In last week’s Torah reading, a brief passage of merely 85 characters (Numbers 10:35–36) describing the prayer Moses would say before and after transporting the Holy Ark is set apart from the rest of the text on either side by the inverted letter nun. At least, that is how the passage is usually marked in Torah scrolls produced in the past few centuries. Sholom Eisenstat observes the different versions of this notation that have appeared in Jewish manuscripts since ancient times—one of the few variations in a text that has otherwise been preserved with remarkable consistency. He also examines the interpretations rabbis have offered for these markings, in all their forms. One of the most striking is offered by the Zohar, which in typical fashion sees them as symbolizing the Sh’khinah, or the immanent, feminine, manifestation of God:

The Zohar describes the nuns surrounding the text as depicting the Sh’khinah travelling through the desert riding on top of the mishkan, the portable Tabernacle, scouting the route and protecting the people of Israel (Numbers 10:33). This relationship demonstrates Her love for the people of Israel.

Thus the Zohar, reasons, the nun is backwards to denote the physical orientation of the Sh’khinah:

According to the discourse here, the Sh’khinah changed Her posture depending on whether the people were moving or resting; She either faced the people or She faced toward the ark, turning Her back on the people. The Zohar then discusses some of the ramifications of the posture of the Sh’khinah: would it be appropriate comportment on the part of the Sh’khinah to turn Her back toward the people?

In a recent episode of 60 Minutes, a former State Department official tells the interviewer that U.S. support for Israel following October 7 has “put a target on America’s back” in the Arab world “and beyond the Arab world.” The complaint is a familiar one: Middle Easterners hate the United States because of its closeness to the Jewish state. But this gets things exactly backward. Just look at the rhetoric of the Islamic Republic of Iran and its various Arab proxies: America is the “Great Satan” and Israel is but the “Little Satan.”

Why, then, does Iran see the U.S. as the world’s primary source of evil? The usual answer invokes the shah’s 1953 ouster of his prime minister, but the truth is that this wasn’t the subversion of democracy it’s usually made out to be, and the CIA’s role has been greatly exaggerated. Moreover, Ladan Boroumand points out,

the 1953 coup was welcomed by Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, [the architect of the 1979 Islamic Revolution], and would not have succeeded without the active complicity of proponents of political Islam. And . . . the United States not only refrained from opposing the Islamic Revolution but inadvertently supported its emergence and empowered its agents. How then could . . . Ayatollah Khomeini’s virulent enmity toward the United States be explained or excused?

Khomeini’s animosity toward the shah and the United States traces back to 1963–64, when the shah initiated sweeping social reforms that included granting women the right to vote and to run for office and extending religious minorities’ political rights. These reforms prompted the pro-shah cleric of 1953 to become his vocal critic. It wasn’t the shah’s autocratic rule that incited Khomeini’s opposition, but rather the liberal nature of his autocratically implemented social reforms.

There is no need for particular interpretive skill to comprehend the substance of Khomeini’s message: as Satan, America embodies the temptation that seduces Iranian citizens into sin and falsehood. “Human rights” and “democracy” are America’s tools for luring sinful and deviant citizens into conspiring against the government of God established by the ayatollah.

Or, as George W. Bush put it, jihadists hate America because “they hate our freedoms.”