This week’s Torah reading contains a perplexing passage that has led to endless debate among commentators. The Israelites, wandering in the wilderness, complain to Moses and Aaron because there is no water. God tells Moses to command a rock to bring forth water. Denouncing the people as rebels, Moses strikes the rock twice, water gushes out, and the people quench their thirst. God then informs Moses and Aaron that “because ye believed me not, to sanctify me in the eyes of the children of Israel, therefore ye shall not bring this congregation into the land which I have given them.” But for what, exactly, are Moses and Aaron being punished? Marc Angel ventures his own explanation:

The Midrash connects the death of Miriam, [which occurs in the verse immediately before this episode], with the lack of water. As long as she was alive, her merit was so great that a well miraculously accompanied the people. Once she died, that well ceased to give water and the people therefore became thirsty. . . . She was a key leader of Israel and was gifted with prophecy.

Yet, when she died, the Torah tersely reports that she was buried. There is no mention of the Israelites mourning her death. (By contrast, after the deaths of Aaron and Moses, the Torah indicates a national 30-day mourning period.) Not only did the people not seem to appreciate the lifelong service of Miriam, they are not reported as having offered any words of consolation to her brothers, Moses and Aaron. The people didn’t seem to care much about Miriam’s passing, and did not seem to associate her virtue with the existence of the water well that had accompanied them in the wilderness. The people were thirsty; they were not concerned about the death of Miriam or the grief of Moses and Aaron.

When the Israelites complained, then, Moses and Aaron were deeply disappointed and pained. Not only should the people have had more faith in God, Who had been providing for them throughout their years in the wilderness; the people should have shown appreciation to Miriam! How could they be so callous? . . .

When Moses and Aaron assembled the people to bring forth water from the rock, they were not in a calm state of mind. . . . Moses . . . lashed out at the people, calling them rebels. He smote the rock rather than speaking to it. Moses let his anger get the best of him. Aaron, as Moses’ accomplice in this episode, apparently shared Moses’ feelings and concurred with his words and actions. So this was the great “sin” of Moses and Aaron: letting their personal grief and frustration overtake their reason and sense of responsibility to the people.

Examining the effects of Iran’s decision to launch nearly 200 ballistic missiles at Israel on October 1, Benny Morris takes stock of the Jewish state’s strategic situation:

The massive Iranian attack has turned what began as a local war in and around the Gaza Strip and then expanded into a Hamas–Hizballah–Houthi–Israeli war [into] a regional war with wide and possibly calamitous international repercussions.

Before the Iranians launched their attack, Washington warned Tehran to desist (“don’t,” in President Biden’s phrase), and Israel itself had reportedly cautioned the Iranians secretly that such an attack would trigger a devastating Israeli counterstrike. But a much-humiliated Iran went ahead, nonetheless.

For Israel, the way forward seems to lie in an expansion of the war—in the north or south or both—until the country attains some sort of victory, or a diplomatic settlement is reached. A “victory” would mean forcing Hizballah to cease fire in exchange, say, for a cessation of the IDF bombing campaign and withdrawal to the international border, or forcing Iran, after suffering real pain from IDF attacks, to cease its attacks and rein in its proxies: Hizballah, Hamas, and the Houthis.

At the same time, writes Morris, a victory along such lines would still have its limits:

An IDF withdrawal from southern Lebanon and a cessation of Israeli air-force bombing would result in Hizballah’s resurgence and its re-investment of southern Lebanon down to the border. Neither the Americans nor the French nor the UN nor the Lebanese army—many of whose troops are Shiites who support Hizballah—would fight them.