On Thursday, those following the seven-year cycle of Talmud study known as daf yomi (literally, “daily page”) completed tractate Bava Kama. One of the most commonly studied tractates, its name means “first gate” and it deals almost exclusively with torts, giving much attention to the biblical case of one man’s ox goring his neighbor’s. Dovid Bashevkin explores the relevance these topics, seemingly devoid of religious content, have to the believer:

The 12th-century scholar Rabbi Meir Abulafia explained this well in his commentary Yad Ramah. The entire prohibition of causing damages, he suggested, is an outgrowth of the biblical commandment to love your neighbor as yourself. [Bava Kama, like other civil-law tractates], may not feel otherworldly, but it requires us, acting as emissaries of God, to transform and infuse our mundane world with religious idealism. As Rabbi Jonah of Girona [d. 1264] explains, . . . the laws of damages contain the ingredients necessary to bake divinity within the very fabric of our mundane world.

The Talmud itself seems to confirm this worldview, doubling down on the holiness of being very careful not to cause pain and discomfort to your fellow human beings. If you want to become a hasid, [i.e., a person of exemplary piety], the Talmud writes, learn the laws of damages. . . . A hasid, the Talmud reminds us, is someone who can find divinity not just everywhere but within everyone.

If religious growth does not also translate into everyday decency and care for others, one should rightly wonder if there has even been any religious growth at all.

Below, today’s newsletter will return to some other reflections on the one-year anniversary of the outbreak of the current war, but first something must be said of its recent progress. Israel has kept up its aerial and ground assault on Hizballah, and may have already killed the successor to Hassan Nasrallah, the longtime leader it eliminated less than two weeks ago. Matthew Levitt assesses the current state of the Lebanon-based terrorist group, which, in his view, is now “a shadow of its former self.” Indeed, he adds,

it is no exaggeration to say that the Hizballah of two weeks ago no longer exists. And since Hizballah was the backbone of Iran’s network of militant proxies, its so-called axis of resistance, Iran’s strategy of arming and deploying proxy groups throughout the region is suddenly at risk as well.

Hizballah’s attacks put increasing pressure on Israel, as intended, only that pressure did not lead Israelis to stop targeting Hamas so much as it chipped away at Israel’s fears about the cost of military action to address the military threats posed by Hizballah.

At the same time, Levitt explains, Hizballah still poses a serious threat, as it demonstrated last night when its missiles struck Haifa and Tiberias, injuring at least two people:

Hizballah still maintains an arsenal of rockets and a cadre of several thousand fighters. It will continue to pose potent military threats for Israel, Lebanon, and the wider region.

How will the group seek to avenge Nasrallah’s death amid these military setbacks? Hizballah is likely to resort to acts of international terrorism, which are overseen by one of the few elements of the group that has not yet lost key leaders.

But the true measure of whether the group will be able to reconstitute itself, even over many years, is whether Iran can restock Hizballah’s sophisticated arsenal. Tehran’s network of proxy groups—from Hizballah to Hamas to the Houthis—is only as dangerous as it is today because of Iran’s provision of weapons and money. Whatever Hizballah does next, Western governments must prioritize cutting off Tehran’s ability to arm and fund its proxies.