‘From Swords to Lions’ Purim 5786 |
I must have read the Book of Esther (Megillah) hundreds of times. So it comes as a surprise that this year I discovered something that I had never seen before. The name “Mordechai” appears in the Megillah fifty-eight times. We all know that Mordechai is often referred to as “Mordechai the Jew (HaYehudi)”. For example, in the prayer “Shoshanat Yaakov”, recited immediately after the Megillah reading, we sing in unison, “Blessed is Mordechai the Jew!” Well, it turns out that Mordechai is called “Mordechai the Jew” only three times[1] in the entire Megillah and all of them are in the final seven verses. But this is not the surprising part. We all know that queen Esther was an orphan and that she was adopted by Mordechai (the Jew). We all know that her father’s name was “Abihail”, as it says in the Megillah [Esther 2:6]: “[Mordechai] was a foster father to Hadassah, also known as Esther, the daughter of Abihail his uncle.” In an admittedly informal poll, a full one hundred percent of those polled were absolutely certain that the name of Esther’s father appears in this verse. Incorrect. The first time it appears is in a later verse, when Esther is waiting to be taken to the king to be “considered” whether or not she would make a good wife [Esther 2:16]: “When the turn came for Esther daughter of Abihail – the uncle of Mordechai, who had adopted her as his own daughter – to go to the king, she did not ask for anything…” Up until this point the Megillah refers to her simply as “Esther”. But this is not the surprising part. The surprising part is that the next time Esther is referred to as “the daughter of Abihail” is seven chapters later, in the same verse that Mordechai is first referred to as “Mordechai the Jew” [Esther 9:29]: “Queen Esther, the daughter of Abihail, and Mordecai the Jew wrote down all [the acts of] power, to confirm the second Purim letter.” Now that is surprising. What is the connection between Esther’s father and Mordechai’s moniker?
Our answer begins with an explanation given by Rabbi Menachem Leibtag[2]. While Mordechai is not referred to as “Mordechai the Jew” until the very end of the Megillah, he is introduced as [Esther 2:5] “a Jewish man (Ish Yehudi) who lived in Shushan, the Capitol”. Rabbi Leibtag asserts that anyone who knows anything about history must see this verse as raw cynicism. Achashverosh, a Persian king, ruled from India to Ethiopia in the city of Shushan. Considering Cyrus was the first Persian king and even though there is some controversy concerning precisely which Persian king Achashverosh was, he most certainly reigned after Cyrus. This is critical because Cyrus agreed to give the Jews exiled in Persia an opportunity to return to Jerusalem and to rebuild the Holy Temple (Beit HaMikdash). Sadly, the response of the Exile to this historic opportunity was less than enthusiastic. A group of forty thousand people did return but the majority remained in Persia. Rabbi Yehuda HaLevi[3] writes in the “Book of Kuzari”: “Had the entire nation enthusiastically answered the Divine call to return to the Land, the idyllic prophecies of the return to Zion would have been fulfilled and the [Divine Presence] would have returned. In reality, however, only a small portion returned. The majority remained in Babylonia, wilfully accepting the exile.” Here is the cynicism: Mordechai is a “Jewish man”? Why, then, does he live in Shushan and not in Jerusalem?
The Talmud in Tractate Megillah [12a] asserts that the Jewish People were deserving of Haman’s decree because they participated in a feast given by Achashverosh, described in the first chapter of the Megillah. What is so terrible about that? Is it not fair to assume that the event would have had kosher catering with the most stringent supervision? The answer lies in the timing. Achashverosh lived about seventy years after the destruction of the Beit HaMikdash, at the time that the prophet Jeremiah had predicted that the Jews would return home. His party was celebrating the Jermiah’s “erroneous” prediction. The Talmud asserts that the holy vessels from the Beit HaMikdash were used to serve wine to the guests to emphasize that they would never be used again in the service of G-d. The fact that the Jews of Persia participated willingly and joyfully in a royal celebration that symbolized eternal Persian dominance and the apparent failure of Jewish redemption warranted their extinction.
What warranted their redemption? What changed? One well-known explanation posits that when Esther tells Mordechai [Esther 4:16] “Go gather all the Jews”, this unity counters the division that Haman encountered when he calls the Jewish People [Esther 3:8] “scattered and dispersed”. Undoubtedly, but there was something else. The Malbim[4] endows the end of the Megillah with a deeper reconstructive meaning. When Esther first arrives on the scene [Esther 2:10], she is told by Mordechai not to reveal “her people or her descent”. Even after Esther accuses Haman of plotting to kill [Esther 7:4] “[her] and [her] nation”, she does not explicitly tell the king she is Jewish[5]. After Haman is hung and Esther tells the king [Esther 8:1] that Mordechai is her cousin, the word “Jew” never enters the conversation. But now, in Chapter 9, eleven months later, as the Jews stand with their backs to the wall, the secret is fully out. By calling Esther the “Daughter of Abihail”, literally “The strength of my father”, specifically when Mordechai is called “The Jew”, the Megillah is showing that their Jewish identity is no longer a source of danger or a secret to be kept. It is now their greatest source of pride and the very basis of their legal authority. This acknowledgement is what endows them with the gravitas to “write down all the acts of power” and to eternally confirm Purim as a Jewish holiday. At first, Esther is defined by Mordechai. But when the story ends, she is defined with Mordechai and by her ancestors. Esther and Mordechai are now two pillars of the Jewish People: their political power and their spiritual-national identity – perhaps living in Persia, but, first and foremost, unabashedly Jewish.
Which leads us to the situation in Iran. The Israeli government thought long and hard to find a fitting name for the war that began with the Massacre of October 7. They finally settled on “Swords of Iron”. In September 2024, the IDF waged a war of destruction against Hezbollah. This war was called “Arrows of the North”. Both of these names are so, well, military. Full of bravado and machismo with the obligatory tip of the hat to Iron Dome. The 12-Day War against Iran was different. This war was called “Rising Lion (Am keLavi)”. It is a direct quote from the Torah in which the prophet Balaam describes the Jewish People with the words [Bemidbar 23:24] “Lo, a People that rises as a young lion (Am keLavi yitnasa)”. This name, while perhaps just as macho as those of the previous two wars, ties Israel to its history and by doing so, reveals the real reason why Balaam and Iran want to destroy the Jewish People [Bemidbar 23:21]: “G-d is with them and their King’s acclaim in their midst”.
Purim, then, is not merely a story of survival but a lesson in self-definition. The danger was never only Haman’s decree; it was the temptation to survive comfortably while forgetting who we are and why we exist. Redemption came not when the Jews learned how to fight, but when they remembered how to stand: unapologetically, historically, covenantally Jewish. The Megillah charts the journey from camouflage to courage. And this is why “Rising Lion” is not just a poetic name for a modern war but a Purim truth: when the Jewish People rise not merely with weapons, but with identity, memory, and purpose, they are no longer prey clutching swords – they are a nation that knows it has a King in its midst.
Shabbat Shalom and Purim Sameach,
Ari Sacher, Moreshet, 5786
Please daven for a Refu’a Shelema for Rachel bat Malka, Iris bat Chana, Shlomo ben Esther, Sheindel Devora bat Rina, Esther Sharon bat Chana Raizel, Meir ben Drora, Golan ben Marcelle and Hodayah Emunah bat Shoshana Rachel.
[1] Once [Esther 5:13] Haman uses the term and once [Esther 6:10] King Achashverosh uses it.
[2] Rabbi Leibtag is an expert in Tanach at Herzog College.
[3] Rabbi HaLevi lived in Spain at the turn of the 12th century. The “Book of Kuzari” is one of the greatest books of Jewish Philosophy ever written.
[4] Rabbi Meir Leibush ben Yechiel Michel Wieser, known by his acronym “Malbim”, lived in Poland in the 19th century.
[5] Take a close look at Chapter 3. Haman never tells the king the identity of the nation he has agreed to let Haman exterminate. For all the king knows, it could be the Uighurs.