In the past half-century or so, argues Yehoshua Pfeffer, a new doctrine has emerged that has now become quite standard in haredi circles, especially in Israel—endorsed by some of the esteemed and influential sages:

In his 1971 Sihot Mussar, the haredi leader and head of the Mirrer yeshiva Rabbi Chaim Shmuelevitz asserted that “the extent of one’s labor is immaterial, for each person will attain that which he was predestined to receive.” Citing Rabbi Israel Meir Kagan, known as the Hafetz Hayyim, he noted that a person who struggles for his livelihood is akin to somebody hurrying to work who pushes the train car from the inside to speed it on its way. The thought that there is a causal relationship between work and income is no less nonsensical.

Somebody who gives credence to earthly endeavors denies the fullness of faith in God and is guilty (on some level) of heresy. The natural “ways of the world” that indicate otherwise are but a trial, a mirage that tricks us into disbelief and attributes to nature what is in fact God’s will.

Pfeffer, himself a prominent haredi rabbi and thinker, contends that this skeptical view of human agency, besides having an “uncomfortable proximity to the Calvinist doctrine of predestination,” represents a dramatic departure from the dominant trends in Jewish theology over the millennia. He also believes it responsible for the tensions between Haredim and Israeli society over work and military service. Moreover, in his view such an approach to faith, although “well meaning,” is “incompatible with the responsibilities of our time and place.”

Though some [traditional] sources indicate a tension between faith and human action, precious few will deny any correlation between human endeavor and results. Such approaches would lead us down a deterministic alley that raises troubling questions over the nature of prayer and the veracity of human accountability. Given such a framework, human justice and the commandment to pursue it become an elaborate, even paradoxical, fiction.

The entire biblical narrative of the Jewish people and their relationship with God is a tale of deep human involvement in earthly affairs. . . . Faith, of course, is a central part of the Jewish mission, yet it does not curtail or negate earthly works. It rather pervades them. Shabbat, by way of illustration, does not stand in tension with the six days of labor. It redirects them, infusing them with holiness as part of a sacred cycle of work and rest.

Yesterday, Israel’s Channel 12 reported that Israeli representatives have been involved in secret talks, brokered by the United Arab Emirates, with their Syrian counterparts about the potential establishment of diplomatic relations between their countries. Even more surprisingly, on Wednesday an Israeli reporter spoke with a senior official from Syria’s information ministry, Ali al-Rifai. The prospect of a member of the Syrian government, or even a private citizen, giving an on-the-record interview to an Israeli journalist was simply unthinkable under the old regime. What’s more, his message was that Damascus seeks peace with other countries in the region, Israel included.

These developments alone should make Israelis sanguine about Donald Trump’s overtures to Syria’s new rulers. Yet the interim president Ahmed al-Sharaa’s jihadist resumé, his connections with Turkey and Qatar, and brutal attacks on minorities by forces aligned with, or part of, his regime remain reasons for skepticism. While recognizing these concerns, Noah Rothman nonetheless makes the case for optimism:

The old Syrian regime was an incubator and exporter of terrorism, as well as an Iranian vassal state. The Assad regime trained, funded, and introduced terrorists into Iraq intent on killing American soldiers. It hosted Iranian terrorist proxies as well as the Russian military and its mercenary cutouts. It was contemptuous of U.S.-backed proscriptions on the use of chemical weapons on the battlefield, necessitating American military intervention—an unavoidable outcome, clearly, given Barack Obama’s desperate efforts to avoid it. It incubated Islamic State as a counterweight against the Western-oriented rebel groups vying to tear that regime down, going so far as to purchase its own oil from the nascent Islamist group.

The Assad regime was an enemy of the United States. The Sharaa regime could yet be a friend to America. . . . Insofar as geopolitics is a zero-sum game, taking Syria off the board for Russia and Iran and adding it to the collection of Western assets would be a triumph. At the very least, it’s worth a shot. Trump deserves credit for taking it.