"I wouldn't belong to a club that would have me as a member." -- Groucho Marx " The modern Jewish maxim is Incognito, ergo sum, 'I am invisible, therefore I am.'" -- Sidney Morganbesser. The Case for Genocide In the biblical Book of Esther, which we just read and studied last week on Purim, there is a moment that is so timely and relevant, it could have been written today, for Purim 2025. Haman, the Prime Minister in the large and powerful Persian Empire, makes a short but powerful presentation to the Persian king, Achashverosh (Ahasuerus), successfully persuading him to embrace his plan of Jewish genocide. "There is a certain people," Haman says to Achashverosh(1), "scattered abroad and dispersed among the peoples in all the provinces of your realm. Their laws are different from all the other nations, and they do not observe the King's laws. Therefore, it is not befitting the King to tolerate them. If it pleases the king, let it be recorded that they be destroyed, and I will pay ten thousand silver talents … for deposit in the King's treasuries." Haman's argument is straightforward: Jews are different. They are alien, outsiders, an obstruction to normal society, and a threat to your kingdom. They don't fit into the rest of the human family. They have their own faith and their laws, which in their mind are superior to the king's laws. They are a nuisance, a danger, a growth in an otherwise harmonious and integrated society. They ought to be disposed of. The Talmud (2) records an oral tradition describing Haman's presentation in more detail. "They don't eat from our food," Haman lamented to the King; "they do not marry our women, and they do not marry their women to us. They waste the whole year, avoiding the King's work, with the excuse: Today is Shabbat, or today is Passover." Haman also discusses gross Jewish habits: "They eat, they drink and they mock the throne. Even if a fly falls in a glass of wine of one of them, he casts away the fly and drinks the wine. But if my master, the King, touches a glass of wine of one of them, that person throws it to the ground and does not drink it (3)." The Jews, Haman argues, see themselves as superior to us; they will forever stand out. They are an enemy. Who needs them? Ilhan Omar did not invent the lie. She was repeating it. Repeating Haman's Words Some six centuries after Haman, these same words would be repeated by Philostratus, a third-century teacher in Athens and Rome, who summarizes the pagan world's perception of the Jews. "The Jews," Philostratus wrote, "have long been in revolt not only against the Romans, but against humanity; and a race that has made its own life apart and irreconcilable, that cannot share with the rest of mankind in the pleasures of the table, nor join in their libations or prayers or sacrifices, are separated from ourselves by a greater gulf than divides us from Sura or Bactra of the more distant Indies (4)." The same argument, in one form or another, would be repeated thousands of times throughout history. The greatest Roman historian, Tacitus, living in the first century CE, had this to say about the Jews: "The Jews regard as profane all that we hold sacred; on the other hand, they permit all that which we abhor… toward every other people they feel only hate and enmity, they sit apart at meals and they sleep apart, and although as a race they are prone to lust, they abstain from intercourse with foreign women." One example he mentions to describe the moral conflicts between the Romans and the Jews is worthy of note. "The Jews," Tacitus writes, "regard it as a crime to kill any newborn infant." The Romans, as the Greeks before them, killed mentally and physically handicapped infants. Keeping such children alive was unaesthetic and a burden for society who would have to support these disabled humans (5). First Lady Intervenes Back to the Haman story of Purim. The viceroy's arguments persuade the King. A decree is issued from the Persian throne. Every Jewish man, woman, and child living under Persian dominance would be exterminated on a particular date. Then, in a stunning and gripping turn of events, the First Lady, the Jewish queen Esther, invites her husband and Haman to a drinking wine feast. As we recall, Esther, from all the thousands of young women who were brought from across the Empire as potential candidates for the role of queen, succeeded in gaining the affection and grace of the King. "The King loved Esther more than all the women, and she won more of his favor and grace than all other women; he set the royal crown upon her head (6)." Years later, during this wine feast, the King pledges to Esther that he will fulfill every request of hers. She utilizes the opportunity to make the fateful pitch. "If I have won Your Majesty's favor and if it pleases the King," Esther tells the King (7), "let my life be granted to me as my request and my people as my petition. For we — I and my people — have been sold to be destroyed, slain and exterminated. Had we been sold as slaves and servant-girls, I would have kept quiet. The compensation our adversary [Haman] offers cannot be compared with the loss the king would suffer [by exterminating us, rather than selling us as slaves]." Clearly, Esther is attempting to approach the issue from two sides, a personal one, and an economic one. First, she exposes her Jewish identity. The queen is a member of the people condemned to death. Esther knows, however, that this alone may not do the trick, so she continues to discuss dollars and cents (Haman too, as recorded above, used a two-point approach in persuading the King: logic and money). By selling the Jews as slaves, Esther argued, Achashverosh would be profiting far more than by exterminating them. The money Haman offered him is miniscule vs. the potential profit from their sale into slavery. The King, who never realized that Esther was Jewish, is outraged at Haman. He has his minister executed. In subsequent conversations with Esther, Achasverosh grants the Jews the right to self-defense against anybody who would dare to harm them. The entire climate in the Persian Empire toward the Jews is radically transformed. Esther's first cousin, the Jewish sage Mordechai, replaces Haman as Prime Minister. Why Not Answer The Accusations? Yet, one question remains. Haman did not argue the case for Jewish extermination on the basis of senseless, venomous passion. He presented what was to the King a sound and persuasive case. The Jews, Haman argued, were an alien growth, a bizarre people, a separatist nation that did not accept the King's authority; they do now follow his orders, and consider their law superior to the King's. A leader could not tolerate such a superior nation with dual loyalties in his empire. This is a strong accusation. The King accepts it and, as a result, issues a decree demanding his subjects to dispose of all the Jews — men, women, and children. Yet nowhere in her entire dialogue with the King does Esther refute this argument. Why did Achasverosh consent to the abolishment of his original plan if he believed Haman's accusations to be valid? You might say that Esther's charm and grace were the exclusive factors in the King's change of heart. Yet, as we have shown above, Esther does not rely on this alone. That is why she presents a logical argument for slavery vs. genocide. She refutes Haman's economic offer by demonstrating that the king would lose money. Esther thought through her argument to her husband. How, then, could she ignore Haman's powerful argument advocating a "Judenrein" society? It is clear from the entire story that Achashverosh was a successful and powerful leader who made sure to protect his position at all costs, even if that meant eliminating his own gorgeous queen (reminiscent of what happened to Stalin's wife). If the king truly felt that the Jews were a threat to his Empire, did Esther think that just because of her looks he would cancel his edict meant to safeguard his kingship? Esther should have refuted the accusation Haman made against her people! When False Notions Face Reality Some questions are canceled out via answers; some arguments are refuted by counter-arguments. But there are those beliefs that require neither debate nor dialogue to disprove them. When reality is exposed, the questions and distortions fade away into oblivion. Haman's argument fell into this category. Esther responded to Haman's argument for Jewish genocide not by dialogue, but by her very presence. The moment she identified herself as a member of the Jewish people and as a product of its faith, Haman's "thesis" vanished into thin air. Achashverosh knew Esther intimately. She was his wife for five years. As the Megillah tells us, he was enthralled by her. He adored her, cherished her nobility and refinement, and would do almost anything for her (he explicitly told this to her more than once). He chose her from thousands upon thousands of young women, all of them not Jewish. Yet the king never realized that she was a daughter of the Jewish people and a product of its upbringing. When the King suddenly discovered that she was a proud member of the Jewish people, an adherent of the Jewish faith, Haman's argument was moot. Esther’s living presence demonstrated its absurdity. "I am that horrific scary Jew Haman was walking about," Esther was saying. "Look at me, and you will know what a Jew is. I am a product of these people, an embodiment of their values and lifestyle." The King did not have to hear another word. He got it. The Jew was a blessing for society, a beacon of moral purity, justice, compassion, authenticity, and love. The last thing he needs to worry about is the Jewish people and their faith. If anything, they will prove to become the greatest blessing for his Empire. Looking at Esther, the King grasped that this alien nation who lived by another code ought to be respected. They may be different, but it is an otherness that elevates other nations rather than threatens them. (Leo Tolstoy wrote: "The Jew is that sacred being who has brought down from heaven the everlasting fire, and has illuminated with it the entire world (8).") The Jew may be different, but it is this "otherness" that has the power to inspire all of the nations of the world to live and love deeper, to encounter their path to G-d, truth, justice, and kindness. Should We Hide? The lesson for our times is clear. Sometimes, Jews think that by hiding the "otherness" of Judaism and the Jewish people, they will gain the approval of the world. Yet the facts prove otherwise: Assimilation, the eclipsing of the otherness of the Jewish people, has never assuaged anti-Semitism. Look at what happened on October 7th and its aftermath. The most left-wing assimilated and secular Jews were hunted down with the same hate as the most religious Jews. The Jews of Shushan (the capital of the Persian Empire at the time of the Purim story) were assimilated (9). Yet, this did not deter the Persian viceroy and king from believing that despite all of the Jews' compromises and attempts not to be "too Jewish," they were still strange and different. This pattern has repeated itself in every milieu. Never in history has assimilation solved the problem of Jew hatred. Jews in Germany were the most assimilated and integrated in mainstream society, yet it was in that very country where the worst Jew hatred in history sprouted. Jewish students at Harvard and Colombia have been integrated beautifully for decades, yet they have become the punching bag of so many haters, all in the name of freedom and human rights. The solution for the Jewish people is not to deny their otherness. That will never work. Rather, just like Esther, we ought to be proud of the lifestyle and moral ethic of the Torah. When we learn how to embrace our otherness with love and grace, rather than with shame and guilt, it will become a source of admiration and inspiration for all of humanity. As Rabbi Jonathan Sacks would always say, the world respects Jews who respect Judaism. The are embarrassed by Jews who are ashamed of their G-d, faith, and history. How Do We Survive? And there is one more grand lesson from this story: You can't argue with the facts. Jews often wonder what is our path forward? What is the tool for our continuity and success? How do we survive and thrive with such adversity and hatred? The answer is: Just take a look at the Jew. He has been around for 3300 years and remains fully intact, vibrant, and vivacious. Ancient Egypt, Assyria, Babylonia, Persia, Greece, and Rome are gone. Which Jews survived and endured? Historically, all Jews who swayed from the Torah and Mitzvos and tried to emulate the other nations have been lost. They are not around any longer. Only the Jews who clung to Judaism have remained, millenia later. This is what Esther teaches us. We can argue as much as we want about the science and the sociology. But just take a look at me: I am the Jews you heard the rumors about. Now draw your own conclusion. Look at the Jewish people and draw your own conclusion. Take an honest look at the Jew who survived for 3300 years, and you got the answer. The arguments are moot. (This essay is based on a talk delivered by the Lubavitcher Rebbe, at a Purim farbrengen, Purim, 5729, March 4, 1969. (11)). 1) Esther 3:8. 2) Megilah 13b. 3) Wine poured in idolatrous service is, according to Torah law, forbidden to the Jew. The rabbis decreed that wine touched or poured by an idolator, even if not in service to his deity, be prohibited for a Jew to drink (See Shulchan Aruch, Yoreh Deah 123:1). 4) Quoted in Why The Jews? (By Dennis Prager and Joseph Telushkin, NY, 1983) p. 83. 5) Ibid. pp. 86-88. 6) Esther 3:17. 7) Ibid. 7:3-4. The translation of the last clause of the verse follows Rashi's interpretation. 8) Quoted in Radican Then, Radical Now (Rabbi Jonathan Sacks, London 2000) p. 3 with reference noted there. 9) See Talmud Meggilah 12a; Shir Hashirim Rabah 7:8. Introduction to Manos Halevi. Sicah, Purim 1941. 10) Nietzsche, Beyond Good and Evil (Harmondsworth, 1978) p. 178. 11) Published in Sichos Ko
