In the past few years, a number of popular accounts have appeared on the photo-sharing platform Instagram that are dedicated to educating a mostly-Orthodox, female audience about the finer points of taharat ha-mishpaḥah (literally, “familial purity”)—a set of halakhic regulations centered around married women’s monthly immersion in mikveh, or ritual bath, and that govern the most private aspects of Jewish life. Some of these accounts are run by physicians who specialize in gynecology and obstetrics; others by yo’atsot halakah, female halakhic advisers trained to render decisions of particular relevance to women. Lindsey Bodner analyzes this phenomenon:

With the words “mikveh,” “pregnancy and postpartum,” “male and female infertility,” “taharat ha-mishpaḥah,” “consent,” and “PCOS” flashing on the screen, a woman lip-syncs the song, “My Favorite Things” from The Sound of Music, deadpan. . . . Infertility and postpartum [depression], among the others, are rarely among people’s favorite things, but the tongue-in-cheek video “reel” on the Nishmatyoatzot.us Instagram account is part of a pioneering effort to educate through humor and validate practitioners of taharat ha-mishpaḥah, Jewish laws of family purity.

Those who practice taharat ha-mishpaḥah, mostly Orthodox married couples, have traditionally been instructed to be highly discreet about their practice. Typically, people learn the mechanics of taharat ha-mishpaḥah when they are engaged to be married in several hours of private or small-group [brides’ or grooms’] classes in the weeks or months leading up to the wedding. For the average person observing the laws, supplemental learning takes place mostly ad-hoc when questions arise. Specific questions that come up in the course of practice are directed to the couple’s halakhic authority, though some couples are uncomfortable asking. Of the books available, [few] include scientific explanations or sex education, and fewer still address women’s lived experiences.

Over the past several decades, efforts have been made, in no small part by Nishmat, a Modern Orthodox educational institution that rigorously trains women in taharat ha-mishpaḥah and women’s health, to increase learning and transparency in these matters. Synagogues, organizations, and high schools sometimes provide foundational courses, “refreshers,” or classes addressing special topics. However, Instagram provides validation largely missing from taharat ha-mishpaḥah education, and it is more public and far-reaching than any of these endeavors. In fact, it likely reaches a wider audience than all of these efforts in the aggregate.

When the IDF finally caught up with the late Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar, he wasn’t deep inside a subterranean lair, as many had expected, but moving around the streets the Rafah. Israeli forces had driven him out of whatever tunnel he had been hiding in and he could only get to another tunnel via the surface. Likewise, Israel hasn’t returned to fight in northern Gaza because its previous operations failed, but because of its success in forcing Hamas out of the tunnels and onto the surface, where the IDF can attack it more easily. Thus maps of the progress of the fighting show only half the story, not accounting for the simultaneous battle belowground.

At the beginning of the war, various options were floated in the press and by military and political leaders about how to deal with the problem posed by the tunnels: destroying them from the air, cutting off electricity and supplies so that they became uninhabitable, flooding them, and even creating offensive tunnels from which to burrow into them. These tactics proved impracticable or insufficient, but the IDF eventually developed methods that worked.

John Spencer, America’s leading expert on urban warfare, explains how. First, he notes the unprecedented size and complexity of the underground network, which served both a strategic and tactical purpose:

The Hamas underground network, often called the “Gaza metro,” includes between 350 and 450 miles of tunnels and bunkers at depths ranging from just beneath apartment complexes, mosques, schools, hospitals, and other civilian structures to over 200 feet underground. . . . The tunnels gave Hamas the ability to control the initiative of most battles in Gaza.

One elite unit, commanded by Brigadier-General Dan Goldfus, led the way in devising countermeasures:

General Goldfus developed a plan to enter Hamas’s tunnels without Hamas knowing his soldiers were there. . . . General Goldfus’s division headquarters refined the ability to control forces moving underground with the tempo of the surface forces. Incrementally, the division refined its tactics to the point its soldiers were conducting raids with separate brigades attacking on the surface while more than one subterranean force maneuvered on the same enemy underground. . . . They had turned tunnels from obstacles controlled by the defending enemy into maneuver corridors for the attacker.

This operational approach, Spencer explains, is “unlike that of any other military in modern history.” Later, Goldfus’s division was moved north to take on the hundreds of miles of tunnels built by Hizballah. The U.S. will have much to learn from these exploits, as China, Iran, and North Korea have all developed underground defenses of their own.