Bears and Tyrants
A bear that wants to rob the beehive and lick the honey at all costs – gets stung badly, right on the nose where it hurts him the most. But tyrants and bears never learn.
Behind the smoke screen of elections aftermath, coalition horse-trading, and continued tension on the Gaza borders, Iran continues its race to attain a nuclear weapon. The arch-tyrant Achmedinejad knows that he cannot initiate an unprovoked nuclear attack against Israel. He therefore has an alternate super-sinister scheme: Achmedinejad plans to use his Lebanese proxy – Nasralla and Hizbulla – to rain missiles on the north of Israel, G-d forbid, at a time when Iran deems opportune. According to his scenario, Israel will react with a massive bombardment of Lebanon, and he will then order the nuclear attack against Israel “in defense” of Lebanon.
The threat to Israel’s security can always be traced back to the arch-tyrant of the generation. “In every generation, they rise up against us,” says the Pesach Haggada.
The special treat of the Hebrew month of Adar is that the tyrant, who resembles a headstrong bear that wants to rob the beehive and lick the honey at all costs – gets stung badly, right on the nose where it hurts him the most. But tyrants and bears never learn.
Bears have sensory organs and experience pain stress from internal and external sources. Bear pain should not necessarily be compared with that of humans, which is possibly more complex. Generally, they do not appear to display obvious reactions, as humans do. Bears have numerous injuries due to the nature of their existence, and have been compared to professional football players who "live in a world of constant pain."
Just as there are problematic people, there are problematic bears. These are the bears that are always getting into trouble and therefore suffering from persistent pain, due to injuries incurred from fighting with their enemies, external parasites (including bees that inflict obvious pain from stings as bears seek bee "hives"), and abscessed teeth, for bears seem to have more trouble with teeth than many other animals, probably due to sugary foods. The persistent bear-pains produce the irritability and the problematic bears, which display their discomfort by aggressive actions toward humans and other bears.
The most salient characteristic of both the beat and the tyrant is their stubbornness. Terry Domico, author of Bears of the World writes, "Although the bears may cry in pain when stung by angry bees, they will persist until all the honeycomb has been eaten." Like the bear, the tyrant is stubborn until the bitter end. Just ask Pharoah, Bilaam, Sisera, Antiochus, Nebuchadnezzar, Haman, Titus, Ginte, Hitler, Sadaam Hussein and all the others. Achmedinejad will be the next trophy on the infamous wall of bears that tried to rob the Land of Milk and Honey. Achmedinejad even resembles a grizzly bear.
I certainly have nothing against grizzly bears, nor against an Iranian named Achmedinejad. Let the former live happily in the beautiful wilds of Yellowstone, and the latter eat rice pilaf to his heart's content in Tehran. But, when either of the two shows up on our front door, that's a different story.
A father need to discipline his children is an an internal family matter. But, if a bullying neighbor threatens those children, the father will react ferociously. Achmedinejad could be living his merry life in Iran, but instead, he’s stirring up trouble via his terrorist cubs Hizbulla and Hamas on our borders, both north and south. He continues to reveal his bearish disposition (as described in tractate Avoda Zara, page 2b, how he resembles a bear to the tee) by threatening to wipe Israel off the map, G-d forbid. He growls and denies the Holocaust. He picks on on Hashem's children – that's not healthy for him or for his people.
Achmedinejad scares some people. But, as my beloved teacher and spiritual guide Rabbi Shalom Arush always says, “Those who are afraid of One are not afraid of anyone.” One of the lessons of Adar and Purim is that Hashem promises that we can sit and sip tea with our Gemaras open, while He fights our battles. Imbeciles like Achmedinejad don't learn – look what happened to Sadaam, and nobody in Israel lifted a finger. He also threatened to wipe Israel off the map.
All Hashem has to do is to shut the daily breezes, and Achmedinejad and the Ayatolla will start coughing and choking from the world's worst smog. If he continues acting like a bear (which he will), his nuclear reactors could blow just like the one in Chernobyl did. Jewish children have a tough Daddy in Heaven will sting the bear right on the nose if he doesn’t remove it from our holy honeycomb that’s known as the Land of Israel.
But no, just like the Gemara says, the bear won’t learn his lesson. Like other tyrants, his end is imminent. Let’s get back to our Gemaras right now, and leave Achmedinejad to Hashem's hands.
"Hashem shall make war for you, and you shall remain silent" Exodus 14:14.
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