There are many people who have lost their faith after witnessing the bad behavior of religious leaders. David Wolpe describes the opposite experience: he lost his youthful unbelief upon learning more about his intellectual hero, the English philosopher and logician Betrand Russell.

Upon reading his autobiography, I realized that this paragon of logic had lived a supremely messy life: multiple marriages, affairs, estranged children—all the wreckage of someone who is personally unwise. And I met people of deep religious faith who were as strong, as deep, and as thoughtful as any others I had known. The older I got, the larger the puzzle of life well-lived. It was clear to me I was missing some pieces.

By contrast, there are others who report losing faith after experiencing tragedy. Wolpe examines why that might be so, since

tragedy gives them no new information. Did anyone not know before they got cancer that human beings get cancer? Or before a loved one dies that people die? Our deepest connection to this world is not reason but relation. People who, in tragedy, lose their faith do so not because they learn something new about God but because their relationship with God changes from experiencing God’s world in a new and painful way.

This year with my students, we studied the thought of the Eish Kodesh, the remarkable rabbi of the Warsaw ghetto, Kalman Shapira. The Eish Kodesh suffered terribly in his lifetime and while not entirely absolving God for his suffering, he wrote that the destruction of the rational mind by extreme suffering left open a channel by which one could reach directly to God.

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.