Word Prompt – IRAN – Hanoch Teller

First, some history. Under the Shah, Persia (modern-day Iran) was undergoing rapid modernization and westernization. Reforms in education, women's rights, infrastructure, and industry sought to align the country with Western standards. Modernization, however, created a growing divide between the ruling elite and the wider population, particularly the religious and rural poor.

The concept of modernization became a despicable concept with the 1979 Islamic Revolution, which replaced the Shah's regime with a theocratic government led by the Ayatollah. Although the revolution promised justice and moral governance, it quickly evolved into a repressive state where political dissent was silenced, freedoms – especially for women – were severely curtailed, and religious orthodoxy became law.

With individual liberties curtailed, the government felt that it could keep the populace content by promising them the elimination of Israel. We have all witnessed miracles of Biblical proportions as to how matters did not work out this way.

Every year during the yamim noraim I would pray with intense concentration, with Iran and its proxies in mind, “Iniquity will close its mouth and all wickedness will evaporate like smoke, when You will remove evil’s domination from the land.” And now my devotion to the Almighty is to the beginning of that prayer, “The righteous will see and be glad, the upright will rejoice, and the pious will gleefully exult.”