David M. Weinberg 
David M. Weinberg 
Warplanes of the State of Israel flew close to 400 sorties over Iran with 600 aerial refueling connections during Operation Rising Lion. Not a single jet faltered or fumbled along the way, none had technical difficulties, not a single jet was hit by enemy fire, and not a single pilot was injured or fell into enemy hands.
Is that enormously impressive or outright miraculous?
IAF attack and surveillance drones flew an additional 1,100 sorties into Iran, and only eight drones were lost in the campaign. Together, the jets and drones successfully struck over 900 targets in Iran with 4,300 munitions, including nine nuclear sites, six airports and airbases (including Mashad Airport in eastern Iran which is 2,400 kilometers away from Israel), and 35 missile and air defense production facilities.
All the strikes were executed flawlessly, and not a single Iranian defensive system or guard force managed to interdict these operations.
IDF commandos and Mossad agents operated inside Iran or from bases just across Iran’s borders, launching UAVs and secret weapon systems to neutralize Iranian abilities and target Iranian military and intelligence leaders. Not a single Iranian defensive system or guard force discovered these Israeli boots-on-the-ground in real time nor managed to interfere with these operations. All undercover Israeli soldiers and agents returned home to Israel safely.
In classic military assessment, such flawless performance and perfect results are statistically impossible. Unheard of. Unprecedented. Hard to believe.
So again, I ask, is this (merely) wildly impressive or wholly miraculous?
Over 14 days, Israel was able to neatly demolish 80 Iranian surface-to-air missile systems, 70 radars, 15 Iranian warplanes, 200 of Iran’s estimated 400 missile launchers, and 800 to 1,000 of Iran’s estimated 2,000 ballistic missiles. In both quantity and speed of execution, this exceeded IDF planning and expectations, and again, not a single Iranian defensive system managed to interdict these operations.
Israel also assassinated 30 senior Iranian military and IRGC officers, hundreds of Basij personnel, and 11 top scientists who were key knowledge-holders in Iran’s nuclear enrichment and weaponization colossus.
All this, of course, demonstrates deep intelligence penetration and matchless Israeli military planning, enormous professionalism, and supreme heroism. But given the improbabilities of it all, given the absoluteness of the accomplishment, given the power of the punch – might it also necessarily point to support from a Supreme Hand in the heavens?
NOW CONSIDER Iran’s attacks on Israel. On June 12, the night before the war, at the cabinet meeting convened to approve Operation Rising Lion, the IDF estimated that between 400 to 800 Israeli civilians could be killed in Iranian missile assaults. According to some reports, Israeli leaders were warned that if the war extended beyond two weeks and Iran was able to fire all its 2,000+ missiles into Israel including the two-ton versions, the death toll could rise to 4,000 Israelis.
In the end, Iran managed to fire about 600 missiles at Israel in 18 barrages, but 87% were intercepted by Israeli and other defensive systems. Another 1,200 Iranian drones were launched into Israel, but 99% were downed by defensive systems.
In cold military terms, such high interception rates of enemy missiles and drones are almost statistically impossible. Certainly unparalleled. Successful beyond belief.
So, is this just fantastically impressive or also spectacularly miraculous?
Unfortunately, 50 missiles and one drone broke through Israeli defensives, killing 29 Israelis, wounding 3,500 more, destroying 2,300 homes in 240 buildings, and leaving 16,000 Israeli civilians homeless. All Israelis suffered through more than 600 enemy attack alerts (more than 12,000 alarms across the county in all), sleep deprivation, economic and social dislocation, and plenty of trauma. Enemy missile fire struck a central military base, a key Israeli oil refinery, and one of the country’s top scientific research institutions.
But given how bad it could have been, how much worse it was expected to be, how devastating an enemy nuclear strike on Israel might have been, God forbid – it is hard to shake the feeling that the heavens were in on the protection plan for Israel, too.
In short, the statistics are totally triumphant, miraculously so. They are not logical unless you calculate something lofty and exalted beyond the mundane math.
THE MASTERFUL Israeli assault on Iran has restored Israel’s deterrent power and blessedly improved its strategic situation, especially after the failures of October 7, 2023. More importantly, Israel’s victories in Operation Rising Lion will perhaps point to something grander than the natural order, driving the way to spiritual conclusions.
By this I mean that maybe the miracles bestowed upon Israel in the recent war will assist people to perceive Providence at work. Perhaps the supernatural victories will lead citizens of the world to ponder the Jewish People and the State of Israel as repositories of eternal truths and as generators of moral purpose.
After all, if you permit that Israel’s victories are not just impressive, but Divine, everything changes. As one ditty going around the internet this week (hazily attributed to Allister Heath of the Daily Telegraph) declares: “Once you admit that Israel’s survival is Divine, your moral compass has to reset. Your (secular) assumptions about history, power, and justice collapse. If the ancient, hated nation of Israel is somehow still chosen, protected, and thriving – then maybe God isn’t a myth after all.”
Again, given the threats arrayed against Israel, and given Israel’s wonderous recent victories, can one deny the stark, palpable intervention of God, alongside Israel’s own prowess?
Can the genocidal gutter-chant “from the river to the sea, Palestine will be free” hold out against the defiant demonstration of Providential Power on behalf of the State of Israel? I do not think it can.
THE LATE Lord Rabbi Dr. Jonathan Sacks taught that the chronicles of humanity are nothing less than a drama of redemption, in which the fate of nations reflects their loyalty (or otherwise) to covenant with God.For Jews in particular, he argued, this imposes tremendous responsibility to do things right because they are reputationally associated with the Creator; they are mandated to create “Kiddush Hashem” – a sanctification of God’s name in the world.
Non-Jews have also understood Jewish history this way. Sacks quotes the Russian Marxist thinker Nikolai Berdayev (The Meaning of History, 1936), who late in life came to the conclusion that the script of Jewish history bears the mark of God’s hand.
“The survival [of Jews] is a mysterious and wonderful phenomenon demonstrating that the life of this people is governed by a special predetermination, transcending the processes of adaptation expounded by the materialistic interpretation of history,” Berdayev wrote. “The survival of the Jews, their resistance to destruction, their endurance under absolutely peculiar conditions, and the fateful role played by them in history: all these point to the particular and mysterious foundations of their destiny.”
I think that Rising Lion indeed is a “peculiar and fateful” moment in history, a moment for spiritual introspection, not just strategic recalculation.
The victories of Rising Lion, categorically impressive and exceptionally miraculous, ought to point beyond themselves to something grander than the natural order – to the attentive hand of God in our world.
Published in The Jerusalem Post, July 6, 2025.