into a regional Middle Eastern war, the U.S. might well have precipitated one.

While America’s friends in the Middle East, especially Israel, have every reason to feel grateful for the vital assistance they received in intercepting Iran’s missile and drone onslaught, they might also ask what the U.S. can now do differently to deter Iran from further aggression. . . . Tehran will see this weekend’s direct attack on Israel as a victory—their own—for their ability to continue threatening Israel and destabilizing the Middle East with impunity.

Israel, of course, must respond differently. Our target cannot simply be the Iranian proxies that surround our country and that have waged war on us since October 7, but, as the Saudis call it, “the head of the snake.”