Both the Yiddish poet and novelist Chaim Grade and the Jewish Theological Seminary’s leading talmudist, Saul Lieberman, were products of the great yeshivas of pre-World War II Lithuania. The former depicted this milieu in his literary works, the latter sought to marry its intellectual activities to modern critical scholarship. In 1967, Lieberman wrote an encomium to Grade in Yiddish, translated into English for the first time here:

[Grade’s fiction is] filled with all kinds of personalities and characters, with never a single one even remotely resembling any of the others! Such weird types, such as Vova Barbitoler in Tsemakh Atlas [translated into English as The Yeshiva], or the blind beggar Muraviev in Der Shulhoyf [The Synagogue Courtyard, untranslated]: original characters that never once, even by coincidence, are reproduced. . . . So too, the depictions of women. . . .

By the time I got around to reading Tsemakh Atlas, I had already been stunned by the accuracy of Grade’s depictions. But in this work—aside from the central figure of the title, who is a literary creation forged by melding a variety of personalities, each consisting of numerous dispositions—I personally felt as if I knew almost every one of the major “participants” in Grade’s novel, [including] Khaykl Vilner [a stand-in for the author] and his rebbe, the Makhze-Avrohom, [who is transparently modeled on Lieberman’s cousin Avraham Yeshaya Karelitz]. The same is equally true of each and every one of the rabbis in The Agunah, who were all just like cousins of mine.

Many volumes have already appeared about the musar movement [a 19th-century movement focused on the cultivation of individual piety and ethics] and its proponents. You can choose to believe, or not accept, these works. But once having reads Grade’s depictions of yeshivas [that adopted musar teachings], you will know everything as if you had been there.

In 2003, the Libyan dictator Muammar Gaddafi, spooked by the American display of might in Iraq, decided to destroy or surrender his entire nuclear program. Informed observers have suggested that the deal he made with the U.S. should serve as a model for any agreement with Iran. Robert Joseph provides some useful background:

Gaddafi had convinced himself that Libya would be next on the U.S. target list after Iraq. There was no reason or need to threaten Libya with bombing as Gaddafi was quick to tell almost every visitor that he did not want to be Saddam Hussein. The images of Saddam being pulled from his spider hole . . . played on his mind.

President Bush’s goal was to have Libya serve as an alternative model to Iraq. Instead of war, proliferators would give up their nuclear programs in exchange for relief from economic and political sanctions.

Any outcome that permits Iran to enrich uranium at any level will fail the one standard that President Trump has established: Iran will not be allowed to have a nuclear weapon. Limiting enrichment even to low levels will allow Iran to break out of the agreement at any time, no matter what the agreement says.

Iran is not a normal government that observes the rules of international behavior or fair “dealmaking.” This is a regime that relies on regional terror and brutal repression of its citizens to stay in power. It has a long history of using negotiations to expand its nuclear program. Its negotiating tactics are clear: extend the negotiations as long as possible and meet any concession with more demands.