In the moral dilemma known to contemporary philosophers as the “trolley problem,” an out-of-control streetcar is on its way to killing five people. It can’t be stopped, and the potential victims can’t be pushed out of harm’s way; but by simply pulling a lever, the driver can divert the trolley to a different track. The catch is that a single person standing on the second track will be killed in the process. In the early 1950s, the great talmudist Avraham Yeshaya Karelitz (known as the Ḥazon Ish) considered a nearly identical problem; like the vast majority of both philosophers and ordinary people, he ruled that it is better to allow one person to be killed than five. But unlike the philosophers, who tried to approach the problem through various theoretical principles (e.g., “the greatest good for the greatest number”), he reached this conclusion through analogy to similar cases given in the Talmud. Moshe Koppel explains what the trolley problem implies about the role of intuition in halakhic decision-making:

Karelitz takes as his starting point those principles already established as normative, including the ruling of the Mishnah prohibiting handing over a hostage and other principles suggested by later commentators. He suggests an intuitive difference between the hostage case and [his version of the trolley problem]; this intuition is almost universal, as recent wide-scale studies suggest. Karelitz then translates this intuition into a rule that hinges on whether the resulting deaths are a direct consequence of the contemplated act or mere collateral damage of a defensive maneuver. He does not suggest that this is the only relevant criterion—and indeed philosophers raise numerous other possible criteria that Karelitz might very well accept as relevant.

Now, if we would . . . collectively reach the same conclusion based on our intuition, what advantage is there in deferring to rabbinic analysis of the sort that Karelitz and his colleagues offer? . . . Well, we pay a heavy price for formalizing halachic intuition, but we gain a great deal as well.

First of all, one can easily construct intermediate cases—say, diverting the train saves five people but kills four bystanders or kills a relative—where most people don’t have any clear intuition. A theory of trolley decision can serve us well in such cases. More broadly, then, articulated principles of halakhah serve us when we don’t have clear intuitions on the matter at hand.

Also, rules are easier to preserve than intuitions. Thus, under traumatic conditions—persecution, exile, dispersion, the sort of things in which Jews specialize—when our collective memory is likely to fail us, clear rules are more likely to remain stable than vague intuitions, especially if the rules are committed to writing. This is the meaning of [several] talmudic stories regarding the reconstruction of halakhah during periods of upheaval.

On Tuesday, a Hizballah drone attack injured three people in northern Israel. The next day, another attack, targeting an IDF base, injured eighteen people, six of them seriously, in Arab al-Amshe, also in the north. This second attack involved the simultaneous use of drones carrying explosives and guided antitank missiles. In both cases, the defensive systems that performed so successfully last weekend failed to stop the drones and missiles. Ron Ben-Yishai has a straightforward explanation as to why: the Lebanon-backed terrorist group is getting better at evading Israel defenses. He explains the three basis systems used to pilot these unmanned aircraft, and their practical effects:

These systems allow drones to act similarly to fighter jets, using “dead zones”—areas not visible to radar or other optical detection—to approach targets. They fly low initially, then ascend just before crashing and detonating on the target. The terrain of southern Lebanon is particularly conducive to such attacks.

But this requires skills that the terror group has honed over months of fighting against Israel. The latest attacks involved a large drone capable of carrying over 50 kg (110 lbs.) of explosives. The terrorists have likely analyzed Israel’s alert and interception systems, recognizing that shooting down their drones requires early detection to allow sufficient time for launching interceptors.

The IDF tries to detect any incoming drones on its radar, as it had done prior to the war. Despite Hizballah’s learning curve, the IDF’s technological edge offers an advantage. However, the military must recognize that any measure it takes is quickly observed and analyzed, and even the most effective defenses can be incomplete. The terrain near the Lebanon-Israel border continues to pose a challenge, necessitating technological solutions and significant financial investment.