Fear of the Jews: A Purim Problem

The Jews enjoyed light and gladness, happiness and honor. And in every province and in every city, when the king’s command and decree arrived, there was gladness and joy among the Jews, a feast and a holiday. And many of the people of the land became Jews, for the fear of the Jews had fallen upon them. (Esther 8:16-17)

Oh, how these verses swim in my mind these difficult days. The question, born of this text and our time: did “The Jews,” do we, only experience happiness and honor when we inspire fear in others? Must that be our lot, to either suffer in vulnerability or to thrive via dominance?

First the text: In response to Haman’s scheduled state-sanctioned national pogrom (Esther 3:12), Esther demanded the political right for the Jewish community to respond with lethal force to those who would hurt them. The result was bloody, with more than 75,000 Persian subjects slaughtered as the Jews “fought for their lives” against “their foes. (Esther 9:16)” This response-legislation gained royal approval through a combination of wile, personal courage, and subterfuge on the parts of Esther and Mordechai. Yes, the Jewish community fasted in solidarity with Esther (Esther 4:16), but there is no reference to God’s intervention in this dire moment of history. The fast did not save them. She did.

Even the mystic Rabbi Tzadok HaKohen of Lublin, in his magisterial Peri Tzadik, acknowledges the masking of any theological reality with Mordechai and Esther’s savvy use of the realpolitik in this comment on our text:

The miracle of Purim, however, is called the end of all miracles (Yoma 29b), since everything was with great concealment; and it was clothed almost as if it were the way of nature. … For [the nations of the world] did not see the salvation of our God, since it was clothed and close to being the way of nature, as mentioned above. And that which it is stated, “and many of the people of the land became Jews, (Esther 8:17)” was only out of fear of the Jews and fear of Mordechai, since they saw that the king elevated him out of respect for Queen Esther. (Peri Tzadik, Purim 4:1, excerpted)

It is worth noting here that the textual absence of any reference to God, described by the Peri Tzadik as a “great concealment,” does not mean that God has no place in the unfolding narrative of history. It does, however, point to the requirement for human agency as opposed to reliance upon the Divine. In other words, politics.

As Dr. Avivah Gottlieb Zornberg put it:

This is the essence of the hidden God—the One who is absent in moments of greatest need, in times when courage and confidence are required.

While interpreters can alternatingly argue that the nonexistence of God in the text of the Megillah reveals either divine concealment or actual absence, Mordechai and Esther could not wait for a Hidden Hand to be revealed if their Jewish community was to survive. In other words, and to bring these thoughts into our modern context, there are significant lessons for a modern Jewish community experiencing widespread and increasing antisemitism to be derived from a text understood even by mystics as “the end of miracles.”

As early as the days of the Talmud, the debate about reliance upon miracles can be found:

[Regarding those who entered the Temple courtyard to prepare the Passover sacrifice,] Abaye said: We learned that the doors of the courtyard closed by themselves. Rava said: We learned that people would close the doors. What is difference between them? Whether we rely on a miracle.

Abaye said: We learned that the doors closed by themselves; as many people as entered, entered, and we rely on a miracle to close the doors so that an excessive number of people not enter and thus create a danger. Rava said: We learned that people would close the doors, and we do not rely on a miracle. (Pesachim 64b)

Keeping community safe is of utmost importance, and the number of attendees for the annual Passover ritual needed to be controlled. Perhaps similar to Jewish tradition’s general commitment to build sustainable and just society by curbing human impulse (Pirkei Avot 4:1), without which people would hurt each other (Pirkei Avot 3:2), the Talmudic debate is less about how the doors closed and more about taking responsibility for communal welfare. And, if this is the case, then the next question matters too, urgently: how do you make certain you’ll be able to close the doors when there is a crush of pilgrims trying to get in?

Before dismissing these concerns as theoretical, consider these two (of many) examples. On September 24, 2015, a stampede at the Stoning of the Devil ritual killed at least 2,236 pilgrims in Mecca, Saudi Arabia, the deadliest incident in the history of the Hajj. On April 30, 2021, a deadly crowd crush during the Lag Ba’Omer pilgrimage to Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai’s tomb on Mount Meron, Israel, with an estimated 100,000 attendees, resulted in 45 deaths and around 150 injuries, making it the deadliest civil disaster in Israel’s history. Without human intervention, even the best intentions coupled with a devotion to Heaven can lead – has led – to disaster.

The ancient Passover festival, the Hajj, and Lag Ba’Omer have in common a communal holy intention, a positive reason for the throngs of pilgrims who sought entrance. If, even here, human intervention is necessary for public safety, how much moreso when it comes to those whose intentions are not noble, who seek to harm others? When it comes to the Hamans of any era, whose dehumanization tactics can be as sophisticated as their times’ technology allows?

In other words, how do we keep our community safe?

As we’ve seen throughout Jewish history, this question has yet to be resolved. Be it the Roman destruction of Jerusalem in 70 CE, the Spanish Inquisition of 1478, the Kishinev pogrom of 1903, the Iraqi (Baghdadi) Farhud in 1941, the Shoah, the Pittsburgh Tree of Life Synagogue Massacre of 2018, and now, tragically, October 7, 2023 in Israel, Jewish vulnerability is an ongoing reality, and, until the founding of the State of Israel, we rarely even had “the doors” to close in moments of threat.

The powerless of exile made clear the need for a safe haven for Am Yisrael, which birthed political Zionism, the movement to build a home in our ancestral homeland, a home with doors, doors that would be guarded. The breach of those doors in October 2023’s massive terror attack blasphemed the promise Israel was meant to have established, with ramifications for Jews around the world whose sense of safety was punctured in the very same violent act. The breach of Medinat Israel is the breach of Am Yisrael. Today’s growing antisemitism, in the United States and around the world, must be taken seriously, and cannot be separated from the work of Israeli statecraft and policy. Even if one were to make the argument that Israel’s foreign policy is not the same as American Jewish domestic concerns, consider the armed security now found at the entrances of every diasporic Jewish house of worship and communal gathering. Mezuzot, placed on the thresholds of Jewish spaces, feature the Divine Name “Shadai,” an acronym for “Shomer Delatot Yisrael / Protector of Jewish Doors.” Our doors have always required protecting.

Let us return to our original text:

…there was gladness and joy among the Jews, a feast and a holiday. And many of the people of the land became Jews, for the fear of the Jews had fallen upon them. (Esther 8:17)

They tried to kill us. They failed. We ate.

But how? How did they fail? Because we gained power. Esther manipulated her husband the king and Mordechai used his gifts to replace an evil vizier.

Jewish power is a complicated assertion, one that demands serious reflection and moral courage no less than does Jewish powerlessness. But it is necessary. History has demonstrated that we ignore this at our communal peril. As Rabbi Irving “Yitz” Greenberg put it, “the alternative to power would be death.” He follows this with the reminder that,

The truly moral do not avoid stain by not exercising power. They act, but only when necessary and they seek to reduce suffering caused by their actions to the minimum. The firm moral principle is that given the evil that cannot be avoided, there is still an ideal way of exercising power.

There are varying responses to the unavoidable evils of the world. Building stronger doors is one. Another is building bridges. The importance of wedging our pain into the relational consciousness of others in a free society is a sound tactic and can be a deeply rewarding experience. But it is not sufficient. The aftermath on the streets of Europe and American college campuses tells us that we should not entertain the expectation that Jewish pain will be seen as equal nor that the blasphemous evil that caused it will be truly held to account. Nonetheless, bridge building is tactical and important. If Jewish pain is in the communal sphere of concern, even as an afterthought, that should be compared to our pain being completely overlooked. But again, while tactically important, this is insufficient. Bridge building has not stopped the current wave of antisemitism, even and especially in spaces and platforms where Jewish partnerships have planted decades of investment and allyship for the sakes of others.

Even where bridges continue to exist, the unfortunate reality is that Jewish homes still require doors.

So: Was the death of 75,000 Persians too high a cost for Jewish safety? Was there another way to counter Haman’s evil? Is political strategizing a Jewish mandate, a way of making sure we can close the doors when we must? Does the assumption of necessary power inevitably corrupt? Is there any option other than influencing power or gaining it ourselves? Given the global endurance of antisemitism and its violent rhetoric and physical menace, can Jews face evil that cannot be avoided and also exercise power morally?

It seems that Esther and Mordechai were kindred spirits with Rava: we do not rely on miracles. We must be of good courage and employ sound political strategy. Lives depend upon it.