AN UPSIDE-DOWN WORLD : ESTHER AND ANTISEMITISM Rabbi Heidi Hoover
It is not until chapter three of Megillat Esther , the Book of Esther , that we meet Haman , the big villain of Purim . Esther , secretly a Jew , is already queen , and Mordechai has foiled a plot to assassinate King Ahasuarus . The king promotes Haman to second in command , though as far as we can tell from the text , he comes out of nowhere .
All the courtiers bow to Haman — this has been decreed by the king . Mordechai , however , refuses to bow . The courtiers ask him why , but he doesn ’ t answer . Mordechai ’ s defiance leads directly to the main plot of the story : Haman , furious , convinces the king to allow him to issue an edict to kill all the Jews .
It seems that if Mordechai would just bow to Haman , all of this could have been avoided . Why wouldn ’ t he just do so ? Our tradition gives multiple reasons that might be why Mordechai would not bow . One is that Haman was wearing an idol around his neck , and Mordechai would not bow before an idol . Another is that Mordechai saw bowing to another human being as forbidden , though Jewish law does not forbid it , in fact ( see BT Sanhedrin 61b , for example ). A third reason is that Mordechai refused to bow to a descendent of Agag , the king of the Amalekites .
Davar acher — another reason : Mordechai saw how dangerous Haman was , which others did not see . He saw that the king was weak and that Haman would use his wealth to get the king to follow his capricious whims . When no one resisted bowing to Haman , Haman knew that the people would passively obey , and that he would be unchecked in carrying out his desires . Mordechai already saw that the Jews were in a precarious position , which is why he told Esther not to reveal that she
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