Of all the twenty-four books of Tanach, Megillat Esther is the most enigmatic. One must be a Biblical cryptographer in order to discover the many secrets lurking under the surface of the thrilling Esther story. This is because Mordechai and Esther had to write the Megillah under the scrutiny of the antisemitic censures of Persia and Medes – for the Megillat Esther was included in its entirety in the chronicles of Paras and Madai. Therefore, from the very beginning, we find that Mordechai employed numerous codes to clue us in to the real story.
As a primary example, the name Mordechai gave to the Persian monarch, Xerxes, was Achashveirosh. The Gemara in Masechtas Megillah teaches us that the name itself, Achashveirosh, already gives us a wealth of information about the true nature of this very wicked Persian king. Rebbi Yochanan reveals that Achashveirosh is an anagram of the two Hebrew words, aish v’shachor, fire and black. It is therefore meant to convey that under his cruel rule the face of the Jews was blackened like fire blackens the bottom of a pot. Rav tells us that Achashveirosh is a composition of achiv shel rosh, that Achashveirosh was a “brother” to another head-of-state, the wicked Nevuchadnetzar. And just as Nevuchadnetzar destroyed the Beis HaMikdash, so too Achashveirosh halted the rebuilding of the Temple. Further, just like Nevuchadnetzar was a rabid Jew-hater, Achashveirosh was the same.
The Gemara goes on to reveal that the word Achashveirosh is a composition of the words ach v’reish, woe for the poverty, for Achashveirosh was a merciless tyrant who overtaxed his people and forced upon them a life of miserable destitution. Thus, we see already in Achashveirosh’s name alone that the Megillah, in its clandestine fashion, paints the backdrop of the Esther story as an era where the Jews suffered under the tyrannical rule of an antisemitic and evil monarch.
The Megillah is called Esther, which means “hidden.” This is because the Divine Hand was cloaked under the guise of palace intrigue, and within the lust and caprice of the royal court. Thus, without the tutelage of the Divine scriptures, we might mistakenly think that the downfall of Vashti was simply due to royal debauchery and marital stubbornness. However, again, the code-breaker will see the Hand of Hashem at every turn. He will discover that the Megillah says that after Vashti’s execution, the king, “Zachar es Vashti v’es asher asasah v’eis asher nigzar aleha – He remembered Vashti’s legendary beauty, what she did, and what was decreed upon her.” The Gemara says that the hidden meaning behind this is that she used to force the Jewish maidens who toiled in her chambers to work unclothed on Shabbos. Therefore, she was asked to come unclothed on the seventh day, which led to her demise.
But this is only the very beginning of the Divine revelation of the attributes of middah k’neged middah, measure for measure that struck Achashveirosh and Vashti on that fateful day. The Gemara tells us that Achashveirosh made a one-hundred-and-eighty-day banquet in an honorable observance of the “failure” of Hashem to rebuild the Beis HaMikdash by the famous expected date, known as the Seventy Year prophecy. Thus, Achashveirosh’s partying over the destruction of Hashem’s house led to the destruction of his own home through the execution of his wife.
The Medrash tells us that another reason why Achashveirosh made the party in the third year of his reign was because he was engaged in making a copy of the awesome throne of Shlomo HaMelech. (The original throne miraculously locked itself and would not allow him to sit upon it.) In another example of poetic justice, for trying to sit upon a copy of the holy throne of Shlomo, he would be punished to sit in mourning over his wife. The Gemara also tells us that when it says that Achashveirosh showed yakar tiferes gededulaso, the glory of his splendid greatness, this language is similar to the terminology used to describe the marvelous garments worn by the Kohen Gadol in the Temple. This phraseology informs us that Achashveirosh wore the holy vestments of the Kohen Gadol at his party. For having the incredible temerity of donning the sacred garments of the Holy Kohen Gadol and wearing them at a drunken and promiscuous banquet, Achashveirosh was punished that through a sin of garments, namely Vashti’s refusal to appear without garments, Achashveirosh lost his royal and beautiful wife.
When Achashveirosh heard of Vashti’s astounding refusal to do his royal bidding, which was a capital offense, he turned to the yodei ha’itim, those who had a profound understanding of the mystery of time. Who were the yodei ha’itim? None other than the Sages of Israel who understood the complexities of the calendar and who have the sublime knowledge to intercalate leap years, etc. Perhaps intuitively, Achashveirosh, knowing the national sense of modesty of the Jewish people, was sure that our Sages would issue a moderate verdict for his young wife because they would be able to ascertain the mitigating circumstances of his own obscene request. But, once again, the Megillah reveals the powerful hand of midah k’neged midah. The Sages of Israel declined to judge the case by explaining that since the Beis HaMikdash had been destroyed, they no longer had the license to judge life and death capital cases. Thus, we see with frightening clarity that it was Achashveirosh’s and Vashti’s obsession to halt the building of the Temple that sealed her fate because the case was subsequently turned over to the capricious Persian judges.
Time and time again in this Megillah, we see the attribute of middah k’neged middah which precludes any element of chance. Thus, Haman builds gallows to hang Mordechai and it is on those very gallows he is hung. He and his vicious cohorts ambitiously plot to annihilate Jewish men, women, and children, and providentially on the 13th of Adar, this fate befell the Jew haters themselves. Achashveirosh kills his queen because of his friend Haman’s advice and then will subsequently kill his friend Haman because of his queen’s advice.
May it be the will of Hashem that through the tutelage of Megillat Esther we absorb the great lesson of middah k’neged middah – that the way we treat people so will we be treated. Let it serve as a guide that we should not be strict with others, so that G-d won’t be strict with us. May it serve as an incentive that if we want to be recipients of warmth, patience, smiles, and caring, we behave in such a fashion with others. And may it serve as an inhibition to us so that we avoid improper behavior with our fellow man, in order that such treatment should not boomerang back against us. And in those merits, may Hashem bless us all with good health, long life, and everything wonderful.
Transcribed and edited by Shelley Zeitlin.
