Memuchan and Haman

The midrash likes to take two separate biblical characters and suggest they are one and the same person. This is also true of Memuchan, the advisor to King Achashverosh in Esther chapter 1, whom the Midrash declares is none other than Haman (officially, Haman only makes an appearance in chapter 3). 

Why conflate the two? Perhaps because we don't know why the King favours Haman and promotes him in Esther 3:1 - and Memuchan's advice was so appealing to the King that it would make sense that he would rise in the ranks. There are other lines of similarity as pointed out by Yaacov Bronstein here.

But it is also striking that both Memuchan and Haman both wished to disempower and destroy minorities. Memuchan wanted all women to obey their husbands, and never to show independent thought or rebel. Haman wanted to eliminate the pesky Mordechai who refused to obey the king's command and bow to him - and to take his stiff-necked, irritatingly different brethren with him. 

In the end, a woman, Esther, takes away all of Haman's power and brings about his death. And the Jews live on for many centuries and eventually return in joy to their ancient homeland, while Amalek has disappeared from the earth. 

* This insight arose while doing Bibliodrama, Adar 5782.

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.

Haman the Ungrateful

As R Shalom Arush points out, Haman's evil lies in his not being satisfied with his life. Haman says in Esther 5:13:

וְכָל זֶה אֵינֶנּוּ שׁוֶֹה לִי בְּכָל עֵת אֲשֶׁר אֲנִי רֹאֶה אֶת מָרְדֳּכַי הַיְּהוּדִי יוֹשֵׁב בְּשַׁעַר הַמֶּלֶךְ

Yet all this avails me nothing, so long as I see Mordecai the Jew sitting at the king’s gate.

Haman had so much - supportive wife, many children, friends, high position, wealth, but he cared about none of it because he was eating himself up alive over another person. This is the essence of Amalek. Being ungrateful means you are seeing daily miracles and scoffing at them, belittling - which is what Amalek, Haman's ancestors, did after the miracles in Egypt.

My friend Mosheh Givental pointed out to me that we Jews go by three names: עברים - meaning we are boundary-crossers; ישראלים, we are Godwrestlers; and יהודים, we are thankers - Jew coming from Judah, whose name came from his mother's decision to stop pining after Jacob's love, after her lack, but thank instead for what she had.
The person known most prominently as the יהודי in the Tanach is Mordechai. Mordechai the grateful (though I don't know if we necessarily see this trait explicit in the megillah - what do you think?)

Hold him up against Haman the Ungrateful and contrast.

The joy and gratitude of Purim prepares us for the דיינו of Pesach. And that is freedom - where no matter what happens in our lives, we hold on to our inner practice of gratitude.