War with Iran
Sermon, Rabbi Sam Cohon, Congregation Beit Simcha, Tucson, AZ, Shabbat Ki Tisa 5786
Suddenly, the US and Israel are exactly one week into the war with Iran. The Islamic “Republic” has widened the conflict by attacking the Gulf States, Saudi Arabia, and even fellow Shi’ite nation Azerbaijan. As the horrific extremist Shi’ite Islamist regime grows ever more desperate, it is striking out and has even attacked fellow terrorism sponsor and ally Qatar and closet ally Turkey. The “Supreme Leader”—that is head murderer—is now dead, to be succeeded apparently by his son, who seems poised to be equally horrible, and the Iran regime’s proclamations about destroying its many enemies, and insane attacks on everyone in an effort to blow up the whole Middle East and interdict the flow of oil and gas to the world speak to a level of true desperation.
Iran’s next-to-last remaining ally in the region, Hezbollah in Lebanon, also sent missiles into northern Israel last week and was met with devastating strikes from the IDF. Amos Harel, the military expert of Israel’s top left-wing newspaper, Ha’aretz, says that Hezbollah has actually played right into Israel’s hands, and with the Lebanese government actually trying to suppress it actively, and approving, to a degree, of the IDF’s attacks on Hezbollah in its Shi’ite enclaves, it may be possible for Israel to truly finish off Hezbollah as a threat.
You know, a week ago Friday night I preached a sermon here for Shabbat Zachor, the Sabbath of Remembrance that preceded the festival of Purim, when we Jews in ancient Persia were saved from an evil man who sought to destroy us all. In that sermon I traced the long history of those who sought to wipe the Jews from the face of the earth, the damage they have caused, and their failure to wipe us out. In every generation this seems to occur, and we are still here, and they are all gone.
In my talk I connected these ancient, medieval and modern attacks on our people to the current tyranny in Iran, which of course is the same country as Persia, and has some ethnic continuity with the ancient Persians. And I noted that what was then an American military build-up in the Eastern Mediterranean and its environs was perhaps indicative of an attempt to finally topple the evil regime that has been murdering its own rebellious citizens en masse for months, and has fomented terror world-wide, and is responsible for the murder of many Israelis, Jews, and Americans over the nearly half-century of its evil misrule of a once-great nation.
Some of you came up to me the next day at Shabbat Torah Study and before and after morning services and told me that I was a prophet, able to predict the future; because of course that very night, perhaps beginning during my sermon, the American/Israeli joint attack on the Islamist regime in Iran began. “You predicted it all, rabbi!” they said. “And it’s happening on Shabbat Zachor and Purim—is that irony, intention, or destiny?”
Well, frankly, as Isaiah says in the Bible, I am not a prophet nor am I the son of a prophet. In spite of your kind statements, I did not know that the attack on Iran would begin last Friday night, nor that the “Supreme Leader” Ayatollah Khamanei, who ruled Iran with an iron fist, enforcing Sharia Law with incredible harshness for 37 brutal years, would be killed, as would most of the leadership of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards who tortured and murdered any Iranian citizens who dared question the repressive regime. While the apparent intent of the US military mobilization into the region was obvious to anyone, the actual attack being carried out effectively and with full intention wasn’t so easy to predict.
When I, or anyone is asked, what the end result of this current war will be, and we answer, please take it with a large shakersfull of salt. Of course, no one knows if this will truly precipitate regime change in Iran or bring an end to the terrible rule of this extreme form of Islamist oppression. We don’t know if Iran will cease using its oil money to sponsor terror groups all over the region and the world. We don’t even know what the US goals are in this war. But anyone who is upset that a vile, murderous theocratic dictator like Khamanei is gone is, well, quite muddleheaded, at best. And anyone who protests in support of an Iranian regime that has systematically tortured and murdered women, LGBTQ members of society, and all potential political opponents, all while bankrupting a state rich in oil revenues and putting Teheran on the brink of running out of water before this war started is profoundly confused about what is right and wrong.
We don’t know what’s going to happen here; no one really does. It’s not clear if there is any real organized opposition to take over even if this war “succeeds” in wiping out a substantial part of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard’s control of the country and of society. And it’s hard to see how even that can be accomplished solely by airstrikes and missiles and drones, or through Kurdish militias. But severely degrading the nuclear and missile and drone capacity of the madmen in Iran is an accomplishment in its own right.
So Purim is over, and Israelis continue to have to huddle in bomb shelters and hope the ballistic missiles don’t get through and make direct hits, which they did in killing 10 people, including a family at the synagogue in Beit Shemesh last week. US military personnel have died. Things were pretty weird here in America already, and war often accentuates the weirdest parts. That execrable Antisemite Tucker Carlson claims that Chabad—Chabad!—drove the US military to this war in order to bring the Messiah and build a Third Temple, a conspiracy theory and blood libel I hadn’t heard before but have now. The smoke of this war has again drawn our attention 10,000 miles away. We hope for the fall of this horrifying Iranian regime, and we pray that civilians and innocents are kept out of the maelstrom of destruction that war always causes.
How long will this war last? It is my hope that it concludes before Passover, now just three and a half weeks away. Israelis spent this Purim in and out, but mostly in, bomb shelters; we pray that our brothers and sisters are able to celebrate the coming festival of freedom freely and openly.
If you consider the geopolitical situation of Israel on October 7th—or 8th—of 2023 and compare it to where it stands now, you can experience a kind of shock. Because while Israel was then surrounded by a ring of fire, terrorists and hostile and powerful enemy nations and organizations bent on its destruction and the genocide of the Jews of Israel and the world, now, while again at war, it has vanquished all of its opponents in startling fashion. It is not a time to gloat or feel great confidence; after all, this is the Middle East, and we are Jews, and both factors must influence us to be extremely cautious about ever feeling overly optimistic. But the change in the landscape is quite stunning.
There has been a high price paid. But we can hope that perhaps by Pesach we will see a reason to celebrate the festival of freedom in a new Middle East in which Israel is far more secure and far better accepted as a powerful and positive force for good.
Kein Yehi Ratson; may this be God’s will.