On a lighter Rosh Hashanah-related note, Tevi Troy confesses that he sometimes brings a book to synagogue to read during the slow points of the lengthy services, although, he insists, never during the rabbi’s sermon:

Our grandfather had gotten in trouble back in Poland for reading Daniel Deronda inside the flaps of his prayer book. This was a scandal, as his grandfather, my great-great-grandfather, was the synagogue rabbi and was irate at the discovery.

The reading-in-synagogue habit has many benefits: it helps me get to synagogue on time and with a spring in my step, knowing my time there will be filled with either active prayer or meaningful reading. It also helps me remember each year more clearly. High Holy Day services, in accordance with Jewish tradition, are exactly the same year in and year out. New books ensure holidays do not blend together in my memory. In addition, I find that, as on airplanes, having your face in a book discourages unwanted conversations, thus reducing the amount of talking in synagogue.

Troy recommends several books for this purpose, but let me also suggest, as an alternative, printing out one of our excellent past essays on Rosh Hashanah: Dov Lerner on the meaning of the shofar, Jack Wertheimer on changing trends in American Jewish High Holy Day observance, Philologos on Rosh Hashanah greeting cards, or Nathan Laufer on how Rosh Hashanah and Shavuot got terribly mixed up.

Examining the effects of Iran’s decision to launch nearly 200 ballistic missiles at Israel on October 1, Benny Morris takes stock of the Jewish state’s strategic situation:

The massive Iranian attack has turned what began as a local war in and around the Gaza Strip and then expanded into a Hamas–Hizballah–Houthi–Israeli war [into] a regional war with wide and possibly calamitous international repercussions.

Before the Iranians launched their attack, Washington warned Tehran to desist (“don’t,” in President Biden’s phrase), and Israel itself had reportedly cautioned the Iranians secretly that such an attack would trigger a devastating Israeli counterstrike. But a much-humiliated Iran went ahead, nonetheless.

For Israel, the way forward seems to lie in an expansion of the war—in the north or south or both—until the country attains some sort of victory, or a diplomatic settlement is reached. A “victory” would mean forcing Hizballah to cease fire in exchange, say, for a cessation of the IDF bombing campaign and withdrawal to the international border, or forcing Iran, after suffering real pain from IDF attacks, to cease its attacks and rein in its proxies: Hizballah, Hamas, and the Houthis.

At the same time, writes Morris, a victory along such lines would still have its limits:

An IDF withdrawal from southern Lebanon and a cessation of Israeli air-force bombing would result in Hizballah’s resurgence and its re-investment of southern Lebanon down to the border. Neither the Americans nor the French nor the UN nor the Lebanese army—many of whose troops are Shiites who support Hizballah—would fight them.