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 some recent learning, I came across a very interesting story. It was stated that the Eastern Gate of the Second Temple had a picture of the Persian city of Shushan on it. For those familiar with the story of Purim, the miracle of the Jews being saved from the wicked Haman took place in part in the capital city of Shushan. In the Talmud, the existence of this image on the most important entryway into the Temple is a given. The question was why it was there. One of the Talmudic rabbis said that it was a reminder of the magnanimity of King Cyrus the Great, the Persian monarch who allowed the Jews to return to the land of Israel after 70 years of exile. A second opinion states that Cyrus himself demanded that the image be placed there so as to remember who was calling the shots. In either case, the bond between the Persian people and the Jewish nation was reflected in an image of the city of Shushan at the entrance to the Second Temple that stood for over 400 years before being destroyed by Titus and his Tenth Roman Legion in the year 70.
Two people who often make mention of the events from 2,500 years ago are Bibi Netanyahu and Reza Pahlavi, the son of the late and last Shah of Iran. The Shah-in-waiting has visited Israel and expressed his solidarity with the Jewish people. He has mentioned the acts of Cyrus in returning the Jews to their desolate land after 70 years. Bibi Netanyahu has not shied away from this bond but rather has expressed the affection of the Israeli people for regular Iranians who have suffered for five decades under the mullahs and their intolerant theocracy. Israel’s attacks against the regime and the IRGC may be the opening salvo in repaying an ancient debt. If Donald Trump decides that regime change is possible without boots on the ground, Israeli bombing of key Iranian figures and installations may play an important role in freeing the Persian people from the bonds of their own internal Haman and his helpers.
Whereas one would need a very thin toothpick to separate Hamas and Gazans, because the latter adore the former and think exactly like them, such is not the case in Iran. The people there, for the most part, are not into the extreme Shia version of Islam that has been foisted upon them ever since Ayatollah Khomeini returned from France. While the numbers vary by a factor of two, one can safely say that earlier in 2026 Iranian officials killed and arrested tens of thousands of protesting citizens. The latter were, for the most part, unarmed, and the actions of the police and military were meant to keep the teetering leadership in power as the local currency is worth less than dirt and oil exports and income have dried up under a U.S. embargo. The latest kvetch from the Iranian president while on a break from shopping at Macy’s in New York was to note that all of Iran’s funds in China have been blocked. That recent state dinner for President Xi was worth every penny.
What most people today don’t remember or know is that until the Shah fled, Iran and Israel had excellent relations. Jews lived and thrived in Iran, and Israel had regular flight service to Tehran. Such cannot be said of Saudi Arabia or Iraq. Once Israel came to be, enemies were born and continue in a more muted manner today. Such was not the case with Iran, where Israel used to get its oil before the mullocracy took over and began its jihad that included the mass murder of Jews and others in Argentina via Hezbollah operatives. It would appear from social media that many Iranians supported Israeli attacks against state targets. In the Iranian diaspora, they are not marching with the pro-Hamas crowd. The latter threw its lot with the mullahs, and one can often see real Iranians living in LA or elsewhere chastising them for supporting genocidal lunatics who have murdered this year possibly north of 100,000 in order to stay in power. The “Lion and Sun” flag is appearing more frequently, and without money or oil revenue, the current regime might be counting its last days.
It would be an amazing feat of historical proportions if Israel helped Persia return to a freer and more prosperous future. I don’t know if Bibi could call the Shah and say: debt paid. But still, it would be heart-warming to see Jewish fighters, the descendants of those who returned oh so long ago, helping the Iranian people rid themselves of a brutal regime and once again taste freedom. The blue-haired freaks in the West don’t know what it means to be arrested and beaten for not covering hair or singing publicly. With the current suicidal trajectory of Europe, they might well soon find out.
As part of the current holiday of “Sukkot” (Feast of the Tabernacles), I went with family to the Western Wall, which gives support to the Temple Mount. I found myself probably less than 100 feet from where that gate with the image of Shushan once stood. I am sure that my great-grandparents and further back never dreamed of coming to Jerusalem or standing before the site of the ancient Temples. Yet, here I was. Maybe the long debt owed Cyrus and his generation of Persians will be paid off sooner than we imagine. Netanyahu even used his recent U.N. speech to encourage the Iranian people, something that Donald Trump has also done frequently. While the United States was still some ways off when Ezra the Scribe returned from Babylonia, it too is infused with a desire to fix a historical wrong and return freedom to a much-suffering people.