Imagine you’re an adviser to the king of Iran. You glean your insights, and get your news, from the stars. One day an unusual star broadcasts the arrival of a Jewish king (the King of kings!). So you take a leave of absence from serving the king of Iran, and you pack up your treasures and set out on the 2,000 km journey to Jerusalem. You’re living in a car-less era, so this journey will take a long time, and it will also be extremely costly and dangerous – but you’re undeterred in your resolve to see and savor this Jewish King! Finally, at long last, you arrive in Jerusalem. You ask around – inquiring where you might find the recently born King of the Jews. The man presently holding the office king of the Jews is interested in the fact that you – official ambassadors of Iran – are in the country; and he is even more intrigued with your expressed reasons for being there (the worship of some new King whom he – the current, and now concerned, king – has never heard of). So the current king calls you to his office for a highly confidential, diplomatically sensitive, classified meeting. At the close of the meeting the king gives you explicit and strict instructions to make a diligent search for this new King you’ve come to worship, and to share any information and findings with him. This is an executive order, which you – being an official adviser to the king of Iran – know is to be treated with the utmost seriousness and compliance. After being dismissed, you look to the stars for further guidance. You notice the specific star that persuaded you to undertake this perilous mission is behaving oddly, it rises before you and then comes to rest over a particular place. Just to see this star causes you to rejoice exceedingly with great joy. Then you enter the house situated under the star, and you see the King of the Jews! He’s just a child. He’s sitting on his mother’s lap. You fall down and worship him! Then you present to him your most valuable possessions, which you’ve been carrying with you ever since you left Iran so long ago. You’ve done what you came to do, and now the only thing that remains is to return to king Herod’s palace to share with him your findings. Being an official consultant to the king of Iran you know that to defy king Herod’s orders would be to jeopardize international relations between Iran and Israel (any regal ambassador worth his stuff knows what’s at stake if there is failure to comply with official diplomatic protocol). But before making your way back to Herod’s house, you are warned in a dream NOT to return to Herod. So you conclude this mission of exceedingly great joy with unapologetic defiance – you disobey Herod, and you take an alternate route back home.