March 22, 2019 “Do not think that you will escape the fate of all the Jews by being in the king’s palace” Megillah 4:13

The Megillah describes a tyrant who today seems strangely familiar. We read how Ahashuerus, a debauched, self-absorbed misogynist, surrounded by a wicked vizier and corrupt advisors impulsively issues decrees, especially one, based upon a lie, that condemns a conveniently vulnerable minority, the Jews, provokes his base to attack them and endorses their annihilation. And, in the strangest coincidence of all, the tyrant has a familial Jewish connection that miraculously mobilizes the rescission of his decree. The Megillah’s condemnation of Ahashuerus and Haman isn’t just a narrative about the intersection of politics and morality, whether in America or ancient Persia. It is a lesson for Jews, even if it takes the courage of Esther to fulfill it, that faith in something greater than a pathetic charmer is ultimately what protects us and for cleaving to our moral code when corruption and meanness surround us.