Traditional Jewish law forbids revenge, praises forgiveness, and encourages self-defense. So where exactly does it stand on the oft-cited New Testament commandment? Gil Student writes:

Forgiveness in Judaism is not automatic. If you wrong someone, you need to apologize to him—not just God. Christianity teaches that if someone hits you on the cheek, rather than fighting back you should turn the other cheek and allow him to hit that one as well. I am certainly aware that Christian thinkers have found many creative and interesting ways to understand this directive, but this is not the place for that discussion. Rather, I’d like to address the Jewish attitude to turning the other cheek, or at least to fighting back. Traditionally, Jews counter that this pacifism is strange and contrary to the Torah. But doesn’t the Torah forbid revenge (Lev. 19:18)? Isn’t a Jew required to be . . . patient and forgiving (Rosh Hashanah 17a)? Perhaps we are obligated to forgive the transgression and walk away.

[The rabbis conclude, however, that] turning the other cheek is an irresponsible response. We must protect those who need defending, including ourselves.

Israel will likely respond directly against Iran after yesterday’s attack, and has made known that it will calibrate its retaliation based not on the extent of the damage, but on the scale of the attack. The specifics are anyone’s guess, but Edward Luttwak has a suggestion, put forth in an article published just hours before the missile barrage: cut off Tehran’s ability to send money and arms to Shiite Arab militias.

In practice, most of this cash comes from a single source: oil. . . . In other words, the flow of dollars that sustains Israel’s enemies, and which has caused so much trouble to Western interests from the Syrian desert to the Red Sea, emanates almost entirely from the oil loaded onto tankers at the export terminal on Khark Island, a speck of land about 25 kilometers off Iran’s southern coast. Benjamin Netanyahu warned in his recent speech to the UN General Assembly that Israel’s “long arm” can reach them too. Indeed, Khark’s location in the Persian Gulf is relatively close. At 1,516 kilometers from Israel’s main airbase, it’s far closer than the Houthis’ main oil import terminal at Hodeida in Yemen—a place that was destroyed by Israeli jets in July, and attacked again [on Sunday].