In a memoir of his life in New Square, Shulem Deen tells about leaving a tight-knit ḥasidic community and discovering the outside world. Jessica Kasmer-Jacobs writes in her review:

[A]s the years pass, [Deen] wonders more and more: “Does God exist? Does our faith really contain the universe’s essential truths?” Desperate for guidance, he finds no salve for his growing doubts in the community’s leaders. If anything, he is treated with disdain by those he hoped might offer help. “The evasiveness that characterized so many of the responses,” he writes, “. . . suggested that the answers were a tangled spaghetti of sophistry meant to obfuscate rather than illuminate.” But in a village so small, word travels fast. Mr. Deen’s façade crumbles as his neighbors whisper about what books he reads and wonder whether he prays on the Sabbath.

Mr. Deen’s curiosity grows as quickly as his expanding family. In his early twenties, already the father of two children, he begins sneaking off to the children’s section of the nearby public library, slowly expanding his limited education with touches of the “new world.” From his perch on a tiny orange chair, Mr. Deen leafs through the pages of the World Book Encyclopedia with “heady delight.” . . . He starts listening to the radio in his car and reading newspapers. His wife grows uneasy, worried that her husband “would not be content to transgress alone, but would try to get her to join . . . and reel in the kids.”

Below, today’s newsletter will return to some other reflections on the one-year anniversary of the outbreak of the current war, but first something must be said of its recent progress. Israel has kept up its aerial and ground assault on Hizballah, and may have already killed the successor to Hassan Nasrallah, the longtime leader it eliminated less than two weeks ago. Matthew Levitt assesses the current state of the Lebanon-based terrorist group, which, in his view, is now “a shadow of its former self.” Indeed, he adds,

it is no exaggeration to say that the Hizballah of two weeks ago no longer exists. And since Hizballah was the backbone of Iran’s network of militant proxies, its so-called axis of resistance, Iran’s strategy of arming and deploying proxy groups throughout the region is suddenly at risk as well.

Hizballah’s attacks put increasing pressure on Israel, as intended, only that pressure did not lead Israelis to stop targeting Hamas so much as it chipped away at Israel’s fears about the cost of military action to address the military threats posed by Hizballah.

At the same time, Levitt explains, Hizballah still poses a serious threat, as it demonstrated last night when its missiles struck Haifa and Tiberias, injuring at least two people:

Hizballah still maintains an arsenal of rockets and a cadre of several thousand fighters. It will continue to pose potent military threats for Israel, Lebanon, and the wider region.

How will the group seek to avenge Nasrallah’s death amid these military setbacks? Hizballah is likely to resort to acts of international terrorism, which are overseen by one of the few elements of the group that has not yet lost key leaders.

But the true measure of whether the group will be able to reconstitute itself, even over many years, is whether Iran can restock Hizballah’s sophisticated arsenal. Tehran’s network of proxy groups—from Hizballah to Hamas to the Houthis—is only as dangerous as it is today because of Iran’s provision of weapons and money. Whatever Hizballah does next, Western governments must prioritize cutting off Tehran’s ability to arm and fund its proxies.