A number of modern Jewish thinkers, beginning with Martin Buber, have tried to create a theology based on the belief that Judaism’s core truths lie beyond the limits of language. Their approach, writes Samuel Fleischacker, generally boils down to the following propositions: “Words are human, God is beyond words, and the Torah is a human attempt to grasp what an encounter with God might be like.” Rooted in certain strands of kabbalistic thought, this theological position has come to permeate Jewish religious thought from Reform through the more liberal wing of Modern Orthodoxy. But is it really a suitable way to understand a religion that privileges books, texts, and speech? Fleischaker writes:

Wordless encounter theology is unsuited to Judaism, a supremely wordy religious tradition. The God of the Torah creates the universe with words and inaugurates our role in the world by giving us the power of naming. Taking a cue from these sources, perhaps, the rabbis argue endlessly over how best to interpret all these stories and commands and aphorisms, delighting in every fine detail of their linguistic embodiment, and using those details as the ground for their claims.

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.