Israel’s chief rabbinate recently attempted to remove Shlomo Riskin—a highly regarded Modern Orthodox rabbi—from his post as chief rabbi of the town of Efrat by refusing to grant a routine waiver of the mandatory retirement age. Shlomo Brody writes that this “attempt to deploy this law capriciously, for ideological reasons . . . is an outrage,” but takes the opportunity to discuss the halakhic basis for mandatory retirement:

The Talmud [asserts that] “the older Torah scholars become, the more wisdom increases within them.” Yet the same passage also cites numerous examples of the physical and emotional toll which old age can take on elderly scholars. . . .

A second text addresses [the question of] whether old age impairs the judgment of senior jurists. The sages ruled that ideally, one should not become a judge until he has sufficiently aged. Yet they also declared that one who has become “very elderly” may no longer hear cases regarding capital crimes, fear[ing] that an elderly judge might have lost his merciful “fatherly” touch because he had forgotten the difficulty of raising children, or that, alternatively, his old age may make him impatient and mean-spirited.

In a momentous meeting with the Syrian president Ahmed al-Sharaa in Riyadh, President Trump announced that he is lifting sanctions on the beleaguered and war-torn country. On the one hand, Sharaa is an alumnus of Islamic State and al-Qaeda, who came to power as commander of Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), which itself began life as al-Qaeda’s Syrian offshoot; he also seems to enjoy the support of Qatar. On the other hand, he overthrew the Assad regime—a feat made possible by the battering Israel delivered to Hizballah—greatly improving Jerusalem’s strategic position, and ending one of the world’s most atrocious and brutal tyrannies. President Trump also announced that he hopes Syria will join the Abraham Accords.

This analysis by Eran Lerman was published a few days ago, and in some respects is already out of date, but more than anything else I’ve read it helps to make sense of Israel’s strategic position vis-à-vis Syria.

Israel’s primary security interest lies in defending against worst-case scenarios, particularly the potential collapse of the Syrian state or its transformation into an actively hostile force backed by a significant Turkish presence (considering that the Turkish military is the second largest in NATO) with all that this would imply. Hence the need to bolster the new buffer zone—not for territorial gain, but as a vital shield and guarantee against dangerous developments. Continued airstrikes aimed at diminishing the residual components of strategic military capabilities inherited from the Assad regime are essential.

At the same time, there is a need to create conditions that would enable those in Damascus who wish to reject the reduction of their once-proud country into a Turkish satrapy. Sharaa’s efforts to establish his legitimacy, including his visit to Paris and outreach to the U.S., other European nations, and key Gulf countries, may generate positive leverage in this regard. Israel’s role is to demonstrate through daily actions the severe costs of acceding to Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s ambitions and accepting Turkish hegemony.

Israel should also assist those in Syria (and beyond: this may have an effect in Lebanon as well) who look to it as a strategic anchor in the region. The Druze in Syria—backed by their brethren in Israel—have openly expressed this expectation, breaking decades of loyalty to the central power in Damascus over their obligation to their kith and kin.