Let’s “re-meet” Haman. He was so obsessed with himself that his first move as prime minister was to have his subjects bow to him. His satisfaction was short-lived because Mordechai refused to show him this kavod. But to kill the lone dissenter wouldn’t be a good look, so he instead hatched a plan to kill all Jews. Note that had Haman not been so worried about his image (both because he wouldn’t care about the lone dissenter and because it’s ok to kill Mordechai), the Purim story wouldn’t have happened. Haman continues on his shaky path as he is excited by an unexplained invite to a suspicious party, acknowledges that he can’t get over Mordechai’s disrespect, and as he presumes that the king wants to accord him some undeserved honor.
Meanwhile, Am Yisrael is lost in a foreign land: they are a people without an identity. When danger threatens, even before they can be afraid or mournful of their fate, they are confused; perplexed. Once they get together as a nation unified in galus, what changes in their destiny is simply a shift in mindset: the decree couldn’t be reversed and yet, “many from the nations of the land…began to fear the Jews.”
Haman and Amalek will always exist. Their goal is to bolster their own self-esteem by introducing us to our own inadequacies. And our answer to that attack is to vanquish them. We acknowledge our inadequacies and know that whatever we can do to work together is all we need to succeed. Even if we aren’t technically worthy: “Uvchen avo el HaMelech asher lo chaduhs” (4:16)” – we needn’t be perfect, but we need to try. And we will be ok.
