Analyzing a contemporary halakhic ruling by Rabbi Asher Weiss, Gil Student argues that, while the Torah demands scrupulous honesty—especially in business dealings—it does not demand making oneself a victim of exploitation. His conclusion, based primarily on medieval rabbinic works, is perhaps best illustrated by a midrashic tale about the biblical Jacob:

[The Talmud] asks why Jacob, on meeting Rachel, said that he was her father Laban’s brother (Genesis 29:12). Jacob was [in fact] Rachel’s cousin, not her uncle. The [Talmud then] explains that the following conversation ensued between the two. Jacob asked Rachel to marry him. She replied that he cannot marry her because her father is a master of trickery. Jacob replied that he was Laban’s brother, i.e. peer, in trickery.

Is it proper for Jacob to try to trick someone who is going to trick him? The Talmud defends the practice with a passage that appears twice in the Bible: “With the merciful You show Yourself to be merciful; with the upright You show Yourself to be upright; with the pure You show Yourself to be pure and with the crooked You show Yourself to be shrewd” (2 Samuel 22:26-27; Psalms 18:27-28). . . .

[Ancient and modern rabbis are not] permitting dishonesty. They are permitting leveling the playing field: realistic behavior that does not automatically disadvantage those who are honest. The Torah does not require you to be a sucker.

Surveying news websites and social media on Sunday morning, I immediately found some intelligent and well-informed observers arguing that Iran deliberately warned the U.S. of its pending assault on Israel, and calibrated it so that there would be few casualties and minimal destructiveness, thus hoping to avoid major retaliation. In other words, this massive barrage was a face-saving gesture by the ayatollahs. Others disagreed. Brian Carter and Frederick W. Kagan put the issue to rest:

The Iranian April 13 missile-drone attack on Israel was very likely intended to cause significant damage below the threshold that would trigger a massive Israeli response. The attack was designed to succeed, not to fail. The strike package was modeled on those the Russians have used repeatedly against Ukraine to great effect. The attack caused more limited damage than intended likely because the Iranians underestimated the tremendous advantages Israel has in defending against such strikes compared with Ukraine.

But that isn’t to say that Tehran achieved nothing:

The lessons that Iran will draw from this attack will allow it to build more successful strike packages in the future. The attack probably helped Iran identify the relative strengths and weaknesses of the Israeli air-defense system. Iran will likely also share the lessons it learned in this attack with Russia.

Iran’s ability to penetrate Israeli air defenses with even a small number of large ballistic missiles presents serious security concerns for Israel. The only Iranian missiles that got through hit an Israeli military base, limiting the damage, but a future strike in which several ballistic missiles penetrate Israeli air defenses and hit Tel Aviv or Haifa could cause significant civilian casualties and damage to civilian infrastructure, including ports and energy. . . . Israel and its partners should not emerge from this successful defense with any sense of complacency.