In the recent case of Ben-Levi v. Brown, a Jewish inmate sued a prison for denying him the right to hold a weekly Torah-study session with other Jewish prisoners. A federal court ruled in favor of the prison on grounds that fly in the face of a long-accepted principle: namely, in the Supreme Court’s formulation, that “the federal courts have no business addressing” the question of whether a person has properly understood his own religion’s doctrines. Mitchell Rocklin and Howard Slugh write:

The court, applying the test now advocated by the Obama administration [in a case, Little Sisters of the Poor v. Burwell, upcoming at the Supreme Court], made its own determination regarding the religious harm that Ben-Levi would suffer if denied the ability to study with other Jewish inmates. The court reached the absurd conclusion that it was actually protecting Ben-Levi’s religiosity by denying his request. According to the court, Ben-Levi had not suffered any harm because, in its view, Judaism prohibited individuals from studying together in the absence of ten men or a rabbi.

In other words, the court concluded that Ben-Levi did not deserve a religious exemption because he misunderstood his own religion. In doing so, the court acted as a religious tribunal rather than a secular court—and an incompetent one at that. No major denomination of Judaism prohibits the study in question. The Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed the decision, and the Supreme Court declined to review the case. Justice Alito wrote a dissent stating that he would have taken the case and reversed the decision. He criticized the lower courts for impermissibly holding that “a plaintiff’s own interpretation of his religion must yield to the government’s interpretation.”

This case offers a clear example of the danger inherent in courts’ second-guessing plaintiffs’ religious beliefs. The district court’s interpretation of Judaism has no basis in Jewish doctrine. . . . [But the] court’s specific misunderstanding—as baffling as it may be—is mostly beside the point. The court’s confusion highlights why judges should not be in the business of deciding theological questions. That might be the role of Saudi Arabian courts, but it is not the role of the American judiciary.

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.