It’s ok to ask: Is Trump a modern-day Cyrus?
The Midnight Hammer operation against Iran, successfully orchestrated by President Trump in June, has invited comparisons to Koresh, the ancient Persian King Cyrus.
Prime Minister Netanyahu’s brother-in-law, Dr. Hagi ben Artzi, compared Trump to Cyrus:
He was the first world leader to recognize Jerusalem as Israel’s capital, the first to recognize Israeli sovereignty over the Golan Heights, and the first to declare that the Jewish communities in Judea and Samaria are legal. Now he is preparing to go further and relocate the Gazan refugees to other countries thereby dealing with the core issue, the problem of the “so-called Palestinian refugees.”
Why would an ancient Persian king be compared to a modern American president who wreaked destruction on Persia (today called Iran)? Isn’t that the very definition of irony? (Iran-y?)
Cyrus and Trump, in their roles as non-Jewish leaders of incredible power and importance, benefited the Jewish people in extreme ways. Cyrus allowed the Jews to return to Jerusalem and rebuild the city walls, to prepare for the rebuilding of the Holy Temple; Trump destroyed the nuclear existential threat to the State of Israel. Let us look deeper into the historical, biblical and Talmudic sources that make these comparisons viable.
Cyrus the Great lived around 600–530 BCE. He became king — really emperor — of the Persian and Medean empire that spanned the ancient Near East, encompassing most of western and central Asia, the largest empire in history at that time. Cyrus was approximately 70 or so years before Achashverush, usually identified with the Persian king Xerxes I (Xerxes the Great, 519–465 BCE), who as we know ruled over 127 provinces, from India to Ethiopia, (Megillat Esther 1:1).
But we heard about Cyrus 140 years before that, in a prophetic reference in the book of Isaiah:
Ko amar Hashem l’mishicho, l’Koresh (thus said Hashem to His anointed one, to Koresh) (45:1).
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Koresh is called the anointed of Hashem and he is enjoined by Him to first return all the exiled lost tribes Israel and then rebuild the Holy Temple (Yeshayahu 45:1-7, Ezra 1: 2–3, see masechet Megillah 12a).
Cyrus, a non-Jewish king, is called mishicho, the Moshiach, the anointed of Hashem, and is supposed to do what traditionally we believe our Jewish Moshiach is supposed to do?
Understandably Chazal and the meforshim are troubled by this, and a clearer reading of the pesukim indicates that l’mishicho (His anointed one), means Cyrus is chosen for a special purpose as stated above. But the gemara in Megillah 12a tells us that Cyrus did not fulfill that directive. If we examine the verses cited above in Yeshayahu and Ezra and the commentary from Megilla 12a, we get a better understanding of what this all means:
Rav Nachman bar Rav Chisda expounded this verse in Yeshayahu: “Thus said Hashem, to His anointed, to Cyrus, ‘Was Cyrus actually anointed? Was he actually mashiach — anointed, with the same oil as the kings from the house of David?’ Rather says Rav Nachman, Hakadosh Baruch Hu, Blessed be He, said to the real Messiah, “I complain to you about Cyrus. I told him to rebuild My house and gather My exiles” (Yeshayahu 45:13). But he didn’t; instead, he invited everyone to return Jerusalem and rebuild but, he failed to involve himself personally” (masechet Megillah 12a).
As the Rashba (1235–1310) explains on these verses, Hashem is lamenting the fact that Cyrus did not do all he was supposed to do, for had he done so, the final Geula would have arrived. So instead, we must wait for the “real Moshiach.”
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Having said that, how does this relate to Trump? Like Cyrus, he is the most powerful leader of his day. He gave Israel the weapons they needed to defeat their enemies. He gave them a green light to finish the job and quickly. He provided the state of Israel the greatest political and military support and backing in every arena — and despite tremendous pressure from all quarters, he continues to do so.
Is he the new Cyrus? Is he a Moshiach?
Before your brain explodes, it is clear that he is no more the Moshiach than was Cyrus the Great. We are still waiting the true Moshiach’s arrival. But is President Trump a modern-day Cyrus?
Back on June 23, Israel’s Minister of Communications, Shlomo Karhi made the assertion that Trump is “greater than Cyrus.” It could be argued that rather than passively allowing things to occur as did Cyrus, Trump actively participated in the subterfuge leading up to the attack on Iran and supervised the attack itself. One could argue Trump, because he has Jewish grandchildren, has a personal stake in the survival of the Jewish people, unlike Cyrus the Great, who had no Jewish lineage lineage or kinship.
Now before you purchase a red “Trump the Great” baseball cap online, recall that another president who preceded Trump was also compared to Cyrus. That was President Harry Truman, who officially recognized the state of Israel in 1948, 11 minutes after the state was declared by Ben Gurion. Truman announced to his Jewish friend Eddie Jacobson: “I am Cyrus! I am Cyrus!” That is because with this act, he realized that he breathed life into the first Jewish Commonwealth in the Holy Land in almost 2000 years.
So there you have it — one a Democrat (Truman), one a Republican (Trump). Each a modern-day Cyrus. Neither one Moshiach, but perhaps Hashem is tantalizing us with the very real possibility that what seems so out of reach, almost impossible, is really possible. That the true Moshiach really is at our doorstep. It just depends on our fulfillment of Hashem’s will for us and our willingness to make it happen.
Shabbat Shalom.
Write: Columnist@TheJewishStar.com
