The quarrels between Hasidim and Mitnagdim, Reform and Orthodox, Zionists and anti-Zionists all pitted Jews against one another, divided communities, and at times grew ferocious. But none may have been quite so intense, or so far-reaching, as that between two of the 18th century’s most prominent rabbis: Jacob Emden and Jonathan Eybeschutz. These two men weren’t simply towering talmudic scholars, but experts on kabbalah keenly interested in new scientific advances and other ideas coming from the non-Jewish world. Maoz Kahana goes so far as to compare the polymathic Eybeschutz to Leonardo da Vinci.

Around 1751, Emden accused Eybeschutz of being a secret adherent of the heterodox mystical teachings of Shabbetai Tsvi, the 17th-century failed messiah. While many of Shabbetai’s followers were “antinomian,” believing in the salvific power of ritualized transgression, crypto-Sabbatians like (allegedly) Eybeschutz were “hyper-nomian,” observing Jewish law with particular stringency. He was thus a hasid in the older sense—predating the hasidic movement we know today—someone of great piety and meticulous ritual observance, often mystically inclined.

Yet, according to Emden, Eybeschutz was a dangerous heretic whose ideas went against the fundamental tenets of Orthodoxy. After several years of fierce controversy, Rabbi Ezekiel Landau of Prague adjudicated the dispute and forced a compromise on the two rabbis.

Kahana, in conversation with J.J. Kimche, describes these two personalities, Eybeschutz’s complex fusion of mysticism and science, the controversy itself, and what it reveals about the nature of Judaism. (Audio, 70 minutes.)

Yesterday, Israel’s Channel 12 reported that Israeli representatives have been involved in secret talks, brokered by the United Arab Emirates, with their Syrian counterparts about the potential establishment of diplomatic relations between their countries. Even more surprisingly, on Wednesday an Israeli reporter spoke with a senior official from Syria’s information ministry, Ali al-Rifai. The prospect of a member of the Syrian government, or even a private citizen, giving an on-the-record interview to an Israeli journalist was simply unthinkable under the old regime. What’s more, his message was that Damascus seeks peace with other countries in the region, Israel included.

These developments alone should make Israelis sanguine about Donald Trump’s overtures to Syria’s new rulers. Yet the interim president Ahmed al-Sharaa’s jihadist resumé, his connections with Turkey and Qatar, and brutal attacks on minorities by forces aligned with, or part of, his regime remain reasons for skepticism. While recognizing these concerns, Noah Rothman nonetheless makes the case for optimism:

The old Syrian regime was an incubator and exporter of terrorism, as well as an Iranian vassal state. The Assad regime trained, funded, and introduced terrorists into Iraq intent on killing American soldiers. It hosted Iranian terrorist proxies as well as the Russian military and its mercenary cutouts. It was contemptuous of U.S.-backed proscriptions on the use of chemical weapons on the battlefield, necessitating American military intervention—an unavoidable outcome, clearly, given Barack Obama’s desperate efforts to avoid it. It incubated Islamic State as a counterweight against the Western-oriented rebel groups vying to tear that regime down, going so far as to purchase its own oil from the nascent Islamist group.

The Assad regime was an enemy of the United States. The Sharaa regime could yet be a friend to America. . . . Insofar as geopolitics is a zero-sum game, taking Syria off the board for Russia and Iran and adding it to the collection of Western assets would be a triumph. At the very least, it’s worth a shot. Trump deserves credit for taking it.