The biblical commandment to keep the Sabbath first appears in Exodus 16 (part of this week’s Torah reading), several chapters before the giving of the Ten Commandments. The context is the manna that falls from heaven to nourish the Israelites during their wanderings in the desert. Moses explains that on the first five days of the week the Israelites must gather only what they will eat for that day; on the sixth, they should collect enough for both that day and the next, the Sabbath day when no manna will fall. Ethan Tucker argues that the story of the manna is crucial to understanding the essence of the day of rest:

Why couldn’t the manna be gathered on Shabbat morning? It is, after all, food, and there would seem to be no real impediment to handling and consuming it on the Sabbath itself. The focus here on preparation seems to be key: if the goal of Shabbat is to experience an already-completed world [as God did on the first, primordial Sabbath of Genesis 2:2], then we cannot have a system where one’s [main source of] sustenance only materializes halfway through the day.

Moses emphasizes that all baking and cooking of the manna must take place before Shabbat [even though] there has not yet been any articulation of a Sabbath ban on work at this point in the Torah. Instead, his directive seems focused on having everything ready in advance. It is this state of affairs, more than a set of behaviors, that will establish Shabbat as truly holy, the sense that as the day enters, I have everything I need, just exactly as I need it.

Ron Ben-Yishai, reporting from a visit to IDF forces in the Gaza Strip, analyzes the state of the fighting, and “the persistent challenge of eradicating an entrenched enemy in a complex urban terrain.”

Hamas, sensing the war’s end, is mounting a final effort to inflict casualties. The IDF now controls 65 percent of Gaza’s territory operationally, with observation, fire dominance, and relative freedom of movement, alongside systematic tunnel destruction. . . . Major P, a reserve company commander, says, “It’s frustrating to hear at home that we’re stagnating. The public doesn’t get that if we stop, Hamas will recover.”

Senior IDF officers cite two reasons for the slow progress: meticulous care to protect hostages, requiring cautious movement and constant intelligence gathering, and avoiding heavy losses, with 22 soldiers killed since June.

Two-and-a-half of Hamas’s five brigades have been dismantled, yet a new hostage deal and IDF withdrawal could allow Hamas to regroup. . . . Hamas is at its lowest military and governing point since its founding, reduced to a fragmented guerrilla force. Yet, without complete disarmament and infrastructure destruction, it could resurge as a threat in years.

At the same time, Ben-Yishai observes, not everything hangs on the IDF:

According to the Southern Command chief Major General Yaron Finkelman, the IDF is close to completing its objectives. In classical military terms, “defeat” means the enemy surrenders—but with a jihadist organization, the benchmark is its ability to operate against Israel.

Despite [the IDF’s] battlefield successes, the broader strategic outcome—especially regarding the hostages—now hinges on decisions from the political leadership. “We’ve done our part,” said a senior officer. “We’ve reached a crossroads where the government must decide where it wants to go—both on the hostage issue and on Gaza’s future.”