In The People and the Book: 18 Classics of Jewish Literature, Adam Kirsch presents a kind of introductory course on Jewish thought, ranging from Pirkei Avot to Moses Maimonides to Benedict Spinoza to Theodor Herzl. Allan Arkush, who writes that the book “constitutes a deeply serious meditation on the meaning of Jewish existence,” takes up its author’s unusual analysis of Jerusalem, a defense of Judaism written by the 18th-century German Jewish philosopher Moses Mendelssohn:

Mendelssohn had to explain how he could denounce religious coercion while at the same time maintaining his adherence to a religion that, in Kirsch’s words, “was based on the idea of compulsion through law.”

Unlike a very large number of Mendelssohn scholars, Kirsch sees that the bulk of Jerusalem leaves this problem unaddressed and that it is only at the end of the book that Mendelssohn answers . . . by explaining that the demise of the Jewish polity has transformed Jewish law, as Kirsch puts it, “from a communal rule for all Jews into a voluntary commitment of each Jew.” Kirsch then raises doubts about this contention, not in terms of its philosophical or theological adequacy, but with regard to its practical ramifications:

Once the decision to obey Jewish law is left up to every individual, it is inevitable that some—maybe most—Jews will decide that the burden is too great, that there is no way and no need to go on living under two sets of laws. And, in fact, that is just what happened with Mendelssohn’s own family. All of his grandchildren were baptized Christians, including the composer Felix Mendelssohn-Bartholdy, who created masterpieces of church music.

Kirsch is not recalling this family history in order to disparage Mendelssohn’s ideology, as have so many other writers over the past two centuries. He is not even calling into question Mendelssohn’s affirmation of voluntarism. He is just pointing out that there are trade-offs, even for good things like liberty.

Analyzing the recent direct Iranian attack on Israel, and Israel’s security situation more generally, Michael Oren looks to the 2015 agreement to restrain Iran’s nuclear program. That, and President Biden’s efforts to resurrect the deal after Donald Trump left it, are in his view the source of the current crisis:

Of the original motivations for the deal—blocking Iran’s path to the bomb and transforming Iran into a peaceful nation—neither remained. All Biden was left with was the ability to kick the can down the road and to uphold Barack Obama’s singular foreign-policy achievement.

In order to achieve that result, the administration has repeatedly refused to punish Iran for its malign actions:

Historians will survey this inexplicable record and wonder how the United States not only allowed Iran repeatedly to assault its citizens, soldiers, and allies but consistently rewarded it for doing so. They may well conclude that in a desperate effort to avoid getting dragged into a regional Middle Eastern war, the U.S. might well have precipitated one.

While America’s friends in the Middle East, especially Israel, have every reason to feel grateful for the vital assistance they received in intercepting Iran’s missile and drone onslaught, they might also ask what the U.S. can now do differently to deter Iran from further aggression. . . . Tehran will see this weekend’s direct attack on Israel as a victory—their own—for their ability to continue threatening Israel and destabilizing the Middle East with impunity.

Israel, of course, must respond differently. Our target cannot simply be the Iranian proxies that surround our country and that have waged war on us since October 7, but, as the Saudis call it, “the head of the snake.”