Jewish History Blog
Rashi's house in Worms, Germany. Now a museum.
In this post, I would like to discuss Rashi, the greatest of commentators to the Torah and Talmud. “Rashi” is an acronym for the name Rabbi Shlomo Yitzchaki, but Jewish tradition tells us it also stands for “rebbe shel Yisrael,” which means, “the teacher of the Jewish people.”
Rashi occupies a unique place in the Jewish world, on par with Moses. The sages who wrote the Mishnah and Talmud and even the Rambam were not the teachers of the entire Jewish people. They were the teachers of scholars, of those who were able to appreciate them.
Rashi is our kindergarten teacher. When little children learn his commentary on the Bible for the first time, it makes perfect sense to them. Then, as we graduate to Talmud, Rashi takes us by the hand and leads us through that vast sea of unpunctuated words, telling us, “The sentence ends here. This is what it means. This is the question. This is the answer.” So as we grow older and hopefully wiser, we realize that Rashi was not only our kindergarten teacher, Rashi signed our PhD.
But Rashi’s commentary is not just intellectual. His love of humanity shines through. There’s not one denigrating word in his entire commentary, which is an extraordinary accomplishment. Some teachers will wipe the floor with you. I’ve had a few. But effective teachers don’t holler. “Words of the wise men are heard when spoken softly.” (Ecclesiastes 9:7) That’s Rashi. He’s soft-spoken. He’s gentle. He’s your friend.
Rashi began his magnum opus, his commentary to the Talmud, when he was a young man at the yeshiva in Mainz. The printing press had not been invented yet, so there were only a few copies of the Talmud available. Rashi’s correspondence mentions approximately one copy for every 25 students. So they studied by keeping notebooks on the lectures and sharing with each other. These notebooks then became even more important than the text because they explained what the text meant.
By the time Rashi entered the yeshiva in Mainz, it had existed for 65 years. Over those years, a general notebook had been composed – the work of three generations of students, called the Kuntres Mainz. But whereas many of the other students adopted the notebook whole, Rashi sought to improve it. From his youth until his last day, he kept rewriting, erasing, and adding words to it. That perfectionism is the mark of supreme intellectual honesty.
Much of Rashi’s commentary was not written in his own hand but by his daughters. He dictated, and they wrote down what he said. This explains, in part, his prodigious output. There are legends that his daughters sometimes corrected him. But whether true or not, it is without question that he raised his daughters as scholars in an age when most women were illiterate, and they helped promulgate his great commentary.
Rashi’s grandson Rabbeinu Tam said, “I could have written my grandfather’s commentary to the Talmud, but his commentary to the Bible is something unique.” Rashi made the Bible accessible to everybody – from the smallest child to the greatest scholar. How did he do it? As he tells us over and over again, “I am only coming to tell you the simple meaning of the text.” Rashi was not a philosopher. He just explained the meaning of each and every word, and from there, you can piece together the overall picture on your own level.
Rashi’s commentary is also interspersed with Talmudic legends, which are our bridge to Biblical times. With all due respect to archaeologists and their attempt to open a window to life back then, they may uncover genuine artifacts, but they haven’t got a clue as to what the Jewish people were like. A Jew does not feel a connection to King David by seeing his sword in the Israel Museum. A Jew connects to King David through the stories of the Bible, and those stories come to life through the Talmudic stories cited by Rashi.
It is no exaggeration to say that the Jewish people could not have made it through the exile without Torah. Torah gives us a connection to God, an understanding of where we come from, and why we’re here now. But without Rashi, the Torah would have been forgotten. And perhaps most amazingly of all, he lived during the First Crusade when the exile turned really bloody, yet he writes as though he’s sitting in the middle of paradise without a worry in the world except the simple meaning of the text.
That’s greatness. That’s our teacher. And that is how he preserved the Jewish people.
For more about the life of Rashi, please check out our film, Rashi: A Light After the Dark Ages.
Two Sephardic Jews with an Ashkenazi in Jerusalem, 1895
The two main pillars on which all of Jewish scholarship rests are Rashi and the Rambam (a/k/a Maimonides). They differed not only on issues of philosophy but in overall style and approach. Part of the reason for this is that Rashi was Ashkenazi and the Rambam was Sephardi. Each was a product of a distinct tradition.
Generally speaking, the Sephardic commentators looked at the broad picture of Judaism, the forest and not the trees. The Ashkenazim, on the other hand, focused more on the trees than the forest. They concentrated on words, nuances, and the nitty-gritty of the Talmudic give-and-take. Therefore, the Rambam’s writings are quintessentially intellectual and philosophical, whereas Rashi’s greatness is his ability to take you through the Torah and Talmud detail by detail, word by word.
These differences did not grow in a vacuum. They developed from specific historical forces. In terms of time, the Sephardic and Ashkenazic communities developed simultaneously, but in terms of experience, they lived in two completely different worlds. In order for us to really get a handle on them, we have to look at each one separately.
After the Jews were sent into exile in 70 CE, the main Jewish community in the Diaspora was Babylonia. It was the only place in the world where Christianity did not take over, and therefore, the Jews thrived there. They built their own yeshivas and lived autonomously. Thus, they were free to engage in the centuries of scholarship that produced the Talmud.
In the 9th century, the Jewish community in Babylonia began to decline, so many Jews went to North Africa, which was populated by two Moslem tribes: the Berbers and the Moors. The Berbers were fierce warriors, while the Moors were artisans, mathematicians, and merchants – the cutting edge of civilization. Together, they became a tremendous force in the world.
The Jews saw they had opportunity with them, particularly with the Moors, who were less religious and therefore, more tolerant. In other Moslem countries where the Jews lived, they had to accept the status of dhimmi, second-rate citizen. Their synagogues had to be unobtrusive, and they had to keep a low profile. All that changed with the Moors. Their alliance with the Jews lasted almost 400 years, and by the time the Moors were emigrating from North Africa into Spain, they brought along the Jews not as dhimmis, but as equals.
Thus, the Sephardic Jews lived in an open and intellectually advanced society. The study of philosophy abounded, so Sephardic Jewish scholarship became philosophical. The Jews also rose in public life, becoming government ministers. Maimonides was court physician to the Sultan of Egypt. Individual Jews sometimes suffered assaults from their Moslem neighbors, but there were no Crusades, no pogroms per se, no Holocaust.
Ashkenazi communities in Rashi's times
The Ashkenazic Jew, on the other hand, never had a good day. He lived in a primitive world full of constant danger. Western Europe had sunk into the Dark Ages; less than 1% of the population was literate. Even the great king Charlemagne, the first to invite the Jews to Europe, could not sign his own name.
Charlemagne extended his invitation to the Jews with the offer of land, equal rights, and imperial protection. A small group of Jews left Babylonia and settled in the German Rhineland, mostly in the cities of Worms, Speyers, and Mainz. But because the Church converted the native pagans, Christianity became a religion full of superstition and brutality. This, in part, gave rise to the Crusades and the pogroms of the Black Death. It’s mind-boggling that Ashkenazic Jewry survived those early centuries, but not only did it survive, it grew.
So, while the Sephardim viewed their Moslem neighbors as equals, the Ashkenazim looked at their illiterate Christian neighbors with disdain. They led an insular existence, and their sole intellectual pursuits were Torah and Talmud. And this is what accounts for the different traditions and characteristics of Sephardim and Ashkenazim.
Rabbi Shlomo Yitzchaki
One of the tendencies of modern historiography is to debunk past heroes. Revisionist historians have blackened the names of some of the greatest people of the past by dwelling extensively on their human foibles and personal difficulties. Not only does this attitude reinforce the false idea that there are no real heroes in the world, it indirectly absolves all of us from ever attempting to be a hero.
One of the sources of this problem is the confusion of true heroism with infallibility. But Judaism teaches that there are no perfect people. The heroes of the Bible have faults and make errors in judgment, yet remain heroes because of their accomplishments and leadership.
Rabbi Moses ben Maimon
It is essential beyond words to preserve this concept of human heroism in our age. It has been cheapened by the elevation of celebrities and sports figures as heroes. But there is a great difference between being well-known and being heroic. True heroes weather the ravages of time and inspire people for generations after their departure from this world.
All of this is to point out two of the greatest heroes in Jewish history: Rashi (Rabbi Shlomo ben Yitzchak) and Maimoinides (Rabbi Moshe ben Maimon a/k/a the Rambam). It is over 900 years since Rashi’s passing and over 800 since Maimonides’, yet both of these great heroes of Judaism have stood the test of time well. It is no exaggeration to say that they are probably known to more people in our generation than they were in their own generations.
It is difficult to imagine the Jewish world without these two great heroes. How would we be able to study Torah and Talmud without the serene guidance of Rashi’s commentaries? Rashi is the master of concise language, deep insight, and sensitivity to the text and its readers. He anticipates the problems and difficulties, clears away the stumbling blocks, and effortlessly guides scholar and novice alike into the open plain of understanding of the wonders of the Torah and the Talmud. 900 years after his passing, Rashi remains fresh and alive – the teacher of Israel, the eternal hero of the Jewish people.
Similarly, Maimonides took the entire compendium of Jewish thought and scholarship that existed until his time and organized it so that its transmission to all future generations became easier and clearer. He codified all of Jewish law in his magnum opus, the Mishnah Torah. He blazed a path for Jewish philosophy in Moreh Nevuchim (i.e. The Guide to the Perplexed). He laid down the guidelines for Jews living under persecution in his correspondence with the Jews of Yemen. It is not for naught that the Jewish people say of him, “From Moses to Moses there arose none as great as Moses.”
Today’s celebrities will surely be replaced by others. But for the scholarship and wisdom that has preserved the Jewish people over the centuries, Rashi and Rambam will remain heroes to us for all seasons and all times.
For more on Rashi and Rambam, please see our films Rashi: A Light After the Dark Ages and Rambam: The Story of Maimonides.
German bankers carrying sacks of money, 1923. Photo by Georg Pahl. Published with permission from the German Federal Archive.
March 5, 1933 was the date of the election that gave the Nazis control of the Reichstag. Because of that, I’d like to discuss Hitler’s rise to power, which is one of the most dramatic and yet unbelievable stories in the history of man.
Hitler is a terrible example of how all of civilization can be irrevocably changed by the presence of one individual. The question is: How could Hitler have done what he did and why did the world let it happen? A study of history shows that the ground was prepared for him. He did not appear in a vacuum.
The German government after the First World War was called the Weimar Republic, controlled basically by two centrist parties, the Social Democratic Party and the Catholic Alliance. Because of the vengefulness of France and England after the war, Germany was required to pay tremendous war reparations. But the armistice allowed the reparations to be paid off in German currency, so in order to meet the payments, the Weimar Republic purposely debased their currency.
In other words, let’s say the German government had to pay a billion marks. A billion marks could, at one time, have been worth a billion dollars, but when you print a billion marks and just throw them out there, then a billion marks is worth ten cents. The Weimar Republic began printing money in denominations of billions and trillions.
That policy effectively knocked the reparations down, but it also destroyed the German middle class. People who had pensions or who lived on fixed incomes were left with nothing. People had to go grocery shopping with wheelbarrows full of money. It has become history’s classic case of hyperinflation. And most of all, it created a large class of dissatisfied people who hated the Weimar Republic.
Nazi propaganda poster that reads, "No one shall go hungry! No one shall go cold!" From the German Propaganda Archive, collected by Professor Randall Bytwerk of Calvin College.
In the midst of this turmoil, arose two extremes, each of whom wanted to topple the Weimar Republic. On the left were the Communists, and on the right were the “volkishe” parties, of which the Nazi party was only one. This was the fissure that cracked open German society. There were violent strikes in the streets, back and forth fighting, rioting, the red flag waving. People were killed. And the people of Germany, who feared Communism and abhor chaos, sided with the “volkishe” parties, who promised to establish law and order. Better to have law and order and break a few heads than to live with that chaos. In fact, part of the Nazis’ early success was that they mobilized most of the leftist street forces and brought them in under their banner. They performed just as well for Hitler as they would have for the Communists. There’s a certain identity of purpose and style with totalitarian dictators.
Hitler still may not have made it. The Nazi party was not a major force in German politics in the 1920’s. But then, destiny intervened with the stock market crash of 1929. The Great Depression wreaked havoc in Germany. Hundreds of thousands of people were unemployed. People were starving. And the Weimar Republic was incapable of dealing with it.
People want instantaneous, easy, solutions. They want a savior. They also want a scapegoat. Hitler provided both. He was the savior, and the Jews were the scapegoat. And that lethal message brought more death and destruction than was seen in all human civilization.
For more on the dramatic yet tragic 20th century, please check out our documentary film series, Faith and Fate.
Jerusalem today. Photo by David Shankbone.
History is made up of all sorts of interesting twists of fate, and the story of the development of Jerusalem is full of them.
It began with the “chance” meeting of Sir Moses Montefiore and Rabbi Shmuel Salant in Damascus. Sir Montefiore had just made his historic visit to Damascus to advocate on behalf of the Jews imprisoned in the Damascus blood libel. Rabbi Salant, originally from Eastern Europe, was en route to Jerusalem to make a new home for himself. From this “chance” meeting grew a friendship that would bring about the entire development of the city.
Sir Montefiore was a trustee of the will of the great Jewish philanthropist, Judah Touro. He passed away in 1854, leaving $300,000 to Jewish charities – an enormous sum in those times. The will specified that $50,000 should go to benefit the Jews of the city of Jerusalem, but it did not say precisely how. So with $50,000 burning a hole in his pocket, Sir Montefiore visited his friend Rabbi Salant in Jerusalem. The rabbi advised that they buy land outside the walls of the Old City because the Old City was getting too crowded.
Sir Montefiore approached a certain Arab about the purchase of the land and made him an enormously generous offer. The legend is that the Arab refused, saying, “I’ll never sell this land out of my family. I’ll give it to you, Sir Moses Montefiore, but I won’t sell it to you.”
Sir Montefiore was astute enough to know that this Arab wasn’t interested in giving the land away. So he approached him a second time, a third time, and a fourth time until finally the price hit the critical mark and the Arab said, “I won’t sell it, but if you’ll give the money toward ‘a good cause,’ then I’ll ‘give’ the land to you.”
Those were the terms on which the deal was struck.
The Montefiore Windmill today
The land he bought was right outside the walls of the Old City, 18,000 dunam in size, and they named it Neve Shaananim. The next neighborhood Sir Montefiore bought was called Yemin Moshe, named in his honor. There he built the famous windmill, which is still a tourist attraction today. Unfortunately, it has never been anything more than that. The plan was that it would be a grain-milling station that would provide employment for people, but the builder failed to realize that a windmill in dry, landlocked Jerusalem does not work the same way as the mills on the coast of Holland.
The problem was that the Arabs in those times were much like the Arabs now. Jews could not go out safely at night. People were reluctant to move out of the Old City, where they were protected by the walls. That was the significance of the name “Neve Shaananim,” which means “the home of those who are at peace.” In reality, after the apartments were built and the first settlers went to live there, the danger was so real that people would go to the new city during the day so that there would be a Jewish presence there, but at night, they would return to sleep within the Old City walls. And since Jerusalem was under the control of the Ottoman Turks, there were no policemen for the Jews to appeal to. Therefore, it was not until 1872 that a group of seven young families agreed to buy land outside the walls and actually sleep there at night. That neighborhood is called Nachlat Shiva, “the inheritance of the seven.” It was no-man’s land between 1948 and 1967, but it was the first Jewish presence that took hold outside the Old City.
Bikur Cholim Hospital today
Another great accomplishment of this remarkable team was the founding of Jerusalem’s first hospital, Bikur Cholim Hospital. Sir Montefiore purchased the building and supplied drugs and equipment from Europe, items which were scarce if not non-existent under the Ottoman Empire. And the hospital proved its worth in 1866 when there was a terrible cholera outbreak in Jerusalem in which hundreds of people died. The hospital tended to Jew and Arab alike, though it was primitive medicine. In fact, for the first thirty years, the hospital did not even have a registered doctor, but it was still some sort of place for the sick. It exists today, though no longer in its original location in the Old City. It is best known for its neo-natal unit.
Sir Montefiore, Rabbi Shmuel Salant, and the rabbi’s son Binyamin Beinish continued to develop Jerusalem for the rest of their lives. In fact, in 1909, months before Rabbi Salant passed away, he laid the cornerstone for the Jerusalem neighborhood of Shaarei Chesed, where I live now. He was old, weak, and blind, but he would not miss the dedication of a new neighborhood. And that was their life’s work; under them, Jerusalem multiplied a thousand fold. Without them, it would not be what it is today.
Dr. Gideon Mer, 1938
Notwithstanding all of the economic progress of Rosh Pina in the early 1900’s, there were great social and administrative tensions within the settlement. Due to the constant strife between the administrators and citizens, the Baron finally tired of the enterprise and eventually withdrew his financial support. The silk industry also faltered; silkworms require a great deal of tender loving care, though some of the original mulberry trees may still be seen, verdant and flourishing, today.
By the beginning of the First World War, Rosh Pina had reverted to its original, rather primitive agricultural base. The winery and the tobacco industry were matters of the past. By 1917, when the Turkish army was being driven from the country by the British Force under General Allenby, the Jewish population throughout the land of Israel declined. Rosh Pina dwindled to about 100 people, and most of the fields lay fallow. Many of the buildings were deserted and deteriorating. But in spite of these setbacks, a new spirit of optimism, fueled by the Balfour Declaration and the ensuing British Mandate over Palestine, swept the Jewish settlements in Palestine, Rosh Pina included.
In the 1920’s the “new” settlement of Rosh Pina began, mainly with the addition of immigrants from Eastern Europe who were imbued with the socialist-Zionist ideology of the time. Slowly, the agricultural base of the settlement again expanded, and its population grew. However, the scourge of that area of the Galilee struck: malaria. The swamps of nearby Huleh Lake were a natural breeding ground for the mosquitoes that transmitted the dreaded disease. Many areas of the land of Israel were afflicted with the epidemic. But it was in Rosh Pina that an enterprising medical researcher, Dr. Gideon Mer, established a research laboratory dedicated to the task of eliminating malaria from the country. In order to further his experiments, Dr. Mer even allowed himself and some of his family to be infected by malaria. Eventually, his research bore fruit, and through his pioneering efforts, the spread of the malaria epidemic was reversed. Eventually, the scourge of the disease was eliminated from the land of Israel entirely. Dr. Mer went on to serve as an expert in the British Army Medical Corps, fighting malaria in Africa and Asia. Needless to say, Dr. Mer’s accomplishment brought Rosh Pina fame and positive publicity.
The residents of Rosh Pina were always on good terms with the inhabitants of the larger, neighboring Arab town of Ja’ouneh for seventy years. In 1948, Ja’ouneh was home to 4500 people. But when the Arab armies of Lebanon and Syria invaded the Galilee in 1948, the Arab High Command ordered the Arabs of Ja’ouneh to leave their homes for a few weeks in order to help facilitate the Arab conquest of Jewish Palestine. The Arab High Command warned the Arabs of Ja’ouneh not to be swayed by the entreaties of their Jewish neighbors of Rosh Pina to stay put. So one night in the spring of 1948, all of the residents of Ja’ouneh left their village and crossed over into Lebanon. They never returned, and the village and buildings of the town slowly disappeared from the face of the earth.
After the establishment of the state of Israel, Rosh Pina accommodated new immigrants from all over the world. It continued as an agricultural settlement, but also became a town of professionals who worked outside of the community. The old sections of Rosh Pina, the buildings built by Baron Rothschild in the 1880’s, gradually fell into ruin as the citizens of Rosh Pina built new housing for themselves in newly-established neighborhoods.
Rosh Pina today
In 1978, a council came into being to help foster the restoration and preservation of the “old” Rosh Pina and to turn the site into an attractive tourist locality. The village is currently thriving and is a beautiful and memorable place to visit. Put it on your itinerary for your next visit to the Galilee. You will see, in a microcosm but nevertheless in full reality, the fulfillment of the Biblical prophecy that “the stone that the builders had rejected has now become the top cornerstone, the rosh pina.”
Rosh Pina, early 20th century
Years ago, I visited the northern village of Rosh Pina, and because its story represents in a microcosm the story of the Jewish settlement in the land of Israel, I want to focus on it now.
In 1878, a group of eighteen young and idealistic yeshiva students from Safed left their home city and decided to find an agricultural settlement where they would earn their livelihood by tilling the soil part of the day and studying the rest. They had no practical experience in farming, but they were willing to learn and felt that enthusiasm would overcome all obstacles. With the meager financial resources that they possessed, they purchased land from the local Arabs near the village of Ja’ouneh. They named their little farming settlement Gai Oni (literally, “the valley of my strength”) because of its similar sound to Ja’ouneh.
The young men were really raw to farming. They planted potatoes and were crushed when the expected crop did not appear on the surface of their fields. Disappointed, they turned over the soil in order to plant a new crop and discovered their precious potatoes growing in the ground! But in spite of this early success, they could not make a go of their venture, and faced with disease and hunger, they disbanded three years later. Most returned to Safed, but two or three remained, hoping for a miracle that would allow them to continue with the development of the farming settlement.
At around this time, the movement called “the Lovers of Zion,” was founded. Predating Herzl’s movement, its sole aim was to support Jewish immigration to the land of Israel. Unlike Herzl’s movement, it had no aspirations for a Jewish state. In 1882, some members of this group arrived at Gai Oni and decided to settle there. They renamed the village “Rosh Pina,” which means “the top cornerstone.” The name was taken from the verse in Psalms that reads: “The stone that the builders had rejected has now become the top cornerstone.”
The realities of Rosh Pina were no less difficult and painful than they were for Gai Oni. By 1883, the settlement was once again faced with ruin and abandonment.
Then appeared on the scene one of the wondrous personalities of Jewish life: Baron Edmond de Rothschild. He adopted the settlement and extended to it his patronage and wealth. But there are no free lunches, and together with the Baron’s largesse came his administrators, mainly French Jews who looked down with scorn on their Eastern European brethren. The numerous complaints Baron Rothschild received from the residents about the behavior of his administrators brought only sporadic relief to the tense situation.
In spite of this, the community prospered. By 1900, the settlement numbered over 500. It included an administration building, a school, a synagogue, and other public buildings. The agricultural effort was now deflected from potatoes to tobacco and mulberry trees (for the cultivation of silkworms that would produce silk). A winery, the Baron’s favorite agricultural industry, was also constructed, and soon wine bottling and sales began.
And so, by the first decade of the 20th century, Rosh Pina became the center of Jewish settlement in the Galilee.
The Tombs of Esther and Mordechai in Hamadan, Iran. Photo by Nick Taylor.
The victory for the Jews in Purim comes about through King Ahasuerus marriage to Esther, one of the strangest, most unlikely stories imaginable. Esther, a woman of great modesty and piety, is taken against her will to join a beauty contest to be forced to sleep with the King Ahasuerus.
The Talmud describes that Esther was a completely passive participant in the matter, something which should have diminished her chances of winning over the king. Again, we are talking here about an oriental potentate. Women were not in any great shortage as far as he was concerned. That he should end up marrying poor, gentle Esther is itself one of the great ironies of history.
The Zohar, the great book of Kabbala, states that Esther was miraculously saved from the ministrations of Ahasuerus. Through a disembodied spirit, Ahasuerus “lived with” her, but it was not her actual body. And so, he makes Esther his queen.
The king is a very jealous person. After a while, he realizes that Haman not only means to take over the government, he suspects he wants to steal Esther as well.
What tips Ahasuerus off about Haman’s intentions, at least regarding political power, is his answer to the question, “How should I honor my most loyal servant?” When Haman hears that, he thinks, “Who else is entitled to honor other than me? The king must have me in mind!” That is the arrogance and conceit of power.
Esther, together with Mordechai, is wise enough to exploit it. And the other power brokers in Ahasuerus’ court also take advantage. When someone rises to high power in the court of an oriental potentate, it is certain that there are plenty of lesser officials ready to shoot him down. So while the Jewish people do not have friends, there are people who are willing to take up the cudgel against Haman.
It reminds me of the United Nations vote that proclaimed the state of Israel. The Cold War was on, yet the Soviet Union and the U.S. were on the same side of the issue, each for a different reason. Russia wanted England out of Palestine, and Stalin believed that since Ben Gurion was a socialist, the Jewish state would support Soviet interests. This was a grave misjudgment about Ben Gurion, who, though a socialist, was above all a pragmatist. He aligned himself with the West from the beginning. So everyone was at cross-purposes, but it worked out in the best possible way for the Jews.
Similarly, in the Purim story, all sorts of methods events came together to bring about the desired goal of saving the Jewish people. Ultimately, Purim teaches how indestructible the Jewish people really are.
Photo by Ulterior Epicure
On the surface, the Purim story is pure narrative, a story like any other story. The execution of Vashti and the rise and fall of Haman seem like the typical kinds of political intrigue that went on in the ancient world. Only at the end, when the plot has been spun out completely, do we see understand that it is the story of miraculous deliverance.
I once read an article by a great historian who claimed that the entire story of Purim is a myth. I was young and foolish then, so thinking I could somehow change his mind, I wrote him a letter.
“The Scroll of Esther is a historic book with names, dates, places, and eyewitnesses,” I wrote. “It has been kept alive by a people that is not noted for their naiveté or primitive beliefs, yet you discard it as a historic record. But when someone scribbles something on a cave that you can’t even decipher, that you consider history.”
He wrote me back and answered, “Your bias is showing.”
But really, he was just as biased. Like so many in the Western world, he refused to consider the Bible a legitimate record of man, even though all archaeology in the Middle East is based on the Bible. The archaeologists do their excavations according to the Bible’s instructions, and they find what they’re looking for. Nevertheless, the Bible is dismissed as legitimate history.
To continue the story, King Ahasuerus is beset by many problems in his empire, one being the return of the Jewish people to the Land of Israel. His predecessor had granted permission for the Jews to return, and now Ahasuerus is under pressure from Mordechai to allow the Holy Temple to be rebuilt. Ahasuerus does not want to give into that pressure, but he does not want to stop Mordechai directly either. He doesn’t know what to do, and therefore, he appoints Haman as his advisor and prime minister.
Haman prided himself on being an expert on “the Jewish problem.” Throughout the long history of anti-Semitism, almost without exception, every leader who made a name for himself for his anti-Semitic “accomplishments” was obsessed with the Jews. Jews were everywhere, the root of every problem. That was Haman’s worldview. Not only was he opportunistic, cunning, and cruel, he was possessed by a passion to destroy the Jewish people.
The Talmud teaches that no man dies having half of what he wanted. Our entire economy is built on it. Every new invention or gadget is something I must have. Then, when I have it, I realize that it really doesn’t do much for me.
So Haman is not satisfied that as prime minister, millions of people bow down to him. As long as Mordechai refuses to bow to him, it is more than he can bear. Mordechai, in dismissing his power, puts true values into perspective, and Haman cannot stomach it. Powerful people like having yes-men.
When Haman sees that Mordechai will not bow to him, it drives him into a rage. Imagine. Ten million people bow to him, and one person doesn’t. Instead of being overjoyed, he is fit to kill. All his obsessive anti-Semitism comes to the fore, and he proposes the complete destruction of the Jewish people.
Haman understands Ahasuerus very well. He knows that Ahasuerus will not mind the elimination of the Jewish people, but he will miss all their taxes. Therefore, he bribes him with ten thousand talents of silver, which is a fortune of money. When the king hears there won’t be a shortfall in his budget, he has no problem with it. People are expendable; money is not. In our era of uncontrolled and unbalanced budgets, both personal and national, we can still see that.
But Haman oversteps himself. He doesn’t quite realize the paranoia that lies within Ahasuerus. So he goes blithely along his way and sets a date for the destruction of the Jews. In his own mind, he is the king. But this will be his undoing.
Purim is the most joyful holiday on the Jewish calendar. It not only celebrates a miraculous event, but is a harbinger as well as a history. It comes to tell us not only what was, but what is and what will be. In this retelling of the Purim story, I hope you will see new nuances meaningful for our times.
The Persian Empire under King Ahasuerus
The Purim story comes to teach us that in life, great and cataclysmic events are caused by seemingly small people. The Purim story plays out on the tapestry of an empire of 127 countries from India to Ethiopia, but it is really the story of a few people: King Ahasuerus with his whims, desires, and almost paranoiac behavior; Esther, the unwilling heroine; Mordechai, the leader of the Jews, often with no one following him; and finally, Haman, the epitome of evil and self-gain, who is eventually undone by his own ambition and cruelty.
The story begins fifty years after the destruction of the first Temple of Jerusalem when the Jews find themselves living in Babylonia. The Jews are nothing if not adaptable. They immediately begin to make a life for themselves in the exile. Even though they mourn for the lost Temple and the Land of Israel, they realize they will be able to survive successfully, and perhaps even nobly, in their new surroundings.
But the Babylonian dynasty was short-lived. It was soon swept away by the invading hordes of the Persians and Medes. With the arrival of the Persians, the Jews felt themselves even more comfortable. The Persians employed Jews in all levels of government and society, and they were basically tolerant of other religions. That would change when the Persians would adopt the religion of Zoroastrianism, but the initial decade of Persian rule was very favorable for the Jews.
The Persian government, however, was ridden with instability. Every general saw himself not as a loyal servant of the government, but as a potential leader. Therefore, the Persian armed forces were never held to be reliable, and the spirit of rebellion always blew strongly in their midst.
One general who led a successful coup was King Ahasuerus, one of the two great villains in the Purim story. The Talmud portrays him as a fool manipulated by his prime minister Haman, but as having enough cunning to always come out on top. Just as the U.S. has had “Teflon presidents,” Ahasuerus was “the Teflon king.”
The Jewish people are invited to celebrate the coronation of King Ahasuerus. Every guest’s wishes were to be satisfied at the banquet. If someone wanted 100% kosher Kedem wine, no problem. And if someone wanted a non-kosher Napoleon brandy, that was also no problem.
Because of these special arrangements, and because the Jews mistakenly felt that they were accepted in Persian society and would live without a threat, they attended the banquet en masse. Only a small number dissented. One of them was the great leader, Mordechai, who warned his fellow Jews that no good would come of this. He sensed immediately that this was not just a state affair, but that it was going to turn degenerate and immoral, with nudity and prostitution. He was right.
But the Jewish people did not listen to Mordechai. “What’s wrong, Rabbi?” they said. “The food is kosher.”
But that misses the point. By attending the banquet, the Jews brought upon themselves the threat of genocide and destruction.
At the banquet, political intrigue within the palace begins. Ahasuerus is married to Queen Vashti, who is a descendant of the Babylonian dynasty. For him, it is a marriage of convenience, a chance to cement his claim to the Persian throne. After all, he himself was not of royal blood, but a successful general. It is also an opportunity to make loyal subjects of the Babylonians. But Vashti is an independent woman, and she demeans him publicly. Ahasuerus, who has a very short fuse, has her executed.
On the surface, this seems a typical event in royal courts. Ahasuerus is Henry VIII, 1500 earlier. He is an ordinary oriental potentate with a harem full of women. One more or one less makes no difference to him. However, when fitted into the story, we see the importance of this event. The destruction of Vashti is the opening to the rise of Esther, which will enable the Jewish people to save themselves and continue as an eternal people.
