(4) “If it please Your Majesty [the King],” Esther replied, “let Your Majesty and Haman come today to the feast that I have prepared for him.”
"Keep your friends close, and your enemies closer." Sun Szu, Chinese military general, 544–496 BCE.
Be fierce, brave, and determined. Dis the strength of men, because no one who is born from a woman can harm Macbeth. (Macbeth, Act 4, Scene 1: "Be bloody, bold, and resolute. Laugh to scorn/The power of man, for none of woman born/Shall harm Macbeth.)
The witches in Shakespeare's Macbeth use magic to create visions of ghosts, and one of these ghosts tells king Macbeth what Macbeth understands to mean that he cannot be killed by anybody. (But Macbeth will be killed in the end.)
1. What motivates Esther to invite Haman to the banquet with Achashverosh? Why would she not simply invite Achashverosh alone? Think of some possible options and jot them down.
... What did Esther see to invite Haman to the banquet?
Rabbi Elazar says: She hid a snare [trap] for him, as it is stated: “Let their table become a snare [trap] before them” (Psalms 69:23), as she assumed that she would be able to trip up Haman during the banquet. ...
Rabbi Meir says: She invited him in order that he be near her at all times, so that he would not take counsel [advice] and rebel against Achashverosh when he discovered that the king was angry with him.
Rabbi Yehoshua ben Korcha says: She [Esther] said to herself: I will act kindly toward him [Haman] and thereby bring the king [Achashverosh] to suspect that we are having an affair; she did so in order that both he and she would be killed. Essentially, Esther was willing to be killed with Haman in order that the decree [of the planned massacre of the Jews] would be annulled [cancelled].
Rabban Gamliel says: Achashverosh was a fickle [inconsistent] king, and Esther hoped that if he saw Haman on multiple occasions, eventually he [Achashverosh] would change his opinion of him.
.... Rabbi Eliezer HaModa’i says: She made the king jealous of him and she made the other ministers jealous of him, and in this way she brought about his downfall.
1. With which of the five Rabbis mentioned in sources 5 and 6 do you agree with the most? Agree with the least? Why?
Rabba says: Esther invited Haman to her banquet in order to fulfill that which is stated: “Pride [in the negative sense, that is, too much self-esteem] goes before destruction” (Proverbs 16:18), which indicates that in order to destroy the wicked, one must first bring them to pride...
1. What are the dangers of pride in the negative sense? Can you remember a time when you were prideful and it caused issues?
(14) Then his [Haman's] wife Zeresh and all his friends said to him, “Let a stake [a wooden post] be put up, fifty cubits [around 25 metres] high, and in the morning ask the king to have Mordechai impaled [skewered] on it. Then you can go happily with the king to the feast.” The proposal pleased Haman, and he had the stake put up.
(11) So Haman took the garb [clothing] and the horse and arrayed [put clothes on] Mordechai and paraded him through the city square; and he proclaimed before him: This is what is done for the man whom the king desires to honor!
One of the central themes of Purim is ונהפוך הוא (the opposite from what had been intended is what actually happened).
1. Who ends up getting hanged on the stake at the end of our story? Mordechai or others?
2. Who did Haman think Achashverosh wanted paraded through the city square? Mordechai or someone else?
3. Who actually gets killed at the end of our story? The Jews or others?
... As Haman was taking Mordechai along the street of Haman’s house, Haman’s daughter was standing on the roof and saw the spectacle. She thought to herself that the one who is riding on the horse must be her father [Haman], and the one walking before him must be Mordechai. She then took a chamber pot [a toilet bowl] and cast its contents onto the head of her father [Haman], whom she mistakenly took as Mordechai. When Haman raised his eyes in disgust afterward, and looked up at his daughter, she saw that he was her father. In her distress [anxiety], she fell from the roof to the ground and died.
(17) If your enemy falls, do not exult [do not be very, very happy];
If he trips [up], let your heart not rejoice,
1. How do we relate to the Text 14? Is this a good moral message? If this is a good rule could there be exceptions to the rule? Should Haman be such an exception? Should his family be included in this exception? Are they innocent bystanders or also responsible?