Today, according to the Jewish calendar, is the anniversary of the death of Rabbi Ḥayyim Soloveitchik of Brisk (1853–1918), and next Monday that of his colleague, friend, and relative-by-marriage Rabbi Naftali Zvi Yehudah Berlin (1816–1893). Considered leading scholars in the Lithuanian-misnagdic school, the two men had very different attitudes toward talmudic methodology, halakhic decision making, and the nascent Zionist movement. Berlin’s youngest son, Meir Bar-Ilan, took his father’s Zionist sympathies much further, becoming a leader of the Religious Zionist movement, as well as a talmudic scholar in his own right.

In his memoir, Bar-Ilan describes these two rabbis’ differing approaches to the resurrection of the Jewish state:

My father was not just a supporter of Eretz Yisrael in spirit; he also acted practically to strengthen the Yishuv. He was very involved in the Odessa [council, which coordinated Russian Zionism at the time]—to the extent that on the eve of Yom Kippur during afternoon prayer, when the yeshiva students put out various “bowls” for tzedakah, he ordered me to sit next to the bowl for “settlement of the Land of Israel,” and he himself dropped money into this bowl several times. The students noticed this, and more than nine rubles were collected in the bowl—a significant amount of money in those days.

When my father received a telegram stating that the Zionist activist Leon Pinsker had died, he was very upset. As a side point, the telegram was written in Russian and used a Russian phrase that essentially meant, “Pinsker is finished.” My father said, “This is not a Jewish idea. When a person dies, he is not ‘finished.’ On the contrary, it is a beginning.”

And while Soloveitchik remained opposed to Zionism as such, Bar-Ilan writes, there was some nuance to his stance:

He was afraid of any new movement in Judaism, fearful that any step off the beaten path was likely to cause people to stray from Judaism. He lived and conducted himself without considering all of the aspects of the issue, because the one thing that was [paramount] in his eyes was this: to grasp onto the old without any change whatsoever. In Zionism, he saw not only the desire to build up the Land, but also the cause of new theories and new problems in Jewish life and thought.

But despite all this, the “air of Eretz Yisrael,” permeated Rabbi Ḥayyim’s home. His spirit was so great that he could oppose Zionism while recognizing the urgency of practical work on behalf of Eretz Yisrael. With the exception of a few extraordinary activists, Soloveitchik did more for the good of Eretz Yisrael than any other rabbi, focusing his efforts, obviously, on helping the Old Yishuv, [the deeply religious communities that originated in the late 18th century]. Almost all of the large yeshivas in Jerusalem had representatives in Brisk, [where Soloveitchik was rabbi].

There were certain emissaries [from these yeshivas] whom Rabbi Ḥayyim would spend time with for several days, simply because it gave him so much pleasure to hear about life in the Land of Israel.

If Iran succeeds in obtaining nuclear weapons, the war in Gaza, let alone the protests on college campuses, will seem like a minor complication. Jonathan Schachter fears that this danger could be much more imminent than decisionmakers in Jerusalem and Washington believe. In his view, Israel seems to be repeating the mistake that allowed it to be taken by surprise on Simchat Torah of 2023 and Yom Kippur of 1973: putting too much faith in an intelligence concept that could be wrong.

Israel and the United States apparently believe that despite Iran’s well-documented progress in developing capabilities necessary for producing and delivering nuclear weapons, as well as its extensive and ongoing record of violating its international nuclear obligations, there is no acute crisis because building a bomb would take time, would be observable, and could be stopped by force. Taken together, these assumptions and their moderating impact on Israeli and American policy form a new Iran concept reminiscent of its 1973 namesake and of the systemic failures that preceded the October 7 massacre.

Meanwhile, most of the restrictions put in place by the 2015 nuclear deal will expire by the end of next year, rendering the question of Iran’s adherence moot. And the forces that could be taking action aren’t:

The European Union regularly issues boilerplate press releases asserting its members’ “grave concern.” American decisionmakers and spokespeople have created the unmistakable impression that their reservations about the use of force are stronger than their commitment to use force to prevent an Iranian atomic bomb. At the same time, the U.S. refuses to enforce its own sanctions comprehensively: Iranian oil exports (especially to China) and foreign-currency reserves have ballooned since January 2021, when the Biden administration took office.

Israel’s response has also been sluggish and ambiguous. Despite its oft-stated policy of never allowing a nuclear Iran, Israel’s words and deeds have sent mixed messages to allies and adversaries—perhaps inadvertently reinforcing the prevailing sense in Washington and elsewhere that Iran’s nuclear efforts do not present an exigent crisis.