In an interview by David Horovitz, the philosopher, ethicist, and theologian Moshe Halbertal explores how Jews, and Israelis in particular, should think about COVID-19:

We are experiencing our utter, utter vulnerability. As [Ashkenazi Jews] say in the [High Holy Day prayer] Un’taneh Tokef, we’re “like a passing shadow, like a fleeting dream.”

There is no inherent rationale to [the epidemic]. But there is an inherent message: here we are, horribly vulnerable. . . . But vulnerability doesn’t mean fatalism. And now I am talking Jewishly, from the deepest impulse of tradition.

You can say we are vulnerable and we are in the hands of God, and resign from the world . . . or move to some kind of stoic withdrawal. [Jewish tradition rejects this response.] Rather than fatalism, vulnerability should breed introspection and self-reflection. Moses Maimonides says that in times of calamity, the community has to repent; apathy to calamities is “the cruel path.” [Calamity] should breed reflection that, in turn, has to bring about action.

One other thing: there is something admirable about the global reaction [to the crisis]. Really admirable. And that is the prioritizing of life over the economy. Whether the response is right or wrong, even in terms of saving lives, is a different question. We don’t know yet. But we do know the numbers; we know the patterns. And resisting leaving the weak and deserting the elderly, the vulnerable, is really an amazing moral moment.

It’s all mixed in, as usual with humans, with very dark aspects [of human nature]. In Jewish tradition, but not only Jewish tradition, what is the test of respecting human dignity? It is seeing humans not merely as instruments. That is why the relationship to the elderly is always an interesting, deep test of the respect for human dignity, because the elderly don’t have a function in many ways. It’s as if they are superfluous. [The behavior of many countries is] a great moral moment, because it’s not only a rejection of Darwinism, but also of utilitarianism as a form of moral calculus.

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.