Perhaps those Jews would feel more connected to Israel, the Jewish people, and Judaism if they learned, or were taught, Hebrew. But understanding that language, especially in its biblical form, does more than that: it reveals the layers of meaning within sacred texts and fundamental religious concepts. Alan Rubenstein, in a moving tribute to his late Hebrew teacher Robert Sacks—with whom he also studied Homer and much else—gives an example of the mysterious workings of the holy tongue:

The Hebrew Bible is a mystery, with every word a clue that raises more questions than it answers. Take the root K-V-D. At its most concrete, this word means “weight.” One of the places it appears is in the chapters about the plagues in the book of Exodus, which state several times that Pharaoh’s heart is “hardened.” In fact, three different verbs are used to describe what happens to Pharaoh’s heart. What is the significance of each of them?

Elsewhere in Exodus, K-V-D means “honor,” notably in the commandment to honor thy father and mother. How can one word describe what happens to Pharaoh’s heart, preventing him from freeing the Israelite slaves despite the display of God’s power, and also describe the attitude one should have to one’s parents? The word also signifies one way that God is manifested in the world: the “kavod of the Lord” is something like “God’s presence.” See for instance Exodus 40:34: “The cloud covered the tent of meeting and the kavod of the Lord filled the tabernacle.” The mystery of this word gets deeper and deeper.

My fellow detective in this matter was a man named Robert Sacks.

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.