In Tractate Ta’anit, the Talmud discusses a variety of minor festivals, celebrating events in late- or post-biblical history, that had been removed from the calendar in the wake of the destruction of the Second Temple. Among them is “Nicanor’s Day,” which commemorated the defeat and death of the eponymous Seleucid general who menaced Jerusalem not long after the Maccabean Revolt. This talmudic discussion, which summarizes a narrative found in 2 Maccabees, appeared on Tuesday in the daily cycle of Talmud study known as daf yomi. Elliot Goldberg explains that behind the story of Nicanor is that of a disgruntled priest named Alcimus:

Alcimus [was] a former high priest seeking to regain his position in the Temple. To accomplish this, Alcimus seeks the favor of Demetrius, a successor to Antiochus (the ruler of the Syrian-Greeks and the villainous king of the Hanukkah story). When asked by Demetrius about the intentions of the Jews in Judea, Alcimus reports that the Hasmoneans “are keeping up war, stirring up sedition, and will not let the kingdom attain tranquility.”

So Demetrius sends Nicanor, a commander of the elephant cavalry, to defeat Judah Maccabee, restore the peace, and serve as governor of Judea. Nicanor goes to Judea, but instead of making war with Judah, whom he fears to confront in battle, he seeks a truce with him. This serves Nicanor well, but not Alcimus, who hopes that a Syrian-Greek victory will return him to his role as high priest.

Alcimus sends word of the truce to Demetrius, who orders Nicanor to capture Judah and send him to Antioch, the seat of Demetrius’ empire, as a prisoner. Left with no choice but to obey the king’s order, Nicanor leads his troops to battle and is defeated by Judah.

Early Friday morning, Israel attacked military installations near the Iranian cities of Isfahan and nearby Natanz, the latter being one of the hubs of the country’s nuclear program. Jerusalem is not taking credit for the attack, and none of the details are too certain, but it seems that the attack involved multiple drones, likely launched from within Iran, as well as one or more missiles fired from Syrian or Iraqi airspace. Strikes on Syrian radar systems shortly beforehand probably helped make the attack possible, and there were reportedly strikes on Iraq as well.

Iran itself is downplaying the attack, but the S-300 air-defense batteries in Isfahan appear to have been destroyed or damaged. This is a sophisticated Russian-made system positioned to protect the Natanz nuclear installation. In other words, Israel has demonstrated that Iran’s best technology can’t protect the country’s skies from the IDF. As Yossi Kuperwasser puts it, the attack, combined with the response to the assault on April 13,

clarified to the Iranians that whereas we [Israelis] are not as vulnerable as they thought, they are more vulnerable than they thought. They have difficulty hitting us, but we have no difficulty hitting them.

Nobody knows exactly how the operation was carried out. . . . It is good that a question mark hovers over . . . what exactly Israel did. Let’s keep them wondering. It is good for deniability and good for keeping the enemy uncertain.

The fact that we chose targets that were in the vicinity of a major nuclear facility but were linked to the Iranian missile and air forces was a good message. It communicated that we can reach other targets as well but, as we don’t want escalation, we chose targets nearby that were involved in the attack against Israel. I think it sends the message that if we want to, we can send a stronger message. Israel is not seeking escalation at the moment.