Rabbi Azriel Ariel offers a faith-based reading of the current moment, arguing that partial achievements should produce neither euphoria nor despair. He says the emerging U.S.-Iran deal feels like the Munich agreement that paved the way to World War II, and he describes President Donald Trump’s sudden reversal as baffling and contrary to the logic that guided him until recently. In his view, the fear that Iran will rebuild its capabilities and help restore the power of Israel’s nearby and distant enemies is real, and concern spans every front.
Ariel also says the surprise is not only political but theological, since Israelis have recently seen remarkable miracles in the war with Iran, both this year and last year. Still, he insists that God has not abandoned oversight. He warns against seeing reality in black and white, saying it was wrong to become overconfident during the war’s better moments, and it is equally wrong now to sink into depression or hopelessness. Reality, he says, is complex, with alarming sides and sources of encouragement.
He argues that reality is not fixed and depends partly on human decisions. Israel is now an independent state, militarily and economically strong, and far less dependent on foreign powers than in the past, while those powers are increasingly dependent on Israel. Even if today’s achievements on other fronts are incomplete, he says they cannot be erased. He expects very difficult challenges in the coming years, but says Jews have endured harder trials in history and in the State of Israel, and emerged stronger from them.
To support that view, Ariel turns to the books of Joshua and Judges. He notes that Judges 1 criticizes the tribes for failing to drive out Canaanite cities, but Judges 2 and 3 explain that God left some nations in the land both to test Israel spiritually and to train later generations for war. War, he says, requires discipline, collective sacrifice, and attention to national purpose rather than private comfort. He concludes, citing Rabbi Samson Raphael Hirsch on Amalek, that victory may be partial for now, and full victory may come only when Israel better understands itself and its mission. Until then, he says, “The eternal people is not afraid of a long road.”
