Jews over the centuries have recited many different public prayers for the governments under which they have lived, but the most widespread in modern times, which remains standard in Orthodox congregations today, is Hanoteyn t’shu’ah lam’lakhim (“He Who Gives Salvation to Kings”). Although this prayer seems like a statement of undiluted patriotic devotion, Jonathan Sarna suggests that it lends itself to esoteric interpretation:

Hanoteyn t’shu’ah itself is in many ways a subversive prayer. Its manifest language exudes Jewish loyalty and faithful allegiance. At the same time, its esoteric meaning, presumably recognized only by an elite corps of well-educated worshippers, hints at spiritual resistance, a cultural strategy well-known among those determined to maintain their self-respect in the face of religious persecution. So, for example, the prayer begins with a verse modified from Psalm 144:10: “You who give victory to kings, who rescue[d] His servant David from the deadly sword.” The next line of that psalm, not included in the prayer but . . . deeply revealing in terms of the prayer’s hidden meaning, reads: “Rescue me, save me from the hands of foreigners, whose mouths speak lies, and whose oaths are false.” . . .

[F]ollowing the American Revolution, the [text of the] prayer was radically depersonalized in the United States, based on the idea that the new nation honors “the office,” not “the man.” From then onward most American synagogues have prayed for the nation’s officeholders without naming them (“the president,” etc.), a totally different practice from that in other countries (including Great Britain and tsarist Russia) where kings and queens are (or were) commonly referred to by name. In the very first post-Revolutionary American siddur, printed in 1826, a distinction was even drawn between how Hanoteyn t’shu’ah should be recited “During the Sitting of Congress” and “During the Recess,” as if to underscore that members of Congress are only special (and worthy of being included in the prayer) when Congress is actually in session; otherwise, its members are fellow citizens along with everybody else.

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.”