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.
....
Taken from:
http://www.jewishindependent.ca/Archives/Mar05/archives05Mar18-07.html
