Ed Kay Poet Rhyme

Repaying the Debt to Cyrus the Great

In 539 BCE, King Cyrus the Great – a Persian, conquered Babylon and issued the decree that permanently altered the trajectory of Jewish civilization. Jews were released from their 70-year Babylonian exile. The Edict of Cyrus permitted the Jews to return to Jerusalem, rebuild the Temple, and reconstitute their national life in the land from which they had been torn. In 2026, during the holiday of Purim (it commemorates the salvation of the Jewish people from a genocide plot in ancient Persia), the Jews are returning the favor.

An ancient debt to be repaid
Not loan, a mortgage or a tax
A sacred deed, it once has made
Kings’ most worthy, noblest acts

From bondage freed the Jewish tribe
Exiled in fiendish Babylon
To Cyrus Great it is ascribed
Two and a half millennia's gone

They came home, Jerusalem town
Rebuilt the temple with his gold
In Zion prayed to be around 
All through the ages and not fold

The Persian king, his act adored
Messiah to the folks he saved
But now his nation chained by horde
Been half a century enslaved

The time comes, a rare bet
Bring freedom back as gratitude
An eagle of Israeli jet
In Persian skies is being viewed

Be gone, macabre killing ghouls
Enough of you, may freedom reign
Iran, live by your own rules
And may this war not be in vain

Two modern clans of olden spark
Awaiting moment of handshake
Surviving through the times of dark
And both hoping for a break

March 6, 2026

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