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March 18, 2005
Power struggle between Jews
Clever Queen Esther takes a chance and manages to create harmony.
EUGENE KAELLIS
Purim is based on the Book of Esther, the most esoteric book in
the Hebrew Testament. Accepting a literal interpretation of the
book is impossible. It is laden with evident exaggerations and inventions
that defy what is known of Persian history and conventions. Its
hidden meaning can be uncovered only by combining a knowledge of
Persian practices during the Babylonian Captivity, the conquest
of Babylon by Cyrus the Great, his Edict (sixth century BCE) and
Ginzberg's Legends of the Jews which, despite its name, contains
a great deal of relevant and credible history.
Using these sources, one can arrive at a plausible interpretation
completely in accord with historically valid information. Esther,
it turns out, describes an entirely intra-Jewish affair set in the
Persian Empire, with the two major antagonists as factional leaders:
Mordecai, whose followers advocate rebuilding the Jerusalem Temple,
and Haman, also a Jew, whose assimilationist adherents oppose the
project.
Ginzberg furnishes substantial evidence that Mordecai and Haman
were both Jews who knew each other well: they were co-butlers at
a royal feast and journeyed together to India to put down a rebellion
against Persia. Moreover, Haman's mother had a Hebrew name and his
descendants are said to have taught Torah in Akiva's academy.
The multi-ethnic Persian Empire had significant religious freedom
and communal authority, as exemplified by the Edict of Cyrus, permitting
Jews to return to Judah and rebuild their Temple, destroyed by the
Babylonians, and allowing the inclusion of members of various ethnic
and religious groups under Persian rule, offering them some representation
and influence at the royal court. However, it is untrue that Mordecai
or Esther achieved the high positions attributed to them in the
book. Queens and chief ministers always had to have impeccably Persian
ancestry. More likely, Mordecai was a spokesperson for much of the
Jewish community and Esther, a harem consort.
In the Persian Empire the king's harem typically had ethnic "representatives."
Vashti, Esther's predecessor, was a member of the Hamanite faction.
In a typically irreverent manner, she had forced her Jewish handmaidens
to violate the Sabbath. After Vashti's dismissal, widespread rebellion
and Jewish inter-factional fighting flared up, calmed only by Mordecai's
elevation and the appointment of Esther, who, in a measure of intrigue,
initially conceals her ethnic and factional identification. Her
original name was Hebrew, viz., Hadassah; Esther is Persian, derived
from Astarte or Ishtar.
The book states that Mordecai first discovered a plot to kill Ahasuerus,
the king. It is more likely that he was apprised by Esther who,
being in the harem, a traditional centre of intrigue and espionage,
would have picked up this intelligence. A more plausible explanation
is that the incident was a conspiracy arranged by Mordecai, the
two allegedly guilty harem eunuchs becoming dupes in a plot designed
to be exposed in order to discredit the Hamanite faction and win
favor for Mordecai and his followers.
Nevertheless, Haman initially gains the upper hand by convincing
Ahasuerus that Mordecai's faction threatens the king's hegemony,
an argument given credence by the plan of the pro-Temple faction
to construct a wall around the rebuilt Temple, perhaps to defend
against Persian armies after the Jews had declared their independence.
Haman also probably bribes the king with promises of a share of
the plunder expropriated from the wealth of the pro-Temple faction
after its members are killed.
After Haman's appointment, when he and the king sat down for a drink,
"Susa was perplexed," the text states, indicating that
the Jews of Susa, a city with a large Mordecai-supporting faction,
were outraged that someone they considered a heretic would henceforth
officially advise the king regarding the Jewish community.
As Haman puts his plan in motion, Mordecai warns Esther, and the
pro-Temple Jews demonstrate their solidarity with her. During the
three days of fasting, while Esther prepares to petition the king,
Mordecai is busy collecting a counter-bribe, referred to as "relief
and deliverance ... from another quarter," which he had earlier
promised Esther while trying to assuage her fears about her own
safety following the disclosure of her true allegiance.
The Mordecai faction succeeds and the tolerant but venal king switches
his support. Esther gathers information on Haman's collaborators
and denounces him. In a staged event in the royal apartment, with
the king's co-operation, she frames Haman on an assault charge,
providing Ahasuerus with a face-saving device to explain the dismissal
and subsequent execution of someone he had so recently elevated.
Ahasuerus, now convinced that the pro-Temple faction does not threaten
him with its walled city plans, provides help from forces he had
formerly promised to Haman, allowing the Mordecaite Jews to eliminate
the Hamanites, but keeping his well-greased hands out of the more
violent aspects of the conflict.
The book states repeatedly that the pro-Temple faction members kept
no plunder derived from the defeat of their rivals, indicating that
this benefit of their triumph went to Ahasuerus. The story goes
on to declare that, with the victory of the Mordecai faction, "many
people of the country declared themselves Jews, for the fear of
the Jews had fallen upon them." Why would ordinary Persians
or Babylonians, now part of the Persian Empire, fear Jews to the
point of embracing a minority religion in their own country? It
is more reasonable to assume that the now religiously enthusiastic
Jews who had become fearful of Mordecai were assimilated Jews who
had identified themselves as Persians and who had formerly allied
themselves with the Hamanite faction or had previously faltered
in their allegiance to the pro-Temple faction.
Purim is at once the least and the most profound of Jewish holidays.
The Talmud tells us that even after the Messiah comes and the mandated
holidays of Pesach, Shavuot and Sukkot are no longer celebrated,
Purim will be retained. Why? Because the story reminds us that,
even when obscured by bizarre circumstances, there is a continuous
presence of God, often in the guise of "chance," which
explains why Purim is known as the Feast of Lots.
The mood in the synagogue celebration of Purim is one of noisy revelry,
even inebriation, and self-ridicule as if the participants somehow
know that the book's story is a cover up for a series of dramatic
and fateful events and they are winking at it and themselves.
Dr. Eugene Kaellis is a retired academic living in New
Westminster.
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