© 2008
A feast celebrating God’s abandonment of Israel puts in motion
a plot to annihilate the Jews.
by Rabbi Ken Spiro
The armies of Medes under Darius and the armies of Persia under Cyrus
marched into Babylon and conquered it. The Babylonian Empire ceased to
exist, and it was absorbed by the new Persian Empire.
So who do we have in that part of the world, just to keep it straight? First
Assyria, then Babylon, then Persia – they were all great Mesopotamian
empires, one after the other, all interacting with the Jewish people.
Following the brief reign of Darius came that of
Cyrus of Persia. In 370 BCE, Cyrus issued a
decree allowing all the indigenous peoples that
had been exiled by the now-defunct Babylonian
empire to go back to their homelands. One copy
of this decree – known as the “Cyrus Cylinder” –
1
is on display at the British Museum, and although this version does not
specifically mention the Jews, they are included as we learn from the Book
of Ezra:
“In the first year of Cyrus, king of Persia, upon the conclusion of
God’s prophecy, by the mouth of Jeremiah, God aroused the spirit of
Cyrus, king of Persia, and he issued a proclamation throughout his
kingdom, as well as in writing, saying, “Thus said Cyrus the King of
Persia: All the kingdoms of the earth has the Lord, God of heaven,
given to me and He has commanded me to build him a Temple in
Jerusalem, which is in Judah. Whoever is among you of His entire
people, may his God be with him, and let him go to Jerusalem which
is in Judah and build the Temple of God...”1
You would think that the Jews would jump up, pack up and go. But that’s
not what happened. Of what was probably between 500,000 to 1 million
Jews living in the empire, only 42,000 went back2 – that is, only about 5%10% of those that went into exile 70 years earlier went back and the
remaining 90%-95% stayed put.
This may sound strange, but this pattern will repeat itself again in Jewish
history. The same thing happened in 1948 when the State of Israel was
declared. There were about 12 million Jews in the world at that time and
only 600,000 or 5% settled the land. The remaining 95% preferred to stay
in exile. Why?
The answer was the same for 370 BCE, as it was for 1948, as it is for today.
After decades living outside of Israel, many of the Jews were settled into a
comfortable existence abroad. Life in the Diaspora can be very nice. There
are many places outside Israel with strong Jewish communities and a lifestyle that is often more comfortable than in Israel. This attitude has been
repeated many times in Jewish history, and it is a problem because God
might give the Jews a little breathing space in Diaspora from time to time,
but in the long run He’s not going to allow them to stay there.
1
2
Ezra 1:3.
Ezra 2:64.
2
One of the great patterns we’re going to see over and over again is the
higher the Jews rise in the Diaspora, the lower they fall. The nicer the
Diaspora seems to be at first, the worse the subsequent reaction against
the Jews. We see it first in Egypt. Jews are invited in, they do well and
prosper, and look what happens – they end up as slaves. We see this in
Spain and Poland. We see this in Germany. All the places that once loved
and welcomed the Jews, eventually turn on them. Therefore, Jews make a
mistake if they ever think that the Diaspora is their permanent home. Israel
is the only home for the Jews. The Diaspora never works as a long-term
solution for the Jews. Ironically, the greatest explosions of anti-Semitism
have taken place in countries that were the most comfortable and most
accommodating to the Jews.
The 42,000 Jews, led by Zerubabel ben Shaltiel (a descendant of King
David), arrived back in Israel in the year 370 BCE and immediately started
rebuilding
Jerusalem,
beginning
what
is
known
as
the
Second
Commonwealth. And, of course, the first thing in Jerusalem that they
wanted to rebuild was the Temple, because a Jew can’t live a complete
Jewish life without a Temple.
The Samaritans, who never liked the Jews and who hated this new influx,
immediately sent a message to Persia demanding that the Jews be
forbidden to continue building. They said that if the Jews were allowed to
rebuild the Temple, they were going to rebel.
And, as a result of their threats, Persia froze the building permit. For 18
years no construction was allowed. And it was during this period that the
Purim story, related in the Book of Esther, took place.
3
Meanwhile, Back in Persia
Back in Persia, a new king had replaced Cyrus. His
name was Ahasuerus, and he was married to Vashti,
the sole survivor of the blood-bath in the royal palace
of Belshazzar during the Persian invasion.
Ahasuerus threw a party reminiscent of the one that
Belshazzar had thrown some years before. He, too,
had been calculating, and he had decided that the 70
years allotted in Jeremiah’s prophecy for the Jews to regain the Land of
Israel was up.3
(The reason why both Belshazzar and Ahasuerus miscalculated was that
neither was sure when the 70 years began. Belshazzar assumed that the
clock began to tick when Nebuchadnezzar came to power, while Ahasuerus
assumed the 70 years began with the initial exile of 10,000 Jews from
Jerusalem before the Babylonian destruction of the city. Both were wrong.
In truth, Jeremiah’s prophecy began with the actual destruction of the
Jerusalem and the First Temple.)
To this feast, Ahasuerus invited the Jews and, possibly because they were
afraid to decline, they came – strangely enough – to “celebrate” their own
end. This gives you an idea of the negative impact of remaining in the
Diaspora. Though years before they had “sat by the rivers of Babylon and
wept,” they had gradually adapted to the point that they were now enjoying
themselves in exile. Clearly, these were not the Jews who rushed back to
resettle the Land of Israel when first allowed to do so.
After some drunken revelry featuring (yet again) the Temple vessels, the
king ordered his wife to appear wearing nothing besides the royal crown.
She refused to come, and he had her executed.
Queen-less, the king sent his scouts to round up all the eligible women in
the land – and this is how Esther got nabbed for the palace. No one knew
3
For detailed explanation see Talmud, Tractate Megillah 11b, and Otzer HaIggeres p.149.
4
she was Jewish, and her uncle Mordechai, who happened to be the leading
Jewish scholar of his generation, told her to keep her identity secret. The
king fell in love with her and, from among all the women taken to the
palace, Esther became queen.4
Haman, the Amalekite
Ahasuerus’s top minister was a man named Haman HaAgagi. If that doesn’t
ring a bell, it should. Agag was the king of the nation of Amalek whom King
Saul neglected to kill as commanded. Haman was an Amalekite, and he
harbored a pathological hatred of the Jewish people. (We covered Amalekite
ideology in classes 6 and 16.)
And so it came to pass that Haman got the king to agree to issue a secret
decree to annihilate the Jews of Persia on the 13th day of the month of Adar.
And how he decided on the best date for genocide is very interesting.
Haman threw lots called purim.
Why? It is part of Amalekite ideology that everything is a random
occurrence – everything happens by chance. There is no God running the
show. It’s the ultimate denial of reality.
So this holiday, which we call Purim (or “Chance”), comes to illustrate that,
in fact, nothing happens by chance.
From the day that Haman threw his lots – flipped the dice, so to speak –
everything began to flip on him. Expecting honors from the king, Haman
found himself forced to bestow these honors on his arch-enemy Mordechai.
Invited along with the king to the queen’s feast, Haman was preening with
pride, only to discover that the queen was Jewish and that now he was
accused of plotting to murder her along with her people. Begging for mercy,
he threw himself onto the queen’s divan only to be caught by the king in
this precarious position and accused of attempted rape.
4
The Book of Esther is best read with the commentary from the Talmud’s Tractate Megillah, because there are a lot of
fascinating details to the story that are left out from the simple telling. However, these details are beyond the scope of
this book. In particular see Megillah 11a-13b.
5
When things couldn’t possibly look worse for Haman, then came the
clincher. Having erected a gallows for Mordechai, he found them put to an
unexpected use when he himself was sentenced to death. And the Jews,
whom he had wanted to wipe off the face of earth, rather than being
annihilated were given the king’s permission to annihilate their enemies.
The most fascinating thing about the Book of Esther, which relates this
incredible story, is that in the entire text the name of God is never
mentioned. We learn from this that after the destruction of the First Temple
the presence of God was concealed in the world, but that we could still see
God acting through history – delivering one hidden miracle after another to
help the Jews survive, keeping His promise that Israel would remain an
“eternal nation.”
We learn from the Talmud that this state of affairs was actually prophesied
in the Book of Deuteronomy, where God says: “I will surely conceal My face
on that day...”5
The Hebrew word for “conceal,” hester – because of its identical root letters
with Ester, that is Esther – is read as an allusion to this time.
In the time when the First Temple stood, you could sense God’s presence.
You could feel God in Jerusalem. God was always there. But since the
Temple’s destruction, the level of spirituality in general has been lower and
the Jews’ ability to relate to God from that period of time onward has been
much less direct. From the time of the destruction, God has not acted in
history in the open manner He had previously. But God is always here,
nevertheless. He’s the master puppeteer behind the scenes, putting
everything into place.
The Book of Esther is the ultimate story of God putting the cure before the
disease.6 Everything that’s a seeming disaster works out in hindsight, so at
5
Deuteronomy 31:18.
6
the end of the story the Jewish people look back and see how incredible it
all was.
This is why, on Purim, Jews get drunk so that they can’t tell the difference
between “Blessed be Mordechai” and “Cursed Be Haman.” This is to
illustrate that, even when we’re not in control, God always is, and that even
the worst evil is really serving the will of God. Everything is not what it
seems, which is why on Purim it is a custom to wear masks.
The phrase in the Book of Esther that best describes Purim is venahafoch
hu, meaning “flipped over story.” Whatever bad had seemed to be
happening by chance was, in fact, intricately planned for the good. Nothing
happens by accident. There’s a design to it all.
This, in fact, sums up Jewish history since the destruction of the First
Temple. Just as in the story of Purim, when it’s over, we look back and we
see how everything fits into place. Nothing is by chance. Everything has a
reason, and God will make sure that even in the worst circumstances the
Jews are always going to have a way out, so that they can accomplish their
mission in this world.
The next part of their mission means rebuilding the Temple.
Darius II succeeded Ahasuerus as King of Persia. Jewish tradition tells us
that he was Esther’s son, and he allowed the Jews to finish the job they had
started under Cyrus.
This was a very special time in Jewish history when the Jews made a second
attempt at getting it right.
6
Talmud, Tractate Megillah 13b.
7
CHRONOLOGY OF BABYLONIAN EXILE
Hebrew Date
BCE
Event
3318
442
Nebuchadnezzar assumes throne of Babylon
3319
441
Nebuchadnezzar makes Judah vassal state
of Babylon
3327
433
Nebuchadnezzar exiles Jehoiachin, king of
Judah, and 10,000 leading scholars
3338
422
Nebuchadnezzar destroys the Temple and
exiles Jewish nation
3389
371
Belshazzar, counting from Nebuchadnezzar’s
ascent to the throne, counts 70 years wrong,
holds a banquet and sees writing on the wall;
that night Persians and Medes conquer
Babylon
3390
370
Persian ruler Cyrus allows Jews to return to
Israel, but only 42,000 take up his offer; he
allows the rebuilding of the Temple, but
Samaritans stop it
3392
368
Ahasuerus becomes the king
3394
366
Ahasuerus counts to 70 again and holds
another banquet; Esther becomes queen
3405
355
Purim victory
3406
354
Ahasuerus dies and is succeeded by Darius
II, son of Esther
3408
352
Darius allows construction of Temple to
begin; it is 70 years since the fall of
Jerusalem
8