Tisha b’Av, which falls this Sunday, is a day of national mourning that marks the destruction of the First and Second Temples, while Purim celebrates the salvation of the Jews of Persia as described in the book of Esther. Yet Laura Lieber points to a link between them: two ancient poems that, while written in the style of Tisha b’Av dirges (kinot), are attributed to Queen Esther:

It is difficult to imagine two holidays with more disparate moods: the giddy joy of Purim juxtaposed with the bleak solemnity of Tisha b’Av. There are, however, points of connection. . . . [W]hile the book of Esther does not name God, it does refer to the exile and the loss of Jerusalem, particularly when introducing Mordechai. . . . [There is even a] custom of chanting those verses that recall the exile of the Judeans from Jerusalem by Nebuchadnezzar to the melody of Lamentations, which is read on the Tisha b’Av. . . .

A potent affinity between the book of Esther and Tisha b’Av can be found in the composition of kinot placed, as it were, in the mouth of Esther. These works expand upon the moment in the biblical story when the Jewish queen embarks on a fast and calls upon fellow Jews to engage in penitential rituals with her, as she is to risk her life by visiting the king uninvited. Her community, already vulnerable in exile, faces another existential threat.

Esther’s laments . . . lack any of the carnivalesque irony or frisson of the subversive humor that we expect in Purim poetry. Instead, Esther’s two laments sound authentically penitent. The rhetoric and aesthetics of Tisha b’Av kinot provide the author of these “literary” Purim poems . . . with a set of norms to which Esther’s prayers should conform.

Surveying news websites and social media on Sunday morning, I immediately found some intelligent and well-informed observers arguing that Iran deliberately warned the U.S. of its pending assault on Israel, and calibrated it so that there would be few casualties and minimal destructiveness, thus hoping to avoid major retaliation. In other words, this massive barrage was a face-saving gesture by the ayatollahs. Others disagreed. Brian Carter and Frederick W. Kagan put the issue to rest:

The Iranian April 13 missile-drone attack on Israel was very likely intended to cause significant damage below the threshold that would trigger a massive Israeli response. The attack was designed to succeed, not to fail. The strike package was modeled on those the Russians have used repeatedly against Ukraine to great effect. The attack caused more limited damage than intended likely because the Iranians underestimated the tremendous advantages Israel has in defending against such strikes compared with Ukraine.

But that isn’t to say that Tehran achieved nothing:

The lessons that Iran will draw from this attack will allow it to build more successful strike packages in the future. The attack probably helped Iran identify the relative strengths and weaknesses of the Israeli air-defense system. Iran will likely also share the lessons it learned in this attack with Russia.

Iran’s ability to penetrate Israeli air defenses with even a small number of large ballistic missiles presents serious security concerns for Israel. The only Iranian missiles that got through hit an Israeli military base, limiting the damage, but a future strike in which several ballistic missiles penetrate Israeli air defenses and hit Tel Aviv or Haifa could cause significant civilian casualties and damage to civilian infrastructure, including ports and energy. . . . Israel and its partners should not emerge from this successful defense with any sense of complacency.