After a Jew takes three steps forward, utters the words “My Lord, open my lips, and let my mouth tell of your praises,” and begins the silent devotion known as the Amidah, Jewish tradition expects the worshipper to enjoy complete intimacy with the Creator. Are these moments translatable from one person to another, let alone from one religion to another? John Wilson, a Christian, addresses the first part of this question in his review of Romantic Prayer: Reinventing the Poetics of Devotion, 1773-1832:

I have often wanted to write about prayer in various contexts but have done so only rarely, in part because I often feel great disjunction between my own experience of prayer and what many people say about it—not only in books, but in conversation, in church, and in many other settings. I hasten to add that I don’t simply assume that this sense of disjunction means that what other people say or write is wrong! In fact, one reason I read is to be reminded of the infinite variety of human experience, including “religious experience.”

I read all of Stokes’s book (relatively short, but with small print and densely argued) in this mood of exasperation. But then again, I am often irritated, baffled, or otherwise dissatisfied with what I read or hear people saying about prayer, even as I remind myself how different our experiences of prayer may be from one another.

Between the explosion of thousands of Hizballah pagers on September 17 and now, Iran’s geopolitical clout has shrunk dramatically: Hizballah, Iran’s most important striking force, has retreated to lick its wounds; Iranian influence in Syria has collapsed; Iran’s attempts to attack Israel via Gaza have proved self-defeating; its missile and drone arsenal have proved impotent; and its territorial defenses have proved useless in the face of Israeli airpower. Edward Luttwak considers what might happen next:

The myth of Iranian power was ironically propagated by the United States itself. Right at the start of his first term, in January 2009, Barack Obama was terrified that he would be maneuvered into fighting a war against Iran. . . . Obama started his tenure by apologizing for America’s erstwhile support for the shah. And beyond showing contrition for the past, the then-president also set a new rule, one that lasted all the way to October 2024: Iran may attack anyone, but none may attack Iran.

[Hayat Tahrir al-Sham’s] variegated fighters, in light trucks and jeeps, could have been stopped by a few hundred well-trained soldiers. But neither Hizballah nor Iran’s own Revolutionary Guards could react. Hizballah no longer has any large units capable of crossing the border to fight rebels in Syria, as they had done so many times before. As for the Revolutionary Guards, they were commandeering civilian airliners to fly troops into Damascus airport to support Assad. But then Israel made clear that it would not allow Iran’s troops so close to its border, and Iran no longer had credible counter-threats.

Now Iran’s population is discovering that it has spent decades in poverty to pay for the massive build-up of the Revolutionary Guards and all their militias. And for what? They have elaborate bases and showy headquarters, but their expensive ballistic missiles can only be used against defenseless Arabs, not Israel with its Arrow interceptors. As for Hizballah, clearly it cannot even defend itself, let alone Iran’s remaining allies in the region. Perhaps, in short, the dictatorship will finally be challenged in the streets of Iran’s cities, at scale and in earnest.