Born outside of Montreal in 1928, Rabbi Nachum Rabinovitch has spent the past four decades in Israel where he has labored on a detailed, 23-volume commentary on Moses Maimonides’ Mishneh Torah—an encyclopedic code of Jewish law—that is now near completion. Rabinovitch has aimed to elucidate the text’s meaning, and to harmonize the Mishneh Torah with Maimonides’ major philosophical treatise, the Guide of the Perplexed. Allan Nadler, who deems Rabinovitch’s work “the most systematic, comprehensive commentary on Maimonides’ code ever produced,” describes its author’s intellectual approach and career:

His extraordinary career and accomplishments notwithstanding, Rabbi Rabinovitch is hardly known to diaspora Jews, even those steeped in the rabbinic tradition. . . . As a rabbi, he cedes his judgment and authority to no religious organization, political party, or venerated Orthodox rabbinic tribunal. . . . He also has shown a brave indifference to the single most powerful religious institution in the Jewish state, Israel’s chief rabbinate. Three years ago, together with Rabbis Shlomo Riskin and David Stav, Rabinovitch established an independent [rabbinic court] to handle the cases of the thousands of Israeli candidates for conversion to Judaism with greater compassion, efficiency, and leniency than had been shown by state-sanctioned rabbinic courts. . . .

To the extent that Rabinovitch has a public reputation, it is as a liberal on the one hand and a hardline ultra-rightist on the other. The first reputation is due to his principled break with Israel’s chief rabbinate on their intolerant approach to conversion. By contrast, based on a few rather shocking political statements, Rabinovitch has become erroneously labeled as a messianic Zionist extremist. Although Rabinovitch is on the political right in Israel, this is a terrible distortion.

In fact, one of the most striking aspects of Rabinovitch’s philosophy of Judaism is its universalist humanism. He has, it must be acknowledged, said some incendiary things. . . . [R]ecently, he inexcusably compared members of the Knesset with members of the notorious Judenräte (Jewish councils) in the Nazi ghettos. Such extreme remarks are the result of his passionate but thoroughly un-messianic conviction that territorial compromise is a mortal danger to Israel and its citizens. Rabinovitch, who is by nature a lenient halakhist, tolerates no compromise, seeing it in the context of the obligation to save human lives. In short, on this one issue, his passionate humanism buttresses his extremism.

At the same time, Rabinovitch’s profound concern for the sanctity of human life has led him to take what might be termed “liberal” views that are not shared by the large majority of Religious Zionist rabbis. . . . Throughout his work, including a 2006 volume of responsa to queries from IDF soldiers, Rabinovitch insists on treating Gentiles, all Gentiles, regardless of their religion (barring ancient idolatry) or the degree of their hatred of Jews and Israel, as fellow human beings with all the rights that implies. . . . This view also leads Rabinovitch to rule that it is incumbent on medics in the IDF and Israeli doctors, as well as any bystanders who can assist, to treat and save the lives of Arab combatants, even those of terrorists wounded in the course of attacking Israelis (and even on the Sabbath).

Yesterday, the beepers used by hundreds of Hizballah operatives were detonated. Noah Rothman puts this ingenious attack in the context of the overall war between Israel and the Iran-backed terrorist group:

[W]hile the disabling of an untold number of Hizballah operatives is remarkable, it’s also ominous. This week, the Israeli defense minister Yoav Gallant told reporters that the hour is nearing when Israeli forces will have to confront Iran’s cat’s-paw in southern Lebanon directly, in order to return the tens of thousands of Israelis who fled their homes along Lebanon’s border under fire and have not yet been able to return. Today’s operation may be a prelude to the next phase of Israel’s defensive war, a dangerous one in which the IDF will face off against an enemy with tens of thousands of fighters and over 150,000 rockets and missiles trained on Israeli cities.

Seth Frantzman, meanwhile, focuses on the specific damage the pager bombings have likely done to Hizballah:

This will put the men in hospital for a period of time. Some of them can go back to serving Hizballah, but they will not have access to one of their hands. These will most likely be their dominant hand, meaning the hand they’d also use to hold the trigger of a rifle or push the button to launch a missile.

Hizballah has already lost around 450 fighters in its eleven-month confrontation with Israel. This is a significant loss for the group. While Hizballah can replace losses, it doesn’t have an endlessly deep [supply of recruits]. This is not only because it has to invest in training and security ahead of recruitment, but also because it draws its recruits from a narrow spectrum of Lebanese society.

The overall challenge for Hizballah is not just replacing wounded and dead fighters. The group will be challenged to . . . roll out some other way to communicate with its men. The use of pagers may seem archaic, but Hizballah apparently chose to use this system because it assumed the network could not be penetrated. . . . It will also now be concerned about the penetration of its operational security. When groups like Hizballah are in chaos, they are more vulnerable to making mistakes.