A time for war – and a time to embrace |
We are living in historic times!
Who among us can have failed last week to recognise the stark truth of Ramban’s famous saying ma’aseh avot siman le-banim – “what happens to our ancestors is a signpost for [what will happen to] their descendants!”
Two days before our 2,381st Purim-commemoration of the hanging of the arch-genocidalist Haman, tyrant-in-chief of ancient Persia, a modern day Persian genocidal tyrant, Ali Khmenei (ke-Hamani = “a likeness of Haman”) met his demise.
There are other parallels too. The reign of Ahasuerus – who initially despised the Jews as much as his protégé Haman – was preceded by the rulership of an utterly benign Persian king, Cyrus, who honoured the Jews and ordered the construction of the Second Temple (which Ahasuerus halted). Similarly, the present Iranian (=Persian) dictatorship was preceded by a benign constitutional monarchy where the Jewish community were treated as equal citizens.
Moreover, just as in the Purim story the rank-and-file subjects of the Persian Empire were not inherently Judeophobic as witnessed by the ease with which the tiny Jewish armies dealt with their (comparatively few) enemies in 127 provinces in one day and how so many of the citizens of the empire became mityahadim (Jewish wannabees), the current war is revealing just how many of the Iranian people are openly paying homage to Israel (and the USA) for precipitating what could lead to a long-overdue regime........