The German-American philosopher Leo Strauss is best known for his emphasis on esoteric readings of the great works of Western political philosophy, his writing about natural rights, and his insistence that modern scholars can recover a tradition of political rationalism from classical antiquity. But he was also a proud Jew and Zionist, whose thinking about Judaism was deeply intertwined with his thinking about the fundamental problems of political theory. His work thus provides a springboard for a recent collection of essays titled Strauss, Spinoza & Sinai: Orthodox Judaism and Modern Questions of Faith. Nathan Laufer writes in his review:

In his preface to the English edition of Benedict Spinoza’s “Critique of Religion,” Strauss made the somewhat surprising claim that Jewish Orthodox belief in Divine revelation was as defensible as Spinoza’s unbelief in revelation. For Strauss, neither believers nor nonbelievers in divine revelation could know that they were correct; neither could credibly argue that the position that each of them espoused was the true one. However, Orthodox believers had as good a case for their belief in the Divine revelation of the Torah and the Orthodox practice that followed from it, as Spinoza and his secular followers had in their refusal to believe in Divine revelation and their resultant secular beliefs and lifestyle.

In stating so, Strauss pushed back against the academic mainstream of his time that relied on Spinoza and his intellectual heirs to mock Orthodox belief in Divine revelation and the tenets of traditional religion as just so much archaic superstition.

Although Strauss was raised in a nominally Orthodox home in Germany, he himself was not an Orthodox Jew. Yet this essay had a profound influence on many of its readers including the lead editor of this volume, Jeffrey Bloom. When, shortly after graduating from college, Bloom began taking his first, tentative steps towards Orthodox Jewish observance, Strauss’s essay helped to launch his spiritual journey on rational grounds.

After the passage of a couple of decades, Bloom asked himself whether Strauss’ argument, persuasive as it was for him as a young man, was the best argument that could be made today in defense of Orthodox Judaism. Was the best that can be said about contemporary Orthodoxy is that it was no less reasonable than contemporary secularism? Or was the case for Orthodox Judaism today a much stronger one than the one that Strauss posited over a half century ago? To help him answer that question he turned to seventeen prominent Orthodox Jewish scholars, including his co-editors, Rabbi Alec Goldstein and Rabbi Gil Student, to analyze, respond to, and build on Strauss’s argument.

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.