In the first half of Esther, Haman comes up with his evil decree to kill all the Jews.
Why? Because Mordechai did not bow down.
We talked about this in class, but doesn't this seem a little strange. One man, who you know nothing about, does not show you the respect you deserve, so you decide to kill his whole religion? Not even kill his children or his whole family, but his whole nation? It wasn't even that at first Haman wanted to get rid o just Mordechai, then moved to his kids, then his family, than the whole Jewish nation, but he jumped to killing the whole nation first.
Today, Mrs. Perl said something that stood out to me in class. She pointed out that it says that Amalek attacked us when we were lacking in our belief in G-d. We didn't see G-d anymore. As we know, Haman was from the nation of Amalek. As we also know, the Jew were supposed to be in Jerusalem with the Beit Hamikdash at the time the Purim story took place, but instead, they were assimilating with the Persians in Shushan. Maybe Haman saw that they were lacking a relationship with G-d and not seeing G-d, and took the opportunity to attack when he had an excuse to get angry and have an excuse to attack. (Mordechai not bowing as the excuse)
You make a really good point Yehudit. Perhaps Haman knew that the Jews had a special relationship with G-d, and that whenever they followed G-d, they could never be destroyed. When he became angry, and therefore irrational, maybe he saw that the Jews were assimilating into Persian life, and that now would be the best time to attack them. They were no longer following G-d, so He was no longer on their side.
ReplyDeleteThis is a really good point! I also did not think this made sense. Maybe Haman, being from Amalek, had thought about getting rid of the Jews, but now that Achashvarosh gave him a higher position of power he can put that idea into action. When Mordechai does not bow, Haman seizes the opportunity to put his plan into action.
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