The Essence of the Megillah - Achashverosh?!

There is an interesting Mishnah that says:

Mishnah Megillah 2:3: …From where does one read the megillah and fulfill the obligation? R’ Meir says, Read all of it. R’ Judah says, from “There was a certain Jew” (2:5). R’ Yossi says, from “After these things” (3:1).

This is rather odd. How could we start reading the megillah from anywhere but the beginning, and understand its plot? What is the meaning of "fulfilling the obligation" from points other than at the beginning?


The gemara adds a fourth position, and an explanation:

B. Talmud Megillah 19a: "R' Simeon bar Yohai says, from “On that night" (6:1). R’Yohanan says, All derive their interpretation from the same verse: “Then Esther the queen, the daughter of Abihail and of Mordecai the Jew, wrote down all the acts of power ['kol tokef,' or all the power or essence]" (9:29). For those who say read the entire Megillah, the essence is Ahasuerus. For those who say read from “There was a certain Jew” the essence is Mordecai. For those who say read from "After these things," the essence is Haman. For those who say read from "On that night," the essence is the miracle of Purim.'"

So the question is what the essence of the megillah?
I took a vote amongst a group of Jewish friends, and none of them voted that the essence of the megillah is Achashverosh. And yet that is how we pasken, as Rabbi Meir - that you have to start from the very beginning.

So how is the essence of the megillah Achashverosh? I think this is one of those questions which is stronger than the answers, but here are some possibilities:

My cousin's husband, Rabbi Da'vid Sperling, had the folllowing insight while discussing this question at the Purim seuda, 5780: Those who think the essence of the megillah is Mordechai (or indeed the Purim miracle) see God's hand behind the good things that occur to us. That is one level. A higher level is to see God's hand behind the evil things that happen to us - represented here by Haman. But the highest level of all, the essence of life, is to see God behind events that do not seem to have anything to do with us at all - in this case Achashverosh, his parties and his problems with his queen. At the highest level, God is orchestrating everything, and everything affects everything else. This is why the essence of the megillah is Achashverosh.


Another answer: while doing a bibliodrama on Esther Chapter 1 with the women's shiur of Bet Yosef, Jerusalem. Miriam Pomeranz noted that this king showed much flexibility, throughout the development of events, and managed to hold on to his position till the end. That made me think about the profound truth of this statement: while everyone else is either elevated (Mordechai. Esther, the Jews) or brought low/eliminated (Vashti, Haman, his sons, his wife), Achashverosh remains in the same basic position througout. That is no small thing.

We know that Achashverosh is compared in the megillah symbolically to the King of Kings, God. So a lesson that emerges from this is: when everything in the world is disrupted, and some are brought low while others suddenly find themselves unexpectedly powerful - and this is inevitably the case in the bigger picture, no one remains on top forever - God alone remains on an even keel - always God, always king.

And a final thought, relating to the human Achashverosh, is that unlike Haman who is cold, ruthless, angry to the point of becoming completely unhinged, Achashverosh always remains very human. He is drunk, he is angry and humiliated, but he also has a soft heart when it comes to Esther and wants to give to her and love her. Therefore, though he agrees to Haman's desire to kill the Jews, he is ultimately not our enemy, even if he is a bit morally spineless. Having a soft heart is a praiseworthy thing in Jewish thought (apart from when going to war). So this too might be a reason why we must begin with Achashverosh. And this humanness might be also why God can use him as his emissary שליח for his divine plan - why he merits to have that happen, despite all of his flaws.


Along these lines, this year, I wrote this piece [1]:

Well my name’s Achashverosh, yes you like to put me down

But in Megillat Esther it is I who bestow the crown,

My hands are God’s hands, my eyes God’s eyes,

My self the throne of glory, all thinly disguised.

Can YOU call yourself the vessel of the divine?

Or do you see with small brains, drawing a thick line

between finite and infinite, human and transcendent

never realizing it’s all interdependant

Throughout the megilla, my face is a mask

And G-d looks through it as I do His task,

Fool I might be, but my soft heart’s circumcised,

While Haman, clever, ruthless – is, I believe, demised.

He’s pushing up the daisies, he's completely expired

He’s ceased to be, he’s definitely retired

He's a stiff, kicked the bucket! Admit it, come on!

He’s shuffled off ‘is mortal coil!! THIS IS AN EX-HAMAN!


[1] The idea of our eyes being as God's eyes in this world comes from Recanati's interpretation of the verse "an eye for an eye", which I heard quoted by Yitzhak Attias. The final lines of the verse are a reference to the Monty Python dead parrot sketch. I find it amusing to imagine Achashverosh pining for the fjords.

Points of Choice

In three of the five megillahs we find a central moment that contains a weighty choice by a woman, which is the pivot for the entire narrative and its moral messages. Two of these choices are positive ones, and one is not.

I -  In the Book of Ruth, it is that moment in which Naomi urges her daughters-in-law to return to Moab. Ruth refuses to do so (1:14):

And they lifted up their voice, and wept again; and Orpah kissed her mother-in-law; but Ruth held fast to her

This choice, and Ruth's subsequent famous speech, leads to her marriage with Boaz and the subsequent birth of the Davidic lineage.

II -   In the Scroll of Esther, Mordechai sends Queen Esther the terrifying instruction that she must go to the King although she has not been called - which carries a penalty of death.  

Mordechai says (4:14):

For if you remain silent at this time, then shall relief and deliverance arise to the Jews from another place; but you and your father’s house shall be destroyed. And who knows whether you have not come to the kingdom for such a time as this?

Esther replies in verse 16:

Go, gather together all the Jews who are present in Shushan, and fast for me, and neither eat nor drink three days, night or day; I also and my girls will fast likewise; and so will I go to the king, though it is against the law; and if I perish, I perish.

This fateful and heroic choice leads to the salvation of the Jews of the Persian Empire.

III -  In the Song of Songs, we see a different kind of moment. The two lovers have been seeking each other. He has finally arrived at her abode and knocks at the door. Instead of eagerly answering it, she is suddenly attacked by a moment of torpor and apathy, and makes a strange choice not to arise (5:3):

I have taken off my robe; how could I put it on? I have bathed my feet; how could I soil them?

Although a moment later, she realises her folly and jumps up, he has already gone. They do not meet.

The Song of Songs is traditionally symbolic of the relationship between God and the Jewish people. In this verse are encapsulated all those moments in which the Jewish people did not leap up to answer God's call, in whatever way that was manifest - often with disastrous consequences.

This is the negative. But fortunately, we have Ruth's shining example and later that of Esther.

Fascinating, though, is a strong textual link between the Esther and the Song of Songs narratives. We find Esther explaining to King Ahasuerus:

For how can I endure to see the evil that shall come to my people? or how can I endure to see the destruction of my kindred? (Esther 8:6)

The Hebrew word here for "how" is איככה. This is the very same word used by the female lover in the Song of Songs for "how could I put it on?" The word איככה appears nowhere else in the Tanach, and clearly signals a connection between the two stories.

Esther's איככה, her realisation of "I could not possibly (abandon my people)"shows that she has heard and answered the knock of destiny on her door. In doing so, she atones for and recitifies the moment of wooden-heartedness and sluggishness on the part of the lover who cannot possibly don her robe right now.

Can I come to the King in the Inner Court?

This year I was reading the following verse from Esther 4:

11. All the king’s servants, and the people of the king’s provinces, know, that whoever, whether man or woman, shall come to the king into the inner court, who is not called, there is a law; to put him to death, except such to whom the king shall hold out the golden scepter, that he may live; but I have not been called to come to the king these thirty days.

The woman sitting next to me at the megilla reading had what looked like a children's megilla full of midrashim, and it cited a midrash that Achashverosh was indeed furious to see Esther there unbeckoned, but then he suddenly saw her and remembered how much he loved her, and could not be angry any more.

It's a well-known idea that although G-d's name is not mentioned explicitly in Megillat Esther, we can take (some of?) the references to the king as referring not, or not only, to Achashverosh but also to the King of Kings.

On a daily basis, or perhaps more powerfully on Rosh Hashanah, we feel "How can I go into the King? I am not desired. I am not in relationship. We have not communicated for many days. I have not heard Him call me." So we hesitate to enter. But know - once you enter, G-d will not be able to help Him (Her) self, but instantly fall in love with our beautiful souls.

(ADDITION: Supporting this idea, I later heard in the name of the Tur that the word "Uvechen", a recurring word from the Rosh Hashanah prayer meaning "And thus", is taken from the megillah, from the exact verse where Esther takes upon herself to go to the king though she may be killed for it [4:16]).