Rabbi Abraham Isaac Kook, who served as the first Ashkenazi chief rabbi of Palestine, is generally regarded as the intellectual progenitor of religious Zionism. Born in Russia in 1865, Kook developed a theosophy that combined various strands of Jewish mysticism with ideas plucked from modern and secular currents, most importantly from secular Zionism. While strictly Orthodox, he rejected Orthodoxy’s view of Judaism as unchanging and called for a religious renewal made possible by Zionism; this, as Yehudah Mirsky points out in his recent biography, would lead to reconciliation between religious and secular Jews and hasten the coming of the messiah. Samuel Thrope writes:

In his own way, Kook was no less radical than the young [secular Zionist] pioneers. Unlike other representatives of traditional Judaism in Palestine, he did not dismiss the anti-religious Zionists as heretics and sinners. His Kook’s response to Zionism’s revolutionary, secular challenge to tradition—its claim to have wrested the mantle of Jewishness from Judaism—was to transform it into theology. Even as the pioneers sought to sacralize their secular undertaking, Kook intended to re-appropriate Jewish nationalism as a religious movement springing from the deepest wells of the faith. The pioneers might have seen themselves as socialists and enlightened rebels; in Kook’s admiring eyes, they were unwitting saints.

Early Friday morning, Israel attacked military installations near the Iranian cities of Isfahan and nearby Natanz, the latter being one of the hubs of the country’s nuclear program. Jerusalem is not taking credit for the attack, and none of the details are too certain, but it seems that the attack involved multiple drones, likely launched from within Iran, as well as one or more missiles fired from Syrian or Iraqi airspace. Strikes on Syrian radar systems shortly beforehand probably helped make the attack possible, and there were reportedly strikes on Iraq as well.

Iran itself is downplaying the attack, but the S-300 air-defense batteries in Isfahan appear to have been destroyed or damaged. This is a sophisticated Russian-made system positioned to protect the Natanz nuclear installation. In other words, Israel has demonstrated that Iran’s best technology can’t protect the country’s skies from the IDF. As Yossi Kuperwasser puts it, the attack, combined with the response to the assault on April 13,

clarified to the Iranians that whereas we [Israelis] are not as vulnerable as they thought, they are more vulnerable than they thought. They have difficulty hitting us, but we have no difficulty hitting them.

Nobody knows exactly how the operation was carried out. . . . It is good that a question mark hovers over . . . what exactly Israel did. Let’s keep them wondering. It is good for deniability and good for keeping the enemy uncertain.

The fact that we chose targets that were in the vicinity of a major nuclear facility but were linked to the Iranian missile and air forces was a good message. It communicated that we can reach other targets as well but, as we don’t want escalation, we chose targets nearby that were involved in the attack against Israel. I think it sends the message that if we want to, we can send a stronger message. Israel is not seeking escalation at the moment.