On Friday, this newsletter linked to an article providing an overview of various traditional Jewish approaches to solar eclipses. Here, Jack Zaientz takes a somewhat deeper look at some of them. He notes that by the 16th century, rabbis began to wonder whether a solar eclipse, which occurs at predictable intervals, can really be understood as an evil omen, as the Talmud suggests:

Rabbi Judah Loew, the Maharal of Prague, attempted to answer the question. According to him, eclipses are a bad omen that occur because of sin, but if we lived in a sin-free world, God would have created the universe without solar eclipses. Instead, God would have kept the moon and the sun from ever occluding each other. No sin would mean no need for bad omens and therefore no eclipses.

More recently than the Maharal, Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneerson, the Lubavitcher rebbe, presented another solution. Like the Maharal, the rebbe started with a statement of faith in the sages of the Talmud, stating that eclipses are, without question, bad omens. But the rebbe, who had studied mathematics and physics in Paris and Berlin, tried to wrestle with how they could also be required by the laws of nature. Where the Maharal’s explanation was mechanistic, contemplating different orbits in a sin-free universe, the rebbe’s was spiritual. He observed that the point of the bad omen was so that we would see it, repent, and return to God. Therefore, the only ones who would be affected by the bad omen would be those who had strayed from God and therefore benefit from the reprimand.

Others solve the problem by suggesting that the talmudic passages in question don’t refer to eclipses at all, but to some other phenomenon.

Below, today’s newsletter will return to some other reflections on the one-year anniversary of the outbreak of the current war, but first something must be said of its recent progress. Israel has kept up its aerial and ground assault on Hizballah, and may have already killed the successor to Hassan Nasrallah, the longtime leader it eliminated less than two weeks ago. Matthew Levitt assesses the current state of the Lebanon-based terrorist group, which, in his view, is now “a shadow of its former self.” Indeed, he adds,

it is no exaggeration to say that the Hizballah of two weeks ago no longer exists. And since Hizballah was the backbone of Iran’s network of militant proxies, its so-called axis of resistance, Iran’s strategy of arming and deploying proxy groups throughout the region is suddenly at risk as well.

Hizballah’s attacks put increasing pressure on Israel, as intended, only that pressure did not lead Israelis to stop targeting Hamas so much as it chipped away at Israel’s fears about the cost of military action to address the military threats posed by Hizballah.

At the same time, Levitt explains, Hizballah still poses a serious threat, as it demonstrated last night when its missiles struck Haifa and Tiberias, injuring at least two people:

Hizballah still maintains an arsenal of rockets and a cadre of several thousand fighters. It will continue to pose potent military threats for Israel, Lebanon, and the wider region.

How will the group seek to avenge Nasrallah’s death amid these military setbacks? Hizballah is likely to resort to acts of international terrorism, which are overseen by one of the few elements of the group that has not yet lost key leaders.

But the true measure of whether the group will be able to reconstitute itself, even over many years, is whether Iran can restock Hizballah’s sophisticated arsenal. Tehran’s network of proxy groups—from Hizballah to Hamas to the Houthis—is only as dangerous as it is today because of Iran’s provision of weapons and money. Whatever Hizballah does next, Western governments must prioritize cutting off Tehran’s ability to arm and fund its proxies.