ELUAH IN YIDDISH LITERATURE - Jewish Bible Quarterly

a Midrash says: The community of Israel said to the Master of the world,
"Why were miracles wrought by the hands of Cyrus; would it not have been
better had they been brought about by Daniel or another righteous man?"
The version there presented Cyrus as ambivalent: those who left Babylonia
he allowed to abide in Jerusalem, but the call went forth to let no others go.
So it is that the Sages held variant opinions about him: one interprets the
verse, "The voice of the turtle is heard in our land" (Song of Songs, 2:12), as
referring to the Messiah, son of David; another holds the verse to refer to
Cyrus.
Cyrus was not the anointed of God, and his posture towards the Jews was
not notably cordial. He was a great soldier and a great king who built an
empire, the like of which, till his days, had never been known. There were
many peoples in his kingdom to which he granted freedom of worship without
trying to fashion them into one family. When he died, most of them put a seal
of silence on his memory; they were no longer beholden to him. Two literary
nations of the ancient world, the Jews and the Greeks, did cherish his memory
and kept it alive. In Greek literature, his might and grandeur are recounted.
In ours, his name is linked with a freedom and rebirth which in no small
measure influenced the spiritual and cultural evolution not only of Israel but
of all nations.
It is natural that remembrance of him should be evoked this year by his
people, through the Shah of Iran, as symbol of the glory of former Persia,
and in homage to it. There is good reason for representatives of nations to
gather and recall epochs of greatness and productivity. I do not share the
views of critics and detractors of celebrations of that kind. But, in essence, in
antiquity and no less today, the outcome of Cyrus' historic action was registered
only in Jerusalem, where his successor, Darius the Second, decreed to the
Jews, saying, 'That they may offer sacrifices of sweet savour unto the God of
heaven, and pray for the life of the king, and of his sons' (Ezra, 6:10).
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