“Thou shalt not covet,” the last of the Ten Commandments—read in synagogues around the world this Sabbath—is something of an outlier, writes Jonathan Sacks. Prohibiting envy, not an activity but a natural human emotion, it seems less grave than “Thou shalt not murder” or “Thou shalt have no other gods before Me.” Sacks, however, considers it in light of the overall biblical narrative and of Jewish history, and argues for its paramount importance:

[E]nvy is one of the prime drivers of violence in society. It is what led Iago to mislead Othello with tragic consequences. Closer to home, it is what led Cain to murder Abel. . . . Most poignantly, envy lay at the heart of the hatred of the brothers for Joseph. They resented his special treatment at the hands of their father, the richly embroidered cloak he wore, and his dreams of becoming the ruler of them all. That is what led them to contemplate killing him and eventually to sell him as a slave. . . .

Jews have special reason to fear envy. It surely played a part in the existence of anti-Semitism throughout the centuries. Non-Jews envied Jews their ability to prosper in adversity. . . . They also and especially envied them their sense of chosenness (despite the fact that virtually every other nation in history has seen itself as chosen). . . .

So the prohibition of envy is not odd at all. It is the most basic force undermining the social harmony and order that are the aim of the Ten Commandments as a whole. Not only, though, do they forbid it; they also help us rise above it. It is precisely the first three commandments, reminding us of God’s presence in history and our lives, and the second three, reminding us of our createdness, that help us rise above envy.

While I’ve seen much speculation—some reasonable and well informed, some quite the opposite—about why Jerusalem chose Friday morning to begin its campaign against Iran, the most obvious explanation seems to be the most convincing. First, 60 days had passed since President Trump warned that Tehran had 60 days to reach an agreement with the U.S. over its nuclear program. Second, Israeli intelligence was convinced that Iran was too close to developing nuclear weapons to delay military action any longer. Edward Luttwak explains why Israel was wise to attack:

Iran was adding more and more centrifuges in increasingly vast facilities at enormous expense, which made no sense at all if the aim was to generate energy. . . . It might be hoped that Israel’s own nuclear weapons could deter an Iranian nuclear attack against its own territory. But a nuclear Iran would dominate the entire Middle East, including Egypt, Jordan, the United Arab Emirates, and Bahrain, with which Israel has full diplomatic relations, as well as Saudi Arabia with which Israel hopes to have full relations in the near future.

Luttwak also considers the military feats the IDF and Mossad have accomplished in the past few days:

To reach all [its] targets, Israel had to deal with the range-payload problem that its air force first overcame in 1967, when it destroyed the air forces of three Arab states in a single day. . . . This time, too, impossible solutions were found for the range problem, including the use of 65-year-old airliners converted into tankers (Boeing is years later in delivering its own). To be able to use its short-range F-16s, Israel developed the “Rampage” air-launched missile, which flies upward on a ballistic trajectory, gaining range by gliding down to the target. That should make accuracy impossible—but once again, Israeli developers overcame the odds.