The biblical commandments concerning ritual sacrifice mandate close contact between the one bringing the sacrifice and the animal being sacrificed; the ritual is usually followed by the ceremonial eating of the animal. In our society, however, such close contact between eater and eaten is very rare. Yet, to appreciate the Torah’s teachings, Barry Kornblau argues, we must understand this presupposition of intimacy:

On Thursday, there was a fire—apparently caused by an explosion—at the uranium-enrichment facility in the Iranian city of Natanz. The incident followed closely on the heels of an explosion at the Parchin military facility, also connected to the Islamic Republic’s nuclear program, and another at a building in Tehran that left nineteen dead. While Israel has not commented on any of these incidents, there are reports that it was behind at least one. A few weeks earlier, Tehran set off an exchange of cyberattacks between the two countries. Yoav Limor analyzes the situation: