Day 29: See-Saw continued

One pair of characters important to the story of Esther is the pair of men called Mordecai and Haman. I picture them on opposite sides of a see-saw of Fortune. Somehow we all know, and they know, and even Haman's wife intuitively knows that if one man is on the rise it must mean that the other will be lowered from his heights.

The movie I saw and the Greek Esther both set up Haman at the very beginning of the story as someone who is determined to take advantage of the king, by playing on his fears about knowing who to trust in his court. This is a king who has many advisors and officials and seems to lack confidence in his own judgment, but he also is not sure which advisors to really trust. The plot of assasination which Mordecai uncovered makes him feel worse, and Haman is right there to set himself up as a trustworthy help-meet to the king. And the king promotes Haman to be his right-hand partner.

When Haman sees Mordecai as some sort of threat to his own ambition (is he hoping to go higher than 2nd place in the empire?) he plays on the king's paranoia about resistance to the king's authority to get the go-ahead to make up his own edict to take out Mordecai and eradicate his people. All of us wish that the king would wake up and recognize Haman as his true threat, but instead he gives Haman his own ring and the power to issue the irrevocable verdict of destruction upon every Jewish person in the kingdom.

So the beautiful queen who has wisely stayed a closeted Jew must now move forward very carefully into full recognition. I used to think that Esther's seeming procrastination on communicating her problem was due to her fear, but now I think it had more to do with Esther's ability to use timing to her best interest. Inviting the king AND Haman to a special banquet two days in a row is the extra little bit of higher raising that Haman needs to put him at his most precarious point. Her timing and delay with exposing her own identity and Haman's plot gives the chance for Haman's ego to get blown up a little more and so that he starts unraveling at the sight of Mordecai refusing to bow.

The first sign of Haman's downfall is a very funny scene. The king can't sleep, and his idea of something that will put him right to sleep is having someone read his own kingdom chronicles aloud. That's funny. Mordecai's name and heroism happen to come to the king's attention at the very same moment that Haman has started to build a gallows for Mordecai. And Haman makes a special trip to the palace with the gallows in mind just at the moment the king is looking for advice on how to give a special thank-you honor to Mordecai. Haman's shock and surprise at who gets the special treats he thinks up, that's funny. Esther's first banquet contributed to Haman's extra arrogance and maybe even to the king's inability to fall right to sleep. She intuitively knew at the first banquet that the time was not yet ripe for recognition. After Haman has to parade Mordecai around using honors he was hoping to receive for his own self, Haman goes home on the edge of a tantrum, and his wife recognizes first that the see-saw is starting to change positions. She tells him: "Beware, Haman, it looks like your downfall is starting." At that point in the conversation he is picked up by his special limousine to go to the second banquet of Esther. Where he is exposed and undone and raised up on the gallows he had built for his enemy.

There is an important plot detail that comes up several times in this story. The king can make any decree he wants. He made the first decree of divorce while drunk and embarrassed by Vashti and someone had to remind him of that decree when he started to miss her. He can hand off his ring to a trusted right-hand person and let them make a decree in his name. But there is a law in the land above even the king's power when it comes to those edicts and decrees. Once issued and published, they can't be revoked. The king can't change his mind about an edict and say, whoops I take it back. Supposedly that would influence a wise ruler to think very carefully before issuing any edict, but this king is not so wise. Once the irrevocable edict is put out . . . "Kill every Jew on this particular day" even the king can't cancel it or make it obsolete. As far as this kingdom works, there is no hope for the Jews at all, they might as well consider themselves dead. But this is a fairy-tale type of story and irrevocable decrees of destruction don't always get the last word in a fairy tale. The Greek Esther has the wording of the first and second edicts. Each create a law to be followed on the random days chosen by Haman through a casting of the lots. The second edict can not and does not revoke or cancel the first, but it very craftily and creatively takes the hopelessness out of the first. The second edict turns the favor and the power and the advocacy of the king and his kingdom to the side of those who were doomed by the first edict. Anyone who was planning to kill a Jew that day will still be authorized to do so, but is urged to think twice before doing so because 1. The greatest enemy of the Jews just lost his life and position, 2. my new right-hand man is a Jew, 3. Jews will be given authority and arms to defend themselves, and 4. I, the king recognize the treachery of the one I formerly entrusted authority to and take partial responsibility for allowing such an unfair edict to be published 5. my kingdom resources will now be used to help the Jews defend themselves on that first edict's day of doom.

What an amazing transformation that came out of the second great Purim edict. That randomly selected day was transformed from a day of sorrow and destruction to a day of feasting and gladness and relief from enemies. The holiday of Purim ensures that the Jews will never forget this amazing story in their people's history, which also holds many tragedies of genocide and infanticide, pogroms and Holocaust.

Irrevocable decrees seem like something a person or a group could really count on, put all their stock in, place all their chips upon, but this story shows that even such a rock-solid decree can lose its clout and become obsolete even while it exists into perpetuity. The most permanent, unchangeable decree of any kingdom might suddenly be eclipsed by a new development or a new recognition in the affairs of state, though it takes great craft and creativity to figure out a way. The Story of Esther is prophetic about this, so that no one will be taken by surprise some day if something unexpected happens regarding a kingdom's day of doom, one that we are sure must certainly take place because we have read the irrevocable decree published and posted throughout the land by its ruler and his designated authorities. So that no one is caught off guard when a sudden shift in favor and power turns the doomed ones into the protected ones, and escorts the Accusers into the traps they built for others.