James R. Rogers investigates the different meanings of biblical law for Jews and Christians, and the mistake both make when they try to isolate the Torah’s moral teachings from their context. The result of this “reductionist inclination” can be found in American discourse about “Judeo-Christian morality,” a phrase that Rogers takes to refer primarily to the Ten Commandments:

[W]resting the Ten Commandments out of the book of Exodus (and Deuteronomy) and treating them as stand-alone moral requirements . . . misses the point of Exodus. . . . The popular view of Exodus [is neatly summed up] in the classic film, The Ten Commandments. . . . The film skips thirteen chapters in Exodus relating to the design and construction of the tabernacle, as well as all of Leviticus and Numbers, [much of which] relates to the sacramental environment around Israel given the presence of the tabernacle in Israel’s midst, all the way to the end of Deuteronomy.

And [then there’s] all the rigmarole about food, and sacrifices, and cleansing oneself from this and that. The problem is that all that stuff isn’t just so much rigmarole. . . . As reported in Exodus, the purpose of the exodus is that God would dwell in the midst of Israel in the tabernacle. . . . The exodus [thus] represents a signal turn toward the restoration of the fellowship that humanity had with God in Eden.

[T]his is not to dismiss the Ten Commandments as somehow unimportant. Indeed, the tablets go in the inner house of the tabernacle, in the ark of the covenant in the holiest of holies. The point rather is that, in the narrative of Exodus, the giving of the Ten Commandments is necessarily interwoven with the tapestry of God’s presence. As with the sacrificial laws, the food laws, the cleanliness laws, and other laws in Leviticus and Numbers, they’re not [just] rigmarole. . . .

But popular American culture pulls out and isolates the Ten Commandments, then skips over the last half of the book of Exodus [along with] Leviticus and Numbers, all of which connect the Ten Commandments with the grand pivot in God’s relationship with humanity. [Both] Moses and Jesus, and religion in general, are thus identified [in the popular view] with deracinated moral law. This civil religion—Christian ethics without the person of Christ; Judaic ethics without the person of God—has distorted the religions it purports to express. In doing so, it has hindered, rather than helped, both religion and religious engagement with the public square.

Between the explosion of thousands of Hizballah pagers on September 17 and now, Iran’s geopolitical clout has shrunk dramatically: Hizballah, Iran’s most important striking force, has retreated to lick its wounds; Iranian influence in Syria has collapsed; Iran’s attempts to attack Israel via Gaza have proved self-defeating; its missile and drone arsenal have proved impotent; and its territorial defenses have proved useless in the face of Israeli airpower. Edward Luttwak considers what might happen next:

The myth of Iranian power was ironically propagated by the United States itself. Right at the start of his first term, in January 2009, Barack Obama was terrified that he would be maneuvered into fighting a war against Iran. . . . Obama started his tenure by apologizing for America’s erstwhile support for the shah. And beyond showing contrition for the past, the then-president also set a new rule, one that lasted all the way to October 2024: Iran may attack anyone, but none may attack Iran.

[Hayat Tahrir al-Sham’s] variegated fighters, in light trucks and jeeps, could have been stopped by a few hundred well-trained soldiers. But neither Hizballah nor Iran’s own Revolutionary Guards could react. Hizballah no longer has any large units capable of crossing the border to fight rebels in Syria, as they had done so many times before. As for the Revolutionary Guards, they were commandeering civilian airliners to fly troops into Damascus airport to support Assad. But then Israel made clear that it would not allow Iran’s troops so close to its border, and Iran no longer had credible counter-threats.

Now Iran’s population is discovering that it has spent decades in poverty to pay for the massive build-up of the Revolutionary Guards and all their militias. And for what? They have elaborate bases and showy headquarters, but their expensive ballistic missiles can only be used against defenseless Arabs, not Israel with its Arrow interceptors. As for Hizballah, clearly it cannot even defend itself, let alone Iran’s remaining allies in the region. Perhaps, in short, the dictatorship will finally be challenged in the streets of Iran’s cities, at scale and in earnest.