#731: Iran Has A Bill To Pay
A sermon relevant to Zekhariah 4:6
וַיַּ֜עַן וַיֹּ֤אמֶר אֵלַי֙ לֵאמֹ֔ר זֶ֚ה דְּבַר־יְהֹוָ֔ה אֶל־זְרֻבָּבֶ֖ל לֵאמֹ֑ר לֹ֤א בְחַ֙יִל֙ וְלֹ֣א בְכֹ֔חַ כִּ֣י אִם־בְּרוּחִ֔י אָמַ֖ר יְהֹוָ֥ה צְבָאֽוֹת׃
Then he explained to me as follows:
“This is the word of GOD to Zerubbabel: Not by might, nor by power, but by My spirit—said GOD of Hosts.
Gimme Some Torah #731
Note: This is the sermon that I delivered on Shabbat morning.
Iran, which has been in the news a bit, is an ancient nation that played and continues to play a pivotal role in Jewish history, particular in the days of the prophets. Back then, Iran was known as Paras uMaddai, or Persia and Medes in English.
The Persian king Cyrus, known as Koresh in the Bible, conquered Babylonia, which had been ruled by Nebuchadnezzar, who destroyed the first Temple in Jerusalem in 586 before the common era. It was Cyrus who allowed Jews to return to the Land of Israel.
Indeed, the notion that Jews and Persians are at odds is a very recent development, one completely entwined with the extremism of the Ayatollahs.
After the brief rule of Cyrus’s son, Cambyses, the next king of Persia was Darius the Great, known in the Bible as Daryavesh. King Darius ruled from 550 to 486 BCE, and this was during the time of the prophet Zekhariah, one of the 12 minor prophets in the Bible, also known as Trei Asar, the Aramaic word for twelve.
This week’s Haftarah comes from the prophecy of Zekhariah. A great deal of Zekhariah’s prophecy deals with the building of the Second Temple, which was completed around 516 BCE. He not only prophesied about the Second Temple, Bayit Sheni, he was an activist who helped make its construction a reality.
In this week’s reading, Zekhariah speaks to a Jewish leader named Zerubavel, who went on to lead some of the Jewish people back to their homeland. Many Jews chose to stay in Persia, which was the America of its day, wealthy and powerful, but a fair number did return.
In the name of an angel, Zecharia declares the following to Zerubavel. “Not by might and not by power, but by My spirit—said the Lord of Hosts.” לֹא בְחַיִל וְלֹא בְכֹחַ כִּי אִם־בְּרוּחִי
These well-known words were included in a song that was popular in many Reform summer camps and youth groups: “Not by might and not by power, but by Ruach alone, shall we all live in peace.”
I’ll admit that’s a nice thought, who doesn’t want peace, but it’s not what the prophet Zekhariah said, either. The verse is not about peace but rather a prophecy that it is God who will bring about the building of the Second Temple, and not human strength or power alone.
Rashi’s commentary on the verse says that Zekhariah predicted who would pay for the massive construction project. He imagines God saying this to Zerubavel:
“I will place My spirit upon Darius, and he will command you to build and to pay all the building expenses from his [treasury]; and [he will] help you with wheat, wine, oil, and wood.”
And, in fact, history records that the Persian royal treasury did pay for a lot of the Second Temple, though donations from Jews living abroad were also sought. The Jews returned to Israel to build the Temple, and Persia paid the bill out of grace.
Some thirty-six hours ago, Persia (now called Iran) had to pay the bill again, but this time it was a different kind of bill. Instead of paying a bill out of generosity, the Iranian government had to pay the bill for the blood on its hands and the crimes it has committed.
Personally, I think Israel did the necessary thing at the right time, almost before it was too late. The skill with which the attack was brought about is stunning. This makes the pager plot look like a grade school science fair project. Israel has revealed that it had agents placed deeply inside Iran who were able to launch drones to do further damage to Iran’s nuclear sites.
Can you imagine the bravery needed for such a mission? I get nervous about driving in Manhattan, and here these Israeli agents were operating deep undercover in the heart of the enemy’s territory.
Israel also killed lots of very bad people while sparing as many civilians as possible. Nuclear weapons are dangerous, but evil people who are willing to use them are even more dangerous. It’s forbidden to rejoice in the death of the wicked, but it is permitted to feel relieved. And I do feel somewhat relieved.
Let’s make no mistake about it: The Islamic Republic of Iran was not and is not shy about its goals. Valid intelligence reports proved that it was in the active stages of building completed nuclear weapons, and it was conspiring with its proxies, Hezbollah and Hamas, to launch a second October 7th style attack.
It was also gearing up to attack America. Israel had no choice but to act. Allowing a messianic death cult to get nuclear weapons is not just a threat to Israel, but rather to the entire free world.
This is a point that not many Americans understand. The fight to protect Israel is not only about the Jewish state. If Israel were to fall, the excitement and joy of the hyper-Islamic terror groups around the world would pose a dire threat to the West. Remember, they call Israel the little Satan and America the great Satan.
If find it interesting that there has been a weird silence from the international community. They’ll never admit it publicly, but I think a great many countries are happy that Israel is cleaning up a mess that the world has thus far refused to handle.
Cyrus and Darius paid for the Temple in Jerusalem. But the Iranian government subscribes to this crazy conspiracy theory that Israel wants to blow up the Al-Aksa mosque to make room for Bayit Shelishi, a third Temple.
Do we have our own crazies who actually want that, who discuss that over kiddush, yes, I’m sure we do. Having said that, I seriously doubt that they are any real threat to the mosque.
There will no doubt be debate about the morality of Israel’s attacks. Some are saying that Israel’s preventive attack was immoral, that they should have waited for it to become a pre-emptive attack. The difference is that a preventive attack stops a possible nuclear weapon, whereas a pre-emptive attack stops an imminent nuke.
That’s a farcical argument. How close to completion was Israel supposed to wait? The Iranians already had 400 kilos of uranium purified to 60%, which is far beyond what is needed for a nuclear energy. In fact, the most modern nuclear reactors don’t use any uranium at all—they use thorium, which is harder to weaponize.
More importantly, however, is the fact that the Iranian government is a cancer on the human race, and the people it hurts the most are the Iranians themselves. For nearly half a century, the ayatollahs and the mullahs have made crimes against humanity their favorite pastime.
They surveil, beat, arrest, torture, and hang anyone who expresses an opinion against them. They took a vibrant, Westernized culture and forced all women to cover up under penalty of jail or even death.
If you’re gay and they catch you in the act, you’re dead. If they find out you’re gay but don’t catch you in the act, you are offered a choice between execution and a sex change operation, which they believe is a so-called “cure” for homosexuality.
They have sent killers into America to do away with critics here. They have bankrolled Hamas and Hezbollah for a very long time, and it is they who made October 7th possible.
I’m not suggesting that America and Israel are blameless angels of morality. No human government is all that great from a moral perspective. But the Iranian government has crossed the line so many times with such brutality that Israel had no choice but to act.
The war is far from over, and there will be a price to be paid. There will be cyberattacks on America, bombings of our military bases in the region, and acts of terrorism here and other Western countries. The Jewish community worldwide must be on alert. After all, it was Iran that bombed the JCC in Buenos Aires, Argentina on July 18, 1994.
The price will be high, but I maintain that if Israel can destabilize Iran’s government enough to topple it, it will be worth it.
And when we’ve eliminated the Iranian nuclear threat, it’s time for the world superpowers to come together and retire all nuclear weapons. What possible good does it do the world to dance this close to the line of annihilation?
Avoiding World War III is the only thing that matters on the international scene. It matters far more than climate change. Albert Einstein deeply regretted his role in the development of America’s atomic bombs. It was he who said, “"I know not with what weapons World War III will be fought, but World War IV will be fought with sticks and stones.”
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I am the rabbi of Temple Beth El in Somerset, New Jersey, and the author of The JPS Jewish Heritage Torah Commentary.