Most people, writes Rick Paulas, are familiar with the emotion of guilt, but certain religions—most notably Judaism and Catholicism—are associated in the popular imagination with specific kinds of guilt. After an informal survey, Paulas concludes that Jewish and Catholic guilt are fundamentally different:

The Catholic version of guilt comes from a more ethereal “on-high” place: a judgmental and all-seeing Higher Power. The penalty for not following the instructions of this being? Only eternal damnation. That’s high-pressure stuff, but [this] shouldn’t imply that Jewish guilt is somehow weaker. [The latter] comes from a more tangible place, from your friends and family, from your community. The penalty for not following those instructions? Being ostracized.

The weight of both are tremendous. The unanswerable question—unanswerable, seeing as Jews can’t pretend to be Catholics, and vice-versa—is which is more threatening: an all-powerful deity or your mom? How about if you happen to be one of those lucky few who get to experience . . . both?

“The Jewish side is, ‘You could do better,’ and the Catholic side is, ‘You’re a lost cause,’” says Katherine Spiers, who is ethnically Jewish but was raised Catholic. “I just always feel like I’m [messing] up absolutely everything.”

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.