To Bow or Not To Bow: Mordechai is Not “Putin” on an Act
Rabbi Daniel Cotzin Burg, Beth Am Synagogue
Parashat Shemini-Parah
March 22, 2014 ~ 20 Adar II 5774
Some weeks cry out for famous quotes. And so I offer to you Lord Acton who wrote:
"Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely” (John Emerich Edward
Dalberg-Acton, “Letter to Bishop Mandell Creighton,” April 5, 1887). Even I, blissfully
skiing down the face of Copper Mountain, CO, this week, couldn’t avoid headlines and
images of Ukraine, tanks in Crimea and the despot of the moment: Vladimir Putin.
Don’t worry – I make no policy recommendations today! I’m sure we all have our
thoughts about what occurred this week, its historical import and, equally concerning, the
implications for certain countries whose autocratic leaders increasingly find common
cause: Russia, Syria, Iran…where will China come down if clearer lines are drawn?
Instead, I’d like to look backward, not to the Cold War, but to this past Sunday and
Purim. We Jews just read a story about corruption and power. The moment that seems
most poignant comes early in Chapter 3: “All the king’s courtiers in the palace gate knelt
and bowed low to Haman, for such was the king’s order concerning him; U’Mordechai lo
yichra v’lo yishtachaveh but Mordechai would not kneel and he wouldn’t bow.” Such a
proud moment! Mordechai, the noble court Jew, stands up to the wicked Haman! And
each year, we relish the moment of his defiance, his Jewish pride and chutzpah.
But a question remains: was Mordechai right? Did he, in his refusal, do his Jewish duty?
As Jews, bowing is a pretty rare act, actually. Sure, we may nod our heads and bend our
torsos in prayer. Only two days a year do we actually “kneel and prostrate” as Haman
demands of Mordechai, only on the High Holy Days, and only during Aleinu of
Malchuyot – and not toward a person! So you might think that bowing is something we
may do only before God, and only on special occasions. But the truth is, bowing to
humans is perfectly acceptable in Halacha! Jacob bows seven times to Esau (Gen. 33:3).
Joseph’s brothers bow to him (Gen. 42:6). And Nathan the prophet bows before King
David (1 Kings 1:23). And to be clear, these are not Shakespearean curtseys! The
Hebrew word hishtachavut, prostrating or bowing low, is the same act Mordechai refuses
to do.
What, then, is Mordechai’s motivation? Some commentators actually say he was wrong
because he puts the entire Jewish people in danger, but let’s assume for a moment that
Mordechai makes the right call. Perhaps he is simply a faithful Jew, confident that God
will save us in the end. This certainly could be; though God isn’t mentioned in the
Megillah, God’s presence permeates the text. The anxiety and uncertainty of Jewish
survival is in constant tension with some underlying force of salvation. The Megillah
poses an implicit question: in a world where God hasn’t, for awhile, parted a sea, will the
Almighty still come to our rescue?
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But what if Mordechai isn’t such a Haredi Jew? What if he doesn’t believe in classical
divine providence? Perhaps he simply has confidence in Esther, his cousin turned ward,
her cleverness and beauty? Not an atheist, but a pragmatist, he puts his faith not in God
to solve this problem, but in Hadassah. This may be, but it’s quite a leap of faith – and
with a lot at stake. Esther’s good, but is she that good?
So is it something else? Is something different about this particular moment, in this
particular context which causes Mordechai to remain upright? The midrashim and
classical commentators grapple with this very question. There’s the “historical karma”
argument: Jacob bowed to Esau, so now, at long last, Jacob’s descendant literally “stands
up” to Esau’s.
Rashi’s explanation is that Haman is so narcissistic he thinks he is a god. Surely this is
possible, since the character of Achashverosh is so clearly a feeble participant in his own
drama. But Jewish law also permits bowing to foreign kings, many of whom throughout
history certainly believed their thrones to be divinely sanctioned or even believed
themselves to be gods. And history is replete, too, with Rasputins and Grima
Wormtongues who whisper poisonous counsel in the ears of impotent rulers. How are
we to distinguish between courtesy and idolatry? And there is nothing to suggest that the
other people in the court think Haman is divine. Such is the way royalty and their viziers
are treated, much as one addresses a judge as “your honor” although he or she may or
may not be more deserving of honor than other people in the courtroom.
Or, perhaps, the problem isn’t Haman and his opinion of himself. Perhaps Mordechai
sees something that makes him balk. The Midrash, in Esther Rabbah (7:5), suggests that
Haman sewed an image, a depiction of a god on his clothes. Our hero, seeing the image,
cannot bow since bowing publicly to an idol or image is clearly forbidden. In fact es past
nisht, it’s such bad form that public idolatry is one of only three things for which Jews are
supposed to give up their lives rather than obey. You might ask, though, even if this were
true, and Haman has some sort of illustration on his lapel, while risking one’s own life
may be called for, what about others? Should Mordechai really sacrifice the safety of his
entire people?
Certainly there are those who view the entire Purim story as an anti-assimilationist
polemic. Esther is a Persian name and, after all, she does marry a gentile king. It could
be that Mordechai’s defiant act is more a message to his own people, “Be careful, fellow
Jews, lest you forget what distinguishes you from those around you. Da lifnei mi atem
omdim, know before whom you stand and to whom we Jews must really bow.”
But I want to consider another possibility: That Mordechai’s refusal to bow is an act of
passive resistance, both against Haman but also against Jewish accommodation of power.
What if Mordechai, knowing well the permissiveness of bowing in Jewish law, simply
wants to make a statement? What if he understands that there comes a time when each of
us must take a stand against evil in the world. B’makom sh’ain anashim, hishtadel
lehiyot ish, says Pirkei Avot, “When no one else is being a leader, you must lead.” Is it
anachronistic to claim that Mordechai was championing democracy or democratic
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values? I’m no historian, but I suspect so – though it’s fun to fanaticize since the
Athenian democratic experiment occurred at least 150 years before the events of Purim.
But though not democratic, Jewish tradition, from early on, was deeply ambivalent about
monarchic rule. In ancient Israel, the transition from Judges, who by definition saw the
law as greater than themselves, to kingship was rocky at best. It’s not God who imposes
a king on Israel. The community of elders assemble before Samuel the prophet and
demand one! “Appoint a king for us, to govern us like all other nations,” they say. And
God replies, “Heed the demand of the people…for it is not you that they have rejected; it
is Me they have rejected as their king…but warn them solemnly,” says the Holy One,
“and tell them about the practices of any king who will rule over them” (1 Sam. 8:4-9).
And, in fact, the track record of Judean and Israelite kings is, on balance, pretty lousy. A
few bright lights stand out – David, Solomon, Hezekiah, Josiah – and even these have
significant shortcomings. But most of the kings are foolish, corrupt or even wicked. In
the end, each Jewish king is, as God foretells, cursed with many of same the faults of
anyone who flirts with absolute power. At least Jewish kings, argues Rabbi Label Lam,
are beholden to God’s law. For example, control of and decisions about the Jewish
calendar require great power. But the Talmud forbids the King and High Priest from
participating in the committee that annually assigns this leap month of Adar II. Why?
“Though the King collected taxes once a year,” says Lam, “he paid his soldiers and civil
servants once a month.” His incentive is to limit the number of months and thus limit his
expenditures. And the High Priest? He has to prepare himself each year to enter the
Holy of Holies by immersing in a mikvah five times. Adding this additional month
would push Yom Kippur later in the year, and force the High Priest to walk barefoot on
the Temple’s cold stone floors! (From Glazer, Dancing on the Edge of the World, pg.
177). In other words, each is at risk of leveraging his trivial personal concerns against the
good of the community, so each is barred from the room.
But, through much of Jewish history, it’s not the Jewish kings or their advisors who have
concerned us. For good reason, we Jews have always been suspicious of those who have
the authority to single out our people for persecution or much worse. Perhaps
Mordechai’s resistance is physically and metaphorically about our posture toward tyrants.
We live in a world where too much power is already distributed among too few
individuals. “Liberty is not the power of doing what we like, but the right of being able
to do what we ought,” says Lord Acton (The Rambler, 1860, pg. 146). This right is made
possible by never elevating human beings to the heavenly heights. For when civilizations
do this, they are inevitably unmade by those corrupted most absolutely by their absolute
authority. Haman, with the king’s willing ear, is able to unleash nothing less than
genocide with a whisper. And we Jews cannot abide such a man.
So as we watch and read the news in the coming weeks, I would invite us to consider the
lesson of Haman and Mordechai. All analogies break down eventually. Haman is not
Hitler. Hitler is not Khameini. Khameini is not Assad. Assad is not Putin. But as God
tells Cain just before he murders his brother Abel, lafetach chatat roveitz, sin “crouches
at the door” (Gen. 4:7). We must choose whether or not to open that door, and we must
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be vigilant when others do. History shows, and our tradition teaches, what Mordechai
understood – we cannot stand idly by. And we all know what happens when you don’t
stand up to a bully!
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