On Thursday night and Friday morning, Jewish communities around the world will read the book of Esther. Reuven Kimelman observes that this book has certain superficial similarities with the book of Ruth: both are named after heroic female protagonists; and both are classified as m’gillot (literally, scrolls), or books read in synagogue on certain holidays. In other respects, the books are radically different: Esther focuses on the affairs of the Jewish people and the Persian empire; Ruth is a romance centered around a single family. Nonetheless, Kimelman argues that the parallels go much deeper:

God plays a backseat role in both; neither speaking, nor directly addressed, nor directly intervening. Still, the book of Ruth attributes much to God positively and negatively. God’s blessing is invoked and God’s aid is evoked. It is the coincidence of events that most points to a behind-the-scenes director, sensed starkly in the happenstance of Ruth as well as throughout Esther. The absence of an explicit God is countered by the presence of an implicit God.

Focusing on the pattern or structure of events produces surprising connections such as the pivotal role of marriage and family. In the book of Ruth, a quondam non-Jewish woman (Ruth) marries a Jewish man (Boaz); in the book of Esther, a Jewish woman (Esther) marries a non-Jewish man (Ahasuerus). In Ruth, a widowed Moabite woman becomes the wife of a Jewish landowner initiating a line of future Jewish kings. In Esther, a Jewish orphan becomes the wife of a Persian king saving the Jewish people. In both cases, an outsider becomes an insider through marriage. Both marriages are of questionable propriety if not once downright prohibited.

Two tales of dizzying reversals; so different in content, yet so alike in structure.

With the Islamic Republic’s nuclear program damaged, and its regional influence diminished, the U.S. must now prevent it from recovering, and, if possible, weaken it further. Benjamin Baird argues that it can do both through economic means—if Congress does its part:

Legislation that codifies President Donald Trump’s “maximum pressure” policies into law, places sanctions on Iran’s energy sales, and designates the regime’s proxy armies as foreign terrorist organizations will go a long way toward containing Iran’s regime and encouraging its downfall. . . . Congress has already introduced much of the legislation needed to bring the ayatollah to his knees, and committee chairmen need only hold markup hearings to advance these bills and send them to the House and Senate floors.

They should start with the HR 2614—the Maximum Support Act. What the Iranian people truly need to overcome the regime is protection from the state security apparatus.

Next, Congress must get to work dismantling Iran’s proxy army in Iraq. By sanctioning and designating a list of 29 Iran-backed Iraqi militias through the Florida representative Greg Steube’s Iranian Terror Prevention Act, the U.S. can shut down . . . groups like the Badr Organization and Kataib Hizballah, which are part of the Iranian-sponsored armed groups responsible for killing hundreds of American service members.

Those same militias are almost certainly responsible for a series of drone attacks on oilfields in Iraq over the past few days