The story of the exodus told at the Passover seder, in the view of Shalom Carmy, evokes two primary interpretations. According to the first—which is the one known to most American Jews—it is a “social and political” tale of “moving from slavery to freedom.” But according to a rich body of rabbinic commentary, the liberation from Egyptian servitude appears as a “prelude to the revelation at Sinai” and its attendant covenantal obligations. “Freedom,” in this understanding, “is to be cherished because it paves the way to divine law.” Carmy finds that the biblical text supports both attitudes, and seeks to reconcile them:

Having been commissioned to lead the people out of bondage, Moses returns to his brothers in Egypt. He tells them that God knows their sufferings and will fulfill his covenant with the patriarchs. He tells them, and he tells Pharaoh, to let the people go so that they may offer sacrifices in the desert. He does not yet tell the people that in the desert they will be introduced to a radically new religious commitment grounded in faithfulness to the covenant.

In other words, if all we had before us were the words God communicated to the people through Moses, even if these words were supplemented by what God told Abraham [in Genesis 15] about exile, oppression, and salvation, we would have heard much about the oppression and the toil from which God would rescue us, and we would know the promise of being restored to the Land of Israel. We would have heard nothing binding the exodus to the giving of the law.

What the standard social-political reading of the exodus leaves out is not only the transcendent experience of Sinai. The social-political reading also fails to confess that liberation alone, without the transcendent dimension, does not ennoble or sensitize one to the plight of others. The slaves whom Moses encounters at the beginning of his mission are not yet prepared for the heroic, all-encompassing, and commanding voice of Sinai. In the first days and years that follow Sinai, they may be prepared to respond to the divine reminder, in the laws of Exodus, that they were sojourners in Egypt—but they are not yet able to integrate into their moral identity the degradation of having been enslaved. That integration is accomplished 40 years later, when Moses speaks to their children in Deuteronomy.

Critics of the American bombing raid on Iran have warned that it could lead to dangerous retaliation, and risk dragging the U.S. into a broader conflict. (How this could be a greater risk than allowing the murderous fanatics who govern Iran to have nuclear weapons is a separate question.) Yesterday, Iran indeed retaliated. Noah Rothman writes:

On Monday, Iranian state media released a high-production-value video revealing [the government’s] intention to strike U.S. forces inside neighboring Qatar. A bombastic statement from Iran’s Supreme National Security Council accompanying the video claimed that Iran had launched a salvo of ten missiles at the U.S.-manned Al Udeid Air Base, which “pulverized” American forces. In reality, the missiles seem to have all been intercepted before they reached their targets. No casualties have been reported.

In fact, the Iranians quietly gave Qatar—the Gulf state with which they have the best relations—advance warning of the attack, knowing that the Qataris would then pass it on to the U.S. Thus prepared, American forces were able to minimize the damage. Rothman continues:

So far, Iran’s retaliatory response to U.S. strikes on its nuclear program looks a lot like its reaction to the 2020 attack that killed the Revolutionary Guard commander Qassem Suleimani—which is to say that it seems like Tehran is seeking an offramp to avoid a potentially existential conflict with the United States.

Now, it’s important to note that this is only a face-saving climb-down if that’s how we want to interpret it. The only reason why we remember the Iranian operation aimed at avenging Soleimani’s death as a cease-fire overture is because we decided to take it that way. We didn’t have to do that. One-hundred-and-ten U.S. service personnel were treated for injuries as a result of that direct and unprecedented ballistic-missile attack on U.S. forces in Iraq. . . . The U.S. could have regarded that strike as an unacceptable precedent, but the Trump administration had made its point. By simply deeming deterrence to have been restored, the U.S. helped bring that condition about.

It appears that is precisely what the U.S. has done this time. Last night both Washington and Tehran announced a cease-fire, one that includes Israel. Whether it will hold remains to be seen; Iran already managed to get in a deadly, eleventh-hour attack on civilians in Beersheba. If Jerusalem knew such an arrangement was in the cards—and there is every reason to think it did—then its military activities over the past few days start to make a great deal of sense.

Since June 13, there has been some lack of clarity about whether Israel’s goal is to destroy Iran’s nuclear and ballistic-missile capabilities, or to destabilize the regime. Now it seems that the IDF has been doing precisely what it has done in the final phase of almost every prior war: try to inflict as much damage as possible upon the enemy’s military infrastructure before the U.S. blows the whistle and declares the war over—thus reestablishing deterrence and leaving its enemy’s offensive capabilities severely weakened.

In the next item, I’ll turn to some of the nonmilitary targets Israel chose.