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Esther Denouncing Haman

Jewish holidays are more than the celebration and remembrance of historical events. They are also an institutionalization of the spirituality of the seasons in nature (at least in the northern hemisphere). For example, Pesach is a holiday of rebirth, which is what occurs in in the Spring, Sukkot is a spiritual preparation for the Winter, and Chanukah is a mobilization of light during the longest nights of Winter.

It is no coincidence, then, that Purim falls out in the month of Adar, a month of transition from Winter to Spring. It is perhaps to this that the Rabbis were alluding, when they identified Esther with the Ayelet haShachar, the morning star – the star that signals the beginning of the switch from night to day (1). And it is that daily unfolding of the morning light that thematically parallels the transition from Winter to Spring.

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Megillat Esther clarifies further the spiritual message of the transition just mentioned: In it, we see a battle between two extreme worldviews played out on the turf of a third in-between view. The two extremes are represented by the nations of Amalek and Yisrael, while the middle view is that of Zoroastrian Persia. All three deal with the problem of theodicy – why evil happens if God is good. Zoroastrianism deals with the problem by saying that there is actually a second god who is responsible for evil. Amalek’s approach is to deny one premise of theodicy, the goodness of God. And Yisrael’s position is to ultimately deny the other premise, the actual existence of evil in the world.

By denying God as normally understood, Amalek views the world as ultimately chaotic. Hence Haman, the representative of Amalek, goes out of his way to make sure that the annihilation of the Jews will be set by the random nature of the pur, the lottery. The Book of Esther, in turn, mocks this approach by showing the Divine imprint in all of the supposedly random events of the story.

In the light of the latter, we understand that evil (i.e. chaos), is an illusion. Such a perspective comes out even more clearly in the teachings of Rabbi Akiva, who declared that everything that God does (including that which appears chaotic), He does for the good (2). In other words, bad things are really to our benefit, even when we do not find out why. While in the famous Talmudic story the reader is able to see how the calamities that Rabbi Akiva encountered were to his ultimate benefit, it was certainly equally clear to Rabbi Akiva that we generally do not see how these things work out.

More than any other month, Adar shows the truth of the Jewish worldview as propounded by Rabbi Akiva. To someone unaware of Spring, Winter appears to be a manifestation of evil and chaos, something that the Zoroastrians may have attributed to the rival god of evil. After all, if one goes out to the field, all one perceives is barrenness and cold. To the uninitiated, the trees stripped of their leaves appear dead – there are no visible signs of life. And yet it is precisely the wet weather of Winter that allows for the beauty and fertility of Spring. Usually, the more miserable and wet the Winter, the more productive the Spring. In Adar, when we see the various blossoms and flowers all breaking out of their Winter hibernation, we are able to give meaning to the desolation of Winter.

An even starker example of this process is the forest fire: It does not just appear to kill beautiful vegetation, it actually destroys living organisms. Nonetheless, forest fires are usually good for forests – they get rid of sick and decaying vegetation and allow for the forest to actually rejuvenate itself into a stronger, healthier entity.

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Rabbi Francis Nataf (www.francisnataf.com) is a veteran Tanach educator who has written an acclaimed contemporary commentary on the Torah entitled “Redeeming Relevance.” He teaches Tanach at Midreshet Rachel v'Chaya and is Associate Editor of the Jewish Bible Quarterly. He is also Translations and Research Specialist at Sefaria, where he has authored most of Sefaria's in-house translations, including such classics as Sefer HaChinuch, Shaarei Teshuva, Derech Hashem, Chovat HaTalmidim and many others. He is a prolific writer and his articles on parsha, current events and Jewish thought appear regularly in many Jewish publications such as The Jewish Press, Tradition, Hakira, the Times of Israel, the Jerusalem Post, Jewish Action and Haaretz.