Remember Amalek: Persia’s Purim, Iran today
As I write these lines, our people are huddling in shelters to protect themselves from the Iranian missile barrage on Israel. And tragically, there are a growing number of fatalities in Israel. May there be no more.
What began on Shabbat Zachor, when we read of the commandment not to forget the unprovoked attack by Amalek against the Israelites following the Exodus, has spiralled into a regional conflagration with Iran firing missiles and drones on all sides. We pray that our people — and indeed, all peace-loving people — will remain safe and sound, despite the ballistics and the bluster of the Iranians.
Zachor is the commandment to “remember” (and eradicate) Amalek, considered the archenemy of our nation. It is read immediately before Purim since Haman, Purim’s villain, was himself a descendant of Amalek.
The Purim story took place in Persia, today’s Iran.
What incredible timing that Ayatollah Ali Khamenei was eliminated on this very Shabbat! We can only hope and trust that we are reliving a modern-day Purim miracle story and that will soon see a new Middle East with the notorious state sponsor of terrorism finally neutralized.
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This all underscores how Israel and Jewish history continue with the same patterns repeating again and again. As we recite in the Pesach Haggadah, “In every generation they rise up to annihilate us and the Holy One, Blessed be He, keeps on saving us from their hands.”
It also reminds us that Purim is not just a Jewish Halloween or children’s masquerade party but a very serious holiday. The depth and meaning between the lines and in the outer layers of the story makes the Book of Esther my favorite biblical volume.
G-d’s name is never mentioned overtly. It all seems like a political tale of palace intrigue. But when all the seeming “coincidences” pile up one after another, it becomes clear that what happened was not natural; there had to have been a higher hand guiding these fortuitous events.
Purim has so many profound lessons for Jewish life:
•Our vulnerability as a dispersed minority.
•The unpredictability of even seemingly friendly despots.
•Becoming complacent and smug where we are afforded civil rights is not a good idea.
•Prayer, fasting and sincerely returning to G-d gave Queen Esther the power to turn the tables on Haman.
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Today, we are watching the news with bated breath. We pray. We recite Psalms. We give tzedakah to help our brethren spiritually. We hope for more of the miracles that we’ve almost become “accustomed” to in recent years. G-d knows, we could use them now.
I was present in Israel on a solidarity mission during the first Gulf War, when Saddam Hussein of Iraq fired 39 Scud missiles on Israel. Not a single fatality!
During the night of April 12-14, 2024, Iran fired more than 300 missiles and drones on Israel in the largest drone attack in history. One Bedouin girl was struck and injured, and 31 others suffered minor injuries. Some 99% of the attacking missiles were neutralized by the Israel Defense Forces. Unbelievable!
On May 19, 2024, exactly six weeks after the first Iranian provocation, Iranian cleric and president Ebrahim Raisi, one of the masterminds of the attack on Israel, died in a helicopter crash. It blew up into a fiery ball with no survivors.
On Oct. 1, 2024, another 200 Iranian projectiles were fired toward Israel. Once again, incredibly, there was no loss of life, and no significant destruction occurred.
Maximillian Abitbol, a physics professor at Oxford University and an expert in air defense, calculated that Israel and its coalition partners’ 99% success rate in thwarting those attacks was statistically impossible.
If 90% of the missiles were intercepted, it would have been a miracle; that 99% were intercepted with no loss of life and virtually no damage is the equivalent of the splitting of the sea,” he said.
On Feb. 20, 2025, terrorists planted timed bombs on Israeli buses in Judea, Samaria and elsewhere. The bombs were set to detonate at 9 am on Friday during rush-hour traffic to cause the maximum amount of destruction. The sinister plan was to overwhelm the emergency-response personnel and then attempt another Oct. 7 massacre.
But erroneously, instead of 9 am, the bombs were set for 9 pm. Three buses had already returned to their stations in Judea and Samaria, and were parked when the blast, which totaled the vehicles, alerted Israeli authorities. Immediately, all buses were stopped and searched, and any remaining suspect explosives neutralized.
We need these miracles now! Please G-d, as we said in one of the blessings on Purim when we read the Megillah: “Blessed are You, L-rd our G-d, King of the universe, who performed miracles for our forefathers in those days, at this time.”
May we see lifesaving miracles now as we did then.
Write: Columnist@TheJewishStar.com
