Born in Padua in 1707, Moses Hayyim Luzzatto received a traditional rabbinic education alongside training in philosophy, rhetoric, literature, and other liberal arts. He also delved deeply into kabbalah and claimed to have communed with an angelic messenger who instructed him in the Torah’s mysteries. A polymath, Luzzatto wrote poetry, Hebrew plays, works of theology and mystical speculation, and the guide to moral and spiritual perfection titled Path of the Just, which is popular in yeshivahs today. Some of his writings led him to be condemned as a secret of follower of the Sabbatian heresy, and Italian rabbis eventually forced him out of Italy. Since his death in 1746, he has been admired and claimed as a precursor by both secular and religious Zionists, proponents of the Haskalah, kabbalists of all kinds, and the strictest Haredim.

In conversation with J.J. Kimche, Jonathan Garb explores Luzzatto’s life and legacy, as well as the past and present controversies surrounding him, and explains how his study of rhetoric informed all of his work. (Audio, 65 minutes.)

On the same day the cease-fire went into effect along the Israel-Lebanon border, rebel forces launched an unexpected offensive, and within a few days captured much of Aleppo. This lightening advance originated in the northwestern part of the country, which has been relatively quiet over the past four years, since Bashar al-Assad effectively gave up on restoring control over the remaining rebel enclaves in the area. The fighting comes at an inopportune moment for the powers that Damascus has called on for help in the past: Russia is bogged down in Ukraine and Hizballah has been shattered.

But the situation is extremely complex. David Wurmser points to the dangers that lie ahead:

The desolation wrought on Hizballah by Israel, and the humiliation inflicted on Iran, has not only left the Iranian axis exposed to Israeli power and further withering. It has altered the strategic tectonics of the Middle East. The story is not just Iran anymore. The region is showing the first signs of tremendous geopolitical change. And the plates are beginning to move.

The removal of the religious-totalitarian tyranny of the Iranian regime remains the greatest strategic imperative in the region for the United States and its allies, foremost among whom stands Israel. . . . However, as Iran’s regime descends into the graveyard of history, it is important not to neglect the emergence of other, new threats. navigating the new reality taking shape.

The retreat of the Syrian Assad regime from Aleppo in the face of Turkish-backed, partly Islamist rebels made from remnants of Islamic State is an early skirmish in this new strategic reality. Aleppo is falling to the Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, or HTS—a descendant of Nusra Front led by Abu Mohammed al-Julani, himself a graduate of al-Qaeda’s system and cobbled together of IS elements. Behind this force is the power of nearby Turkey.