mgilat ester Hiding Your God-Given Identity
Tomorrow is Purim, when Israel reads mgilat ester, the Scroll of Esther. Since we won’t be together tomorrow, I wish to draw your attention to mgilat ester, rather than the Torah portion this week. The opening verses of the mgila reveal the absolute power and lavish wealth of the Medo-Persian Empire. Like the behind-the-scenes of the rich and famous, they offer an inside story hard for most of us to even imagine. You can’t help but being impressed. In the midst of such fabulous luxury the young king throws a bash that lasts 180 days. The whole point of this royal extravaganza is to impress. If you look in chapter 1 verse 4, the mgila notes,
“When he showed off the wealth of his royal glory and the prestige of his splendid greatness many days, for eighty and one hundred days long.”
To top off the show, the king holds a palace garden party. The description is in chapter 1 verses 6-8.
“White and blue linen, fastened with cords of fine linen and purple on silver rods and marble pillars. Couches of gold and silver, on a pavement of alabaster, turquoise, white and black marble. They served drinks in gold vessels of various shapes, and royal wine in abundance, as befitting a king. Drinking was regulated, without compulsion, for so the king had ordered all the officers of his palace, to do as each guest desired.”
Depending on the language of the reporter, this king goes by various names. In English he’s king Ahasuerus. In the writings of Herodidus, the Greek historian, he’s Xerxes. In Hebrew, he’s Achashverosh. In his own language, in ancient Persian, he’s Khshayarsha. Try that on for size Khshayarsha. Say it with me, Khshayarsha. Compared to Khshayarsha, Achashverosh is a piece a cake, so I’ll stick with Hebrew. When Achashverosh is intoxicated he gets the notion to display his most intimate of prizes. This is in verse 11.
“To bring Vashti the queen before the king with the royal crown to show the people and the officials her beauty, for she was lovely in appearance.”
Achashverosh is saying, “Eat you heart out guys. On top of everything you’ve laid eyes on for the last one hundred eighty days, you can see I’ve got great sex too. I’ve got the best of everything.”
Then suddenly we see the ruler of the world isn’t quite so on top of it. Vashti the queen refuses to put her beautiful bod on public display and a bunch of government nincompoops are all worked up over maintaining male dominance. The king allows his drinking buddies to turn a domestic disagreement into a fresh piece of legislation. Fragile egos have been rattled and big government must rush to the aid of male chauvinists from Egypt to India.
Scripture has quickly taken us from the far-flung provinces of the Empire into the inner psyche of Achashverosh. On the throne of the world sits a man obsessed with appearances. The king, who is the embodiment of his kingdom’s way of thinking and acting, is a self-indulgent, little man. The heartbeat of the empire lives for momentary pleasure. You put a beer in his hand and a girl in his lap and he’s happy. He has no agenda, no master plan, no grand strategy, no compelling vision of his own. The kings rules the world by the whim of the moment.
How is it that the king of the world has abdicated leadership and allows himself to be manipulated by whoever pushes the right buttons? Because the nice people around him offer to do his thinking for him, he’s in the lazy habit of letting them do so. All he wants is to be admired and have fun. According to the surviving historical accounts, time and again King Achashverosh is misled into disastrous decisions because the man can’t be bothered to think.
Not a very promising mgila in chapter 1. We’ve got us a big barbeque, a drunk king, and the crass display of carnal appetite by a bunch of very insecure men.
Many Christians have questioned the appropriateness of this book among our collection of inspired writings. HaShem’s name, or even the word God, is never once mentioned. The book lacks overt religious content. The actions of the hero and heroine are not moral examples. Rather than the result of standing still and seeing God intervene, Israel’s salvation is political. The perspective is secular rather than religious. Our prospects for discovering God’s living word in this book don’t improve much in chapter 2.
There’s this Jewish guy from a Jerusalem family whose ancestors were exiled in the first deportation under Nebuchadnezzar. Fifty years ago under Khoresh, the family had the chance to return home and didn’t take advantage. There was another decree under Daryavesh allowing Jewish refuges to reclaim their heritage. Mordekhai didn’t take advantage of that opportunity either. What kind of Jewish guy is this Mordekhai who so undervalues his heritage he isn’t interesting in going home?
Then there’s the contest to find the next queen. The rules are plainly laid out in chapter 2 verses 13-14.
“In this fashion the girl would go to the king. Everything she would request would be given her to go with her from the women’s house to the king’s house. In the evening she would go, but in the morning she would return to the second women’s house under custody of Shaashgaz the king’s eunuch, keeper of the concubines. She would never again go to the king unless the king desired her and she was called by name.”
Knowing full well that if his cute cousin didn’t win the contest, she’d wind up a concubine lost among the harem till the day she dies, Mordekhai nonetheless puts her up for best one-night-stand. Esther is an orphan girl. As her guardian, Mordekhai is supposed to be looking out for the girl’s welfare. What kind of Jewish guy is this who so undervalues his family’s welfare?
Next Mordekhai instructs Esther not to tell anybody she’s Jewish. This comes in verse 10.
“Esther did not tell either her people or her family, because Mordekhai commanded her not to tell.”
Esther didn’t take her cue from Chananya, Mishael, Azarya on their first day in the dining room at the University of Babylon. She never did ask the waiter to see the kosher menu. She didn’t open her windows three times a day and pray like Daniel. She didn’t visit the mikve to purify herself each month. She didn’t pop into shul Mondays and Thursdays to hear the Torah reading. She wasn’t quietly observing Shabbat in her own way there in the house of women. Esther wasn’t being Jewish in any manner, shape, or form. Esther eats, dresses and lives exactly like a Persian. She spends a year pampering and primping and prettying for that one erotic night, hoping she’ll be the one lucky girl who best satisfies the king. After her big night and she’s been declared winner, our mgila repeats the fact that Esther didn’t share her faith. This comes in verse 20.
“Esther wasn’t telling about her family or people just as Mordekhai had commanded her. Esther did the word of Mordekhai just as she was brought up by him.”
Esther then marries the king who also happens to be a Zorastrian priest. It may well be that on state occasions, Esther even worshiped like a Zorastrian.
Esther’s identity reminds me of the preacher greeting members of the congregation after the service. The preacher was attempting to encourage a brother who hadn’t shown his face in God’s house for months. “Hey, it’s sure good to see you with us again! The L-rd needs every last one of us in his army.” The brother apologized, “Well, you see preacher man it’s like this: I’ve enlisted in the secret service.”
Esther was one of those warriors in the L-rd’s secret army. Whatever remained of her private faith, Esther was so deep undercover she could hardly know herself whose side she was on anymore. Judaism isn’t a religion you can practice in total secrecy. Esther lived a non-Jewish life in the palace for six years. Do the arithmetic. Chapter 2 verse 16 says Esther won the contest for best in bed during the 7th year of King Achashverosh; chapter 3 verse 7 says the death decree was issued during his 12th regnal year. Seven subtracted from twelve is five. Add the year of preparation before the contest to get six. All totaled, Esther was hiding her identity six years. The longer she acted like a woman who didn’t know the God of Israel, the less real he became in her daily life.
Tomorrow we celebrate Purim. Most people celebrate Purim by masquerading. This is fun for a few hours, but masquerading can be very dangerous. You masquerade too long, you forget who you are. You lead somebody else’s life for too long, you miss out on the unique person God created you to be.
At the end of chapter 2 we have to ask, what kind of Jews are these Mordekhai and Esther anyway? What are the chosen people, whom God has set as a light to the Gentiles, doing masquerading as heathen? We now understand why Mordekahai and Esther never made aliya; why going up to Jerusalem to worship the God of Israel who earthly residence is in Jerusalem doesn’t appeal to them. Mordekhai is hobnobbing with the high and mighty. Motke has gone mainstream.
Motke is the Israeli nickname for Mordekhai. Just like in English every William is Bill and every James is Jim, in Hebrew every Mordekhai is Motke. The reason Motke and Esther are masquerading as heathen is they’ve been bedazzled by the world of appearances and applause. That lavish display in chapter 1 calculated to impress has made its impression on them too.
Jerusalem is too far out in the provinces. Nothing much important ever happens out that way. Motke wants a piece of the action. Persia is where it’s happening. With his ambition to be a somebody, Motke needs to be close to the center of power. Motke is an insider. He’s part of the world of palace intrigue, of conspiracies, of betrayed confidences, of failed assassination attempts and foiled coupes. He isn’t a very important player yet, but Motke’s got an inside track. Positioning his cooperative little cousin so deep inside the royal household is a risk that could pay off big-time. No thank you, you’re not going to see Motke wrapped in a talit anytime soon. Motke’s been passing for Persian. Mordekhai is the only person in the Hebrew Bible specifically designated as “the Jew.” But Motke the Jew is your assimilated Jew. Motke is rapidly on his way to becoming a non-Jew.
We move to chapter 3 of the mgila. Chapter 3 verses 1.
“After these events King Achashverosh promoted Chaman ben Hamdata the Agagi, advanced him and set his seat above all the officials who were with him.”
This is the wakeup call. Thank goodness, Motke gets the message loud and clear. Despite all his compromises, Motke still has enough Jewish education to catch the code. We often decry: What’s the use wasting religious education on people who aren’t committed to using it? What’s the sense of promoting biblical literacy among non-believers? Why should we teach the careless our precious tradition? The answer is, we’re endeavoring to give them a fighting chance to catch the code. What, by the way, is the code? Back in chapter 2 of the mgila we were told,
“There was a Jewish man in Shushan the citadel by the name of Mordekhai ben Yair ben Shimi ben Kish a Benyami.”
Like King Shaul, Mordekhai is also a son of Kish, from the tribe of Benyamin. And who is Chaman the Agagi? The Agagim are the descendents of Agag King of Amalekh. Long ago, God had ordered Shaul son of Kish to carry out the Torah commandment to blot out the remembrance of Amalekh from under heaven. [Deuteronomy 25] But King Shaul spared the life of Agag. Now his descendant, an inbred, inveterate enemy of the Jewish people, shows up to resume a nine-hundred-year-old blood feud. And he’s the new prime minister.
When Motke sees Chaman the Agagi on the top rung of the government ladder, it finally registers that he’s been running headlong in the wrong direction and is about to score a goal for the wrong side. Motke wakes up to the fact that this monstrous empire he thinks he can manipulate to his advantage can much more easily wipe the Jewish people off the map. In Mordekhai’s time all the Jewish people on earth lived within the confines of the Persian Empire. When Haman the Agagi makes prime minister, Mordekhai the Jew realizes the Persian tiger he’s been so eager to ride, is about to turn on him and swallow him whole. Suddenly the attractions of prestige and power, for which Motke has been hiding his God-given identity, aren’t nearly so attractive anymore. Isn’t it marvelous how God uses the very thing that threatens to destroy us to wake us up? When confronted with life and death, Motke the Jew is flushed out of hiding. When the chosen people are on the brink of extinction, thank God, they start being Israel again!
Through a go-between, Motke commands Esther to plead with the king for her people. This comes in chapter 4 verses 7 and 8.
“Mordekhai told him everything that had happened to him and the sum of money that Haman had promised to weigh out to the King’s treasury for the Jews, to destroy them, and a copy of the written decree which was issued in Shushan to exterminate them he gave him to show Esther and to tell her, and to command her to go to the king to beg him and to plead before him concerning her people.”
But who are Esther’s people? Esther has been in denial. Esther has been living as somebody else. Esther’s problem isn’t so much going before the king. Esther’s problem is figuring out who Esther is. Can the Queen of Persia still be the little Jewish girl who used to pray in simple trust? It’s been so long since Esther has done anything Jewish, she doesn’t feel Jewish anymore. Is Esther willing to be Hadassa again? Esther hesitates and makes excuses. Motke puts it to her bluntly. This comes in chapter 4 verse 13.
“Do not think to yourself that the royal house will escape any more than other Jews. If you keep quiet at this time relief and rescue will arise for the Jews from another quarter, but you and your father’s house will perish. And who knows whether for a time like this you have attained royalty?”
When she recognizes the enemy as the enemy, Esther makes the right decision. Esther moves from sex symbol to intercessor, from beauty queen to Jewish saint, from the indolence of harem life to the high-risk venture of speaking out. Had Esther not stood up, Esther would have been only a party girl. Because Esther recovers her identity, she not only saves Israel, Esther too is saved.
The story of Purim is the story of marginal faith, of evaded obedience, of how God delivers his backslidden people. God, of course, would much prefer to deliver his loyal servants. There’s more blessing that way. But God is also able to deliver people who’ve almost conformed and compromised themselves out of existence, people who’ve almost forgotten they’re his sons and daughters. He can bring any one of us back from the brink of amnesia.
We all have an identity that needs to be reclaimed and openly revealed. In Mashiach we Christians are also heirs of Avraham and Sara and we also have a heritage that needs to be recovered. In our heart of hearts do we identify with the reality of God’s kingdom and the non-negotiable truths of his Torah, or have we bought into the illusions of a doomed empire? Are we just operators, trying to work the system to our best advantage: enjoying more comforts, collecting more toys, racking up higher scores, occupying ourselves with more distractions, showing up somebody else in the competition? Like Motke and Esther, have we almost allowed Gentile glitz and glitter to rob us of Israel’s heritage? Have we been impressed by all the wrong stuff?
My prayer is that God would bring on whatever crisis it may take to break the fatal attraction the present world has for so many of his people. Some of us may have to undergo all manner of hurts and heartaches, in order to realize we’re up against a ruthless Enemy. Some on us can’t seem to see straight till we’re staring Death full in the face. Some Jews require the likes of Haman the Agagi to remind them they’re still Jewish.
Masquerading once a year is fun, but you don’t want to make a career of it. When the party’s over, double check to make sure you’ve removed your disguise completely. Passing for somebody else isn’t worth it. You’re already more precious in God’s sight than anyone else you might aspire to be. The message of Purim is that God’s children need to stop pretending they’re not his. chag sameach. Have a happy Purim!
