Page 12 - Issue 21

rescue plan? If so, why should Esther have to risk her life
by going to the king? While we still deliberate on this,
there comes the rest of the verse to add yet more wonder:
“... but you and your father’s family will perish.” But if the
Jews are rescued, then Haman’s plan of annihilation shall
be aborted. How and why will Esther and her father’s
family perish? And who is the “father’s family” of Esther,
who was orphaned from both parents. Does this
expression not indicate Mordechai himself?

We’ll start from the beginning. We have no reason to
assume that Mordechai has an alternative plan. His verse
about the rescue should be interpreted as an expression
of optimism or faith. Mordechai does not presume to be
Moses. He is not familiar with the devine plan, and does
not speak for G-d. But he knows that people are not just
the helpless victims of evil schemes or blind fate. They
may act in order to change the decree, and usually have
more than just one course of action. There is nearly a
year until the sentence is carried out, Mordechai tells
himself and Esther. If Esther will not save us then we’ll
find a different plan. Mordechai’s approach may sound to
us like the joke about the Jew who promised to teach the
Polish landowner’s dog how to speak. But it can also be
understood as the approach of a man who has confidence
in himself and in his people (yes, and his G-d too).

If the rescue is assured, then the loss of Esther and her
father’s family cannot be understood as a physical loss. If
all the Jews are saved, then all the more so that the
Jewish Queen of Persia shall be saved. Therefore, the
loss that Mordechai speaks of is a spiritual or a moral
loss; a loss of identity.