The war against Iran takes on literally biblical proportions.

One of the advantages that an Israeli child has over his counterpart in other countries is facility in Hebrew. A child can pick up almost any book in Hebrew, read it, and comprehend what is written. In the U.S. and elsewhere, one of the great challenges of bringing up religious children is the barrier of the Hebrew language. I once stayed with a lovely family in St. Louis, and my host told me that he prayed his entire life without understanding what he was saying. He finally bought a prayer book with English embedded under the Hebrew and began to understand the words that he had been saying for so many years.

Becoming religiously observant has its challenges. I had a wonderful non-Jewish roommate in Madison who didn’t understand why I stopped eating the food he prepared. Coming to Israel had its own additional challenges, fluent and functional Hebrew being one of them. When the kids were growing up, my Hebrew was good enough to help them with their studies — until they started learning Talmud, which is primarily in Aramaic. It was like hitting a brick wall. I had to buy a lot of self-help books just to keep the kids up with their classmates. Jay Schottenstein of American Eagle fame is revered in the Orthodox world, as he has funded the production of high-quality translations and explanations of the Talmud into Hebrew, English, and French. Through his books, tens of thousands learn and finish the entire Babylonian Talmud every seven and a half years.

One thing about the Talmud is that material is sometimes all over the place. One might be learning a tractate dealing with the intricate laws of the Sabbath when a discussion of the historical origin of the holiday of Chanukah suddenly appears. There will be a few pages discussing the lighting of candles, and then it’s back to the original topic. While doing........

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