There are few things more natural than fear on the battlefield.

A soldier facing an enemy knows what is at stake. The next few minutes may determine whether he lives or dies, and it would be unnatural for him not to feel fear.

And yet, in this week's Parsha of Shoftim, the Torah commands precisely the opposite.

"When you go out to war against your enemy, and you see horse and chariot, a people more numerous than you, you shall not be afraid of them, for the Lord your G-d is with you, Who brought you up from the land of Egypt" (Deuteronomy 20:1).

The Torah does not minimize the danger. It acknowledges that Israel may face a more powerful force yet still insists: Do not be afraid.

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During the Cold War, Americans took communism seriously. We knew it was vital to study the ideology of our enemies.

In 1946, Columbia University established the Russian Institute to train what its founders called "American specialists" in Soviet affairs. I was a student there in the 1970s.

Harvard followed with its Russian Research Center in 1948. The federal government itself published a journal, "Problems of Communism," from 1952 to 1992 — sophisticated, well-documented analyses written by scholars and diplomats and read by policymakers in both parties.

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It gets hot in Washington. Real hot. On Aug. 6, 1918, the temperature hit 106 degrees.

Washingtonians, including top government officials, have been coping with this heat since the earliest days of our Republic. In the days before air conditioning, there wasn't much to do about it other than get out of town. The congressional summer recess dates to 1791. As of 1970, it's a statutory requirement.

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Saudi Arabia's Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman reportedly called President Trump on Saturday and implored him to hold off on striking the Islamic Republic of Iran.

Trump acquiesced and punted on a massive American bombing raid that could have potentially turned the tide of the war.

Admittedly, Saudi Arabia is in a tough spot: The Iranian regime continues to hammer the kingdom with drones and missiles, threatening its oil and water resources.

But the Saudis have not gone unprotected. American warfighters and even Greek air defense teams have ensured the safety of the Saudi state throughout this conflict.

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Great Britain's revolving door of prime ministers accelerated in June with the resignation of Keir Starmer, its 6th leader 10 years. As Andy Burnham, the popular former mayor of Manchester, hovered in the wings, and Starmer's approval ratings plunged to an all-time low, the former prime minister was living on borrowed time.

Weak and indecisive and with his domestic policies in shambles, the media had nicknamed him Keir Stumbler.

And then there was his embarrassing feud with President Donald J. Trump over defense and foreign policy.

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This has been a terrible year for the higher education industrial complex. Among the many crises are a year and a half of assaults by the Trump administration against research grants and foreign money, discriminatory hiring and admissions policies and reliance on foreign students.

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Pope Leo XIV began an official visit to Spain (June 6–12) by urging Spaniards to embrace multicultural coexistence with Islam and stop "fanning the flames of polarization" over mass migration from the Muslim world. He said that Christians and Muslims can live together as friends and proceeded to present medieval Spain—which was occupied by Islamic invaders for nearly 800 years—as an interfaith utopia that led to advancements in astronomy, medicine, and science.

The Pope declared:

"Your own history suggests that a culture of encounter, not confrontation, is what fosters stability and prosperity....

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A century ago, the first African American to earn a doctorate from Harvard and one of the founders of the NAACP, W.E.B. DuBois published The Gift of Black Folk, a book that was commissioned by the Catholic organization the Knights of Columbus, as part of a series intended to help Americans appreciate the contributions of minority groups.

DuBois was highly educated and an avid reader of great texts from Plato to Frederick Douglass. The irony of the present moment is that if DuBois were currently a student in a core philosophy class at Texas A&M University, he would be assigned only a redacted version of Plato's great work, The Republic.

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Imagine your physician walks into the exam room, recommends a prescription medication, and casually mentions she's being paid by the company that makes the drug to say so. You'd probably have questions.

You might even find a new doctor.

Now imagine that same scenario playing out on Instagram, TikTok, or YouTube — except the advice is coming from a celebrity "influencer" who's very familiar to you, who has an emotional backstory, and a financial arrangement buried somewhere in a sea of hashtags. Millions of people encounter exactly this situation every day, and most of them have no idea it's happening.

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ANYONE WHO spends time with me knows me knows how much I despise litter. For as long as I can remember, I have fumed at the sight of trash on sidewalks, beer cans in the gutter, or garbage flung from passing cars. I often pick up litter when I'm walking, and when my kids were young I made them pick it up, too.

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