ESTHER: A QUEEN IN DEED - PART NINE

Part Nine (9) of my Ten (10) Part ESTHER series. May those who read find instruction, nourishment and guidance therein.

PURIM

Appropriately, the jubilation was temporary. It soon gave way to the organizing and preparations that needed to be done to give effect to the new decree. Indeed, the old decree of death and forfeiture was still in effect and the anti-Semite hardliners favourably inclined to it were very much in evidence. The demise of Haman did not extinguish his cause. Here then is a lesson for those interested in real change. A change in leadership, regime change, is a prerequisite. So also, is legislative change. However, for real change to have any chance at sustainability, the champions and foot soldiers of the old order must either experience a change in orientation or be eliminated. To put it more charitably, for change to persist, the elements unfavourably disposed to such change must embrace it, or at the very least abandon their former antagonistic orientation, or suffer a terminal loss of power and influence. Or preferably, both.

In time the day of reckoning for the Jews and their enemies arrived. There was considerable mobilization on both sides. The momentum was with the Jews. The new decree clearly indicated where the royal rooting interest lay. In the intervening period between Mordecai’s elevation and this day of reckoning, his power and influence had grown. He used the benefit of that time to establish himself. Mordecai’s single mindedness, his capacity for administration and ability to extract pertinent information must have been felt in the capital and throughout the empire. The manner and circumstance his meteoric rise to power, and the fact of his relationship with the queen and king must have made an impression and cast a long shadow.

The political and administrative establishment took note. In the provinces, the governors and satraps who conducted the king’s business aligned themselves with the Jews. The first law of politics is survival, the second is relevance. Those who had a political and government career to protect and advance made the calculation of expediency. Some may have switched sides in the process. This phenomenon is known in these parts as carpet crossing. It did not start in the first republic. The outcome of this political shift and realignment was that even before the clash, the Jews were in the ascendancy. The Jews prevailed upon their enemies. In the capital, five hundred men fell to the Jews. So decisive was their advantage, that the ten sons of Haman were killed in that one day. Ascendancy and advantage notwithstanding, they took no chances.

Not in the least squeamish, Esther had her pulse on the goings on of the day, as the king was kept apprised of the casualty figures and the general situation. By this time also the king had recovered from the earlier embarrassment and was in a responsive mood. Esther made sure she was hard by the king, in the ‘situation room’. She was not there merely to watch, she meant to participate and assist. The king noted her disposition and read her intentions with uncommon accuracy. He asked her what further petition she sought. Queen Esther must have known something of the fluidity of the situation despite the decisive victory of the day. Perhaps, the intelligence and information she and Mordecai had gathered indicated that the enemy ranks had not been completely depleted.

She requested two things – An extension of the deadline for hostilities in the capital for one more day, and the public hanging of the bodies of Haman’s ten sons. She meant to make sure there was no remnant left to the enemy. Also, she engaged in a direct bit of psychological warfare with the display of the bodies of Haman’s sons. The hangings evoked the circumstances of Haman’s death and communicated eloquently the sort of demise the enemies of the Jews could anticipate. The king must have been impressed by her ‘battlefield’ performance. Esther had come a long way from being one of the many fair virgins thrown together in competition for the king’s favour. She had become his equal - A person of substance and erudition from whom advice may be sought in matters of state and warfare.

King Ahasuerus granted her request with the result that thee hundred more hardliners were killed on the second day. In the provinces, the Jews were equally emphatically triumphant. Seventy-five thousand antagonists were killed on the day designated. The next day they rested and celebrated. Notably, neither in the capital nor in the provinces did the Jews take any booty for themselves. Perhaps, a realpolitik maneuver to demonstrate to supporters, neutrals and observers alike, that the Jewish action was motivated by self-defense and not avarice, even though the decree entitled them to booty. This show of consideration arguably had an ennobling effect on the Jewish cause. The discipline of the Jewish community inherent in the follow through should not go unremarked upon.

Now we come upon another significant example of Mordecai’s perspicacity. His keenness, acumen and discernment had always been evident in the way he procured and managed information. In a deft gesture to secure the future, he recorded these events and sent letters to the Jewish community in all the provinces to celebrate the fourteenth and fifteenth day of the month of Adar, annually, to commemorate and remember the time in which their grief and mourning was turned into joy, as a result of the defeat of their enemies. It was to be a time of feasting and rejoicing, exchanging of gifts and giving to the poor.

The commemoration was to be called Purim, in acknowledgement Haman’s plot, particularly his prognostications in casting Pur, in order to find the opportune day to exterminate all the Jews. A day that was now to be remembered for the demise of Haman, who was consumed by his own devises, and the deliverance of the Jews through the intervention and work of Esther and Mordecai. Such was the importance that this tandem attached to memorializing Purim that they both wrote, a second time, to all the Jews in the provinces emphasizing the message in Mordecai’s first letter.

As a result of Mordecai’s record keeping, this narrative was preserved for posterity. Mordecai is in the company of distinguished ancients through whose efforts in the preservation of knowledge and history, at a time when such an exercise was arduous and painstaking, has enriched, instructed and blessed the world. The treasure that is the holy writ would not be possible but for men like him. The institution of Purim was instructive to Jews for at least one more reason. It demonstrated to them the extent and potential of anti-Semitism outside of a Jewish homeland. It was also a forecast of what was to come in the ages to follow, notably during the Holocaust.

*All rights reserved. No publication without permission.*