Culture
The Hidden Angels in the Megillah | A Book Like No Other: Full Season Release, Just in Time for Purim
In this special Purim edition of 'A Book Like No Other,' hosts Emu Shalev and Rabbi David Formant delve into the Book of Esther, exploring its hidden messages and the absence of divine prese...
The Hidden Angels in the Megillah | A Book Like No Other: Full Season Release, Just in Time for Purim
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Interactive Transcript
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Hey everybody, it's Emu. I know that some of you may be hankering for a new season of meaningful
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Judaism and we're in production on that season. Hopefully you'll be seeing some new episodes here
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in the coming months. But I am here to announce that if you're a big fan of alif beta, we've got a
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new season of a book like no other over in the book like no other feed. It is an awesome season
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directly related to Purim. It is a season all about McGillicester and we're releasing the entire
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season for free. So if you're not a subscriber to a book like no other, now is a great time to
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hop on over and check out that podcast. But for now, we're going to play the first episode for you
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in this feed. So sit back and immerse yourself in the magic of McGillicester.
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Hey Emu, so Purim is right around the corner. I've got the McGillah on my mind. One of my favorite
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books of Tanakh. My formant is a liar. We have him on tape. Today is August the 30th. Purim is not
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around the corner. But I'll keep up this farce and pretend that I'm interested in the McGillah
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in August. Well, you move from the listener's point of view. Purim is indeed around the corner
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and from my point of view, I'm always interested in the McGillah. So it kind of works from a certain point
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of view as Obi-Wan-Know-Fi is fond of saying. Welcome to a book like no other Purim edition.
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A book like no other is a product of alif beta and made possible through the very generous
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support of Shari and Nathan Lindenbaum. Thank you Shari and Nathan. Hi, I'm Emu Shalev and each
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season on this podcast, I'm joined by my teacher, friend and generally very honest man,
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Rabbi David Formant, to explore a Torah text of his choice. On the docket for this season,
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the book of Esther. So let me unburden myself to you a little bit when it comes to the book of Esther.
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I wrote a book about Esther called The Queen You Thought You New. And you know, there's a lot of
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fun writing that book and I've enjoyed watching people's reactions to it, which generally is
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pretty great. And yet, I vividly remember this email that I got a couple years back.
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Somebody was really mad with my book. Was it my mom? It wasn't your mom. Your mom was pretty
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gentle about the book. It was actually somebody who was so upset that they had written a letter to
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Rootsfield Hirsch Weinreb, who was the executive CEO of the OU, demanding that he retract his
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approbation for my book. Oh wow. Yeah. That's pretty harsh. So what problem could they possibly have had
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with The Queen You Thought You New? The problem was that you couldn't figure out where God was in
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the book. He says, Formant's book does a great job of analyzing all of the political daring do
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and paints Esther as this brilliant tactician and Mordechy as this brilliant tactician. And if you
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consider political success high and trig, then that's really great, but where is God in the book?
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And I believe to some extent, where my Weinreb's response was, is that your critique isn't really a
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critique of Formant's book. Your critique is a critique of the book of Esther because God's name
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famously doesn't appear in the book of Esther, right? But somehow the critique of this fellow,
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so Rootsfield always stuck in my mind, which is like when you look back at the book of Esther,
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what really is the message of that book is the message similar to Macculele's The Prince.
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Which is that you've got to be pretty clever when you take to the political stage to speak
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in large terms about this. How do we come to grips with this idea that God isn't overtly there
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in the book? How do we struggle with that? What is the book sort of meant to teach us?
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Yeah, it's really interesting that you're phrasing it that way. It's almost as if like if I wanted
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to study a religious book, there are so many religious books that I can pull off my shelf and
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pulling off Esther. It's a great read, a real page turner. Why did Esther do this? That seemed
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like a crazy thing for the king to do. And like you forget that actually it's one of the books of
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Tana. Right, right? Like what's the payoff here? Like I'm really proud of my ancestors, Mordechai
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and Esther, but if I'm trying to grow, maybe I'm better off reading one of the other books on my
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shelf. Maybe I should read some Pierre-Kévo's or study some Talmud. Why this book? What is the
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grand spiritual moral of the book of Esther? And you know, I know the classic answer to this,
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right? The classic answer to this as well. God doesn't appear overtly in this book, but boy is he
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behind the scenes. He's pulling all the strings. And I do agree that there is some comfort in that
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thought. And I do agree that the book can be seen to have meaning from that. But I still get back
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to that original question, what are we supposed to learn from this in terms of our lives? In other
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words, to me, the book then becomes a theological meditation, perhaps, on the sort of ways in which
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God is there behind the scenes. And it's almost like, so maybe I get a peek into God's world.
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But typically, what we look to in Tanach is not getting a peek into God's world. Tanach,
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generally speaking, is not the story of God. It's the story of God's interaction with us,
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or better the story of our interaction with God. It's what are we supposed to do as we live in
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connection with God? And so what's the book telling me about that? Right? So I want to suggest that
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there's another side to the McGillow that we don't often see in which there is something
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moral, something very practical and important that we need to learn to live our lives well. And if we
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read the story correctly, we should be able to get there. I just want to say it in one more way.
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All right, Norman loves to put courses this way. So I'll say it this way. You've been reading the
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McGillow wrong your entire life. You've never extracted the morals from the McGillow. So if you don't
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keep listening to this season of a book like no other, you will continue as an ignoramus,
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completely detached from the spiritual takeaways of the McGillow. So you must listen if you're ever to
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have a dream of celebrating Purim correctly. Yeah, that definitely sounds like me. You really channeled
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me there. I could hear the inner me clapping to that flack of white notion of reading the book.
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Well, I'm much more into shades of gray than that, right? I think there's some real nuance here.
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But I'm going to delight in showing you that nuance. And I don't think we were the first ones
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to stumble upon it. I think the rabbis had this up their sleeve as well. They've got a
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home, the sachta and the Talmud, uh, track tape McGillow that deals with McGillow's
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Esther and reading behind the scenes of some of the comments they make there and some of the comments
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they make in the medrish. I think we can perceive a launch pad towards what I think the rabbis
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understandings for the moral foundations of this document really is.
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I was teasing everybody for him earlier, but he did seem to be making a big claim.
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Not only is the McGillow this great political drama, not only is it a sneak peek into God's
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providence, but it also has some other kind of grand moral and spiritual takeaway that will
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change how I live today. I have to say though, when I brought it down to earth, his question did
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make a lot of sense. I've heard people ask, where do you find God in the McGillow like my whole life?
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But this was a new spin on that classic question. He seemed to be asking, not where do we find
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God, but where do we find Godliness? Where do we find in the book of Esther direction on
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bringing God and his ideals into our lives through our actions? After all, isn't that how we often
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try to bring God into the world? So we had our goal, this grand moral vision. What, I still get
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a tease about it. But Rabbi foreign had also begun to share his game plan. First stop, those
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midrush him, those statements of the sages that he mentioned. But let me warn you, at face value
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these midrush him, they're going to seem like they're not related to Rabbi Foreman's question at all.
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They're just going to seem like a bunch of rabbis making really wild claims about the book of Esther.
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So in this episode, we're going to go through the three midrush him Rabbi Foreman wants to show me.
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In the episodes to come, we're going to dive deep into the biblical text itself to see if we can
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find a deeper impetus for the sages odd claims. We're going to follow the sages clues to the
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Maghilla, but also to another destination in Tanakh. It's a journey that's going to illuminate the
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Maghilla in some really surprising and unexpected ways and hopefully help to bring out the godliness
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hidden in the human action of this story.
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Okay, so let's get to mediree number one. This is from Pierre-Gaed Arbayel Yazar, and it has to
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do with a minor character in the Maghilla. Carvona, you remember Carvona, right? No? Maybe you remember him
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from the song. The god, the god, the carvona. The sages immortalize Carvona in song because he plays
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a tiny but important role in the Maghilla. After Esther tells Acha Shweros that Haman has targeted
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her people, Carvona, one of the king's servants pops up and adds that Haman has also built a gala
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on which to hang the king's personal friend Mordechai. But actually, according to our medirish,
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Carvona really didn't need a song to immortalize him because he was already immortal to begin with.
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The sages say that Carvona was in fact an angel. Carvona was Eleo on a V. Basically, Eleo is
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famously the prophet that never dies that goes up into heaven in a fiery cavalcade and in
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Midrashic literature will sometimes make his presence known on earth. And Carvona is not a real
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person. The sages tell us. Carvona is a cloaked Elijah, a cloaked angel.
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Now, the Maghilla is as absent of angels and Elijah as it is of God's name. So this medirish
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really seemed to be coming out of nowhere. Where do you even begin to unpack a medirish like this?
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Well, just to get our foot in the door, Rabbi Foreman wanted to start by looking for what he calls
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the trigger. The trigger for a medirish is some kind of small, local problem or anomaly in the text
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that the sages seem to be responding to. A literary whole or repeated word, something like that.
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The trigger alone won't explain every seemingly imaginative leap the sages go on to take in a given
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medirish, but it's a way to peel back one layer of mystery and begin to see the text through the
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sages eyes. So was there a trigger for our medirish? Rabbi Foreman had a hunch that there was.
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And it had to do with something very odd going on in the text just before Carvona appears.
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We flipped open our tonnecks to read this scene together. So here is the scene in which Carvona
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appears. It is in the Book of Esther chapter seven. The queen has had this series of banquets where
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she keeps on telling the king that eventually I'm going to tell you what it is that I want. The king
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keeps on saying, just tell me, you know, half the kingdom and is yours. And finally, Esther makes her
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dramatic reveal. She says, you know, if I found favor in the king's eyes, please give me my life.
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That's all I want. My life, life of my nation, because we've been sold off to be destroyed.
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Can you please help us out? And Ah, Khashfair is just shocked. And he says,
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Miu Zeva Ezehu. Who could that possibly be that wants to destroy you in this way, my fair queen?
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And Esther says, Ish Sarvalyev, Haman Hara, it's that terrible Haman over there. And Haman shrinks away
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in fear. Now, Emo, if you didn't know the rest of the Maghilla, if you would have to surmise what happens
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here, what do you think the most likely thing to happen at this point would be?
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King would be like, horrified. Let's get rid of this Haman guy. I'm so sorry that this ever happened
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to you. Exactly. And that's the end of Haman. Haman is carted away, arrested, never to appear again
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to die in a dungeon or to be hanged at the next possible moment. That's what you would expect.
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Strangely, that's not what happens. The king does get really mad, but he doesn't impetuously do
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away with Haman. He goes for a stroll in the garden. A stroll in the garden. He decides
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of time to take a walk around, see if he can calm down, which is crazy, because if there's one thing
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you know about the king, he's the king of impulsivity. And he's like, no, I got to calm down right
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now. Exactly. I've been in therapy. Exactly. It's time to try out some of my tools. What is that about?
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It's like, you know, that notion therapy always takes five seconds to think something over, never
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act in a, that's not a hush rush. But now is the one time he decides to really give it a world.
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The worst possible news for Esther. This is not the moment you want the king to think things over.
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Right? If he thinks a little too carefully, he may realize that, you know, there's some threads
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here that don't add up. Esther has been sort of surreptitiously hinting to the possibility
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of a romantic dalliance, at least the way Rashi reads it, between her and Haman. She keeps on
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inviting them to these private banquets. The king can't sleep thinking about Haman being invited
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to this private banquet just between her and him. There's this all been a plot. Is she trying to con him?
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Like, you don't want the king to start really thinking about it, but that's what he does. And
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it gives Haman crucial time to appeal for his life. So he goes and he literally begs Esther for
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his life, because he sees he's in trouble. What happens next? The king comes back and he finds Haman
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no fel alamita asher astralah. He sees Haman falling on the couch and the king says haggam
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lichboshat amalka emibabai. Now you actually want to seduce, you want to conquer the queen with me
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right here in this house. But here's the interesting thing. If you stop right there, the king still does
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not say off with his head. It's not like the next verse is and take him away. There's something
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holding him back. And it's weird because the king has promised her half the kingdom and it's yours.
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I'll do anything and he doesn't. Right? And it's like what's going on. And at that point, enter
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harvona, this minor character, Bayamara harvona, Akhad minasar is from the family of malach, one of
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the unix, one of the servants of the king came before the king and said, by the way, king just wanted
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to let you know, gham he nae ae at asher asha hamanlamordechai asher dee bear toval amalach,
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you know, that guy mortachai, the one who saved the king from the assassination plot, who you had
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riding through the streets and everyone said all hail mortachai, turns out that hamans got this galos,
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this tree in his backyard to hang mortachai on. It's right there and it's 50 amalachai. And at that
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point, the king says a tree to hang mortachai, that's the last straw to luhu ala. Hang haman on that
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tree. And so harvona is the guy who delivers the knockout blow. So you're saying, what do you really
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need to have happened here to get rid of haman? You need harvona, this minor character to basically
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add his final blow to things. And then the king says the two words who've been waiting for him to
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say the entire time, which is hang him. Exactly. And you're saying that harvona, that minor
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character is none other than a lives of the prophet. Well, I'm not saying good. The sages are saying
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it. But now the question is, nice theory sages, do you have any evidence? Like is it just something
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they know from tradition? Is it something they hope is true? Is it something they theorizes true?
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Like when I was growing up in Yashiva, some of that, you'd say, well, they had a kabbalah, there
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was some sort of tradition, goes back a long time, right? Maybe, right? Maybe. But it's also possible
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they figured it out. Right? How did they figure this out? That harvona was, in fact, an angelic
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force. In other words, this medrish really isn't coming out of absolutely nowhere. We can see
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what triggered it. It's weird how Acha'sferoch hesitates to punish Hamad. And how some random servant,
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harvona, is the one who finally convinces him to take action. It's like the text is begging us to
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do a double take and say, hey, who's this harvona fellow? Is there more to him than meets the eye?
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But to then leap to filling that hole with, oh, he must be an angel. It's a lovely idea, but it
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doesn't seem like quite a leap. So are the sages relying on tradition? Or are they seeing maybe
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even more in this text that we're not? So hold on to that thought. For now, we're moving on to
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medrish number two. This one's from the Gamara, track date, McGillah, page 16A. And it's actually
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commenting on that same scene we were talking about when Esther confronts the king. This time,
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the sages are picking up on a tiny detail in that story and really running with it. It's actually
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one of the details we also found odd. How Akhaswaros just gets up and goes for a walk.
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Esther has just pointed out Hamad and the king rather than saying off with his head decides it's
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a good time to go for a walk in the garden. And the sages are speculating for us. They're telling us
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what happened during that walk. We know nothing from the McGill about what happened during the walk,
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which is no other than that happened. He went on a walk. The sages fill in the walk with something
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almost comedic. Here's what they say. They start with the verse that tells us that the king went on
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a walk. That verse tells us the king was very angry when he got up and went out of that walk.
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Hamelach kambe hamadom imishtaya yayin. The king got up in anger from the feast and bolted out the
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door to his garden. And then it says, Hamelach shav mi ghi nata bitan. And the king returned from
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the garden. So the structure of the verse is the same. Hamelach kambe hamishtaya yayin. Hamelach
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shav mi ghi nata bitan. And the sages infer from this that the nature of his return was the same as
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the nature of his getting up. Just like getting up, the king was really angry. So too on his return,
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he was angry. And as you see in the text itself, the king was just as enraged upon his return as he
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was when he got up. But just counterintuitive. It sounds like the sages are asking a really smart
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question. I would not have noticed, which is he's going on the walk to calm down. So then you'd
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expect this character, right? If I'm writing a story, you tell you say that the character went on a
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walk to calm down. And then he returned calmer, right? But that doesn't appear to be what happens
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with Ahashraero. She's not like Esther. Look, you know I love you, but Hamen and I were really tight.
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Like we've been friends for a long time. And you know, I got some clear mind on my walk. But that's
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not what happens, right? Right. The sages are just pointing out the obvious truth, which is like from
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his statement that he chooses to look upon Hamen with such a jaundice eye. He sees a guy literally
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pleading with his life. And the only thing you think of is that he's trying to seduce his wife.
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It's obviously some of you still pretty enraged. So the walk didn't help, right? So
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widened the walk help. I mean, he's out in the beautiful trees. He's got 15 minutes to smell
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the beautiful spring air. So the sages say because something happened on the walk that kept him enraged.
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Turns out, Azulva Ashgahlamala Khasharis, he actually encounters some angels. Now you know they
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were angels. Idmi Lake Hagavari because they appeared as regular people. So he just encountered
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some people. Little did he realize that they were cloaked angels. What were the angels doing?
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Well, he went in a walk to enjoy the trees, right? That's why you go in a walk. What were the angels
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doing? Caucrely Lone and Dubu-Sjanda. They're sitting there literally digging up the trees of
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the King's Garden. He's like going there and there's like this whole work crew with their,
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you know, the yellow work tape setting up like construction zone. They've got the big
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construction equipment and they're just cutting out one tree after another that he's sitting there
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trying to enjoy the trees. It's like, you know, when you go on the New Jersey, you're in Mike
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and you're going like a mile, you're going a mile in an hour because they've closed down five
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lanes. They've decided that this is a great time for construction. Well, the palace work crew has
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decided this is time to completely destroy his garden. It sounds worse than that. It sounds like
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when I'm picturing is like a Zen Garden, you know, quiet in the walk with the fountain in the middle.
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And people are pulling up, right? All the beautifully cultivated cherry trees. And like
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there's no Zen, there's nothing that's just jack cameras, there's trees being destroyed.
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And the King is like Amaloo, Ma'yu Daihu, what in the world are you doing here? Right?
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Amrulay and they said, oh no, we are absolutely supposed to be here, King. We can show you our work
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quarters and they show in their work orders and lo and behold, who are they signed by?
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Haman. Pakdinaan Haman, we were commanded to do this by Haman. And that is what kept the King
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in a rage when he returned. That's what the sages say. Now, where in the world did they get the
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story from? It sounds farcical. It sounds like the kind of thing that would be an Aishiva Purim Play.
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What are they trying to tell us? So as with our last medrish, we can identify the trigger in this
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medrish too. That narrative hold of the sages are trying to fill in. It's curious that we're told
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that Aishiva Purim Play is going on this mysterious walk and then comes back from the walk in the exact
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same mood that he left. Like the walk had no effect on him. But also, like our first medrish,
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just because we can identify the problem that the sages are responding to, that doesn't mean we can
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make heads or tails of the way they solve the problem. Honestly, it was starting to seem like the
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sages just like to throw angels at every literary hole in the book of Esther. The unknown dude,
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he's an angel. The mysterious walk? Oh, the King met angels. But what about Aishiva
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Purim's walk in the text itself is actually screaming out to us? Oh, this must have been the work
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of celestial gardeners. All right. So last but not least, we are moving on to medrish number three.
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And this one's a little bit different than the last two. Because in this case, the sages aren't
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going to be riffing off of a textual problem in the book of Esther itself. Instead, they're going to
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be playing what will probably seem like kind of an odd party game. A game where the sages ask,
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are the characters from a gillis Esther hinted to anywhere in the five books of Moses? At least this
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one has nothing to do with angels. Though it does have to do with a kind of angelic paradise.
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The Garden of Eden. So the rabbis have this supposition that the main characters of the
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McGillah are hinted to in the five books of Moses itself. It's a very anachronistic idea because
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the five books of Moses are written hundreds of years before the McGillah. So how would they hint
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to events in the McGillah? But the rabbis are not concerned about that. They ask about each of the
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major characters, ex-minitaramine, where do we find a remease a hint to the following character?
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So for example, Haman. Haman, of course, is the archvillain of the McGillah, the one who wants to
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singlehandedly wipe out all the Jews of the realm in one blood-soaked day in the month of Adar.
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And the sages ask, Haman, Minitaramine, where do we find Haman in the five books of Moses? Where do
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we have a hint to his name? And they take us to this verse really early in the Torah.
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It's the moment where Adam having eaten from the Tree of Knowledge of the Good and Evil is hiding
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behind a tree naked. God approaches him in the Garden and has a question for him. Adam, where are you?
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Where'd you go? Adam is like, well, I was hiding because I was naked. And the God's next point is
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Mi-Gidlachakiaramata. One second. Who told you you were naked? Hamin, H-8, I share it to you.
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The Viltiachon, Menoachata, have you perhaps eaten from that tree that I told you not to eat from?
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Now that word have you perhaps is Hamin. Hamin, the hay, is that sort of rhetorical question.
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Min is from, have you indeed eaten from that tree? So they say to say, that hay,
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mem nun there? Hamin, that's Haman. To spell this out, literally, Hamin and Haman share
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identical letters, hay, mem nun. That's what the sages seem to be picking up on. Like, if you just
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skim the Torah text with your eyes, Haman's name seems to randomly appear in the Garden of Eden
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story. Only it did seem so random.
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Emu, if we were playing family feud, you know the rules of family feud, right? It survey says,
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the goal is to give the most likely answer that a survey of 100 people would give an answer to.
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So if I would say to you, Emu, give me your top five possibilities for Haman Minitaram Inai.
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Emu, where would you rank Hamin Hades as a reference to to Haman?
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We'd get the big zero people did not show up on the board.
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Right, it doesn't sound like Haman is vowelized differently. It doesn't seem to obviously connect
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to Haman. If you had to associate Haman with one character and one character only from the Tree
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of Knowledge story, which would it be? The snake. The snake, obviously. I mean, Haman is so snake
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like, but the snake isn't even involved at that point. It's just a dialogue between Adam and God.
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No snake. So it's not like we're connecting Hamin to the snake. We're connecting Hamin to what
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God said to Adam. What's that about?
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So once again, we can see what's trickering the sages. There's an obvious textual connection.
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These two identically spelled words, Haman and Hamin. But does the connection go beyond that?
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Are the sages seeing something that we're not? Are they seeing something that tells them that
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Chavona was an angel? Are they seeing something that tells them Ahashfarosh ran into a team of
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angels and disguised on his walk in the garden? And are they seeing something that tells them that
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Haman, who was certainly no angel, was hinted to way back in that angelic paradise, the garden of Eden,
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when God first confronts Adam about eating from the tree. Rabbi Foreman's hunch was,
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yes. In all these cases, the rabbis were seeing something that led them to make these seemingly
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fantastic and outlandish claims. And not just that, but that in all three cases, they were seeing the
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same thing.
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What I want to suggest to you when we come back and get a chance to learn together again,
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is that the sages saw one thing and they pulled on a thread. And as you pulled on that thread,
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more and more stuff seems to reveal itself. And all of these strange things that they're saying
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are just different ways of talking about what that thread reveals to us. And the very first thread
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that I want to come back to you next time when we reconvene is Haman Minotauri Minayan, this notion
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that Haman appears way back in the very first story of the Torah. It's almost as if the sages
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are saying that the very end of the Hebrew Bible, this moment at the end of the exile, the end of
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the 70 years when the Jews are in Persia, subject to this intense genocidal decree that that moment
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in history, that moment of the Miggilas somehow connects to the very first moments in biblical
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history, the moment when God approached Adam and it's like what were you doing when you were eating
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the tree? The sages in a way are bringing together the beginning of the Hebrew Bible with the end
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of the Hebrew Bible. And what I think is a majestic attempt to say you want to know what this book is
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about, this whole thing, this thousands and thousand page thing called the Bible all the way
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from Genesis through Esther and Ezra and the Hamya. We're not done with the story of the tree of
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knowledge in Genesis. It takes us all the way through. We're done with it at the very end. We're
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done with him, the book of Esther, Haman Minotauri Minayan, and as you begin to pull on that thread,
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everything else slowly starts to reveal itself.
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I know I mocked Rabbi Format at the beginning of this episode for making what seemed like grand claims,
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but now he really was saying something that felt big. Not only is the Miggilla more than a political
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drama and not only is it more than a comforting peek into God's hidden hand, not only is it a
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book with an even deeper moral and spiritual takeaway lying in wait for us to uncover, but now he
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was taking all of that one step further. If you really want to understand the takeaways of this book,
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he seemed to be saying, you can't even think about it as an isolated book. The moral Esther is
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meant to teach us may actually be one of the sweeping morals were meant to learn from the grand
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narrative of the entire Bible. And all these midrusham, these strange statements of the sages,
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they might be hints to help us see the book of Esther in the context of that grand narrative.
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To see this book, one of the last books of Tanakh, this book in which God is seemingly hidden,
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as the culmination of events that began way back in the very beginning of Tanakh, in the garden of
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Eden, when God was anything but hidden, when God first walked among us. It was indeed a grand promise,
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but it was still puzzling. What could Esther have to do with Eden? And maybe even more puzzling,
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how were the rabbised tale of cosmic beings and comedy sketches going to help this whole epic
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connection come to light? This season of a book like Noether was recorded by Rabbi David
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Foreman and me, Yimush Alev. It was produced by Tick the Hecht and Beth Lash, with additional
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editing done by Sarah Penso. Our audio engineer is Hilary Gutman, a book like Noether's Managing
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Producer is Adina Bloustein, and our senior producer is Tick the Hecht. A book like Noether is a
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product of Alev Beta and made possible through the very generous support of Shari and Nathan Lindenbaum.
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Thank you, Shari and Nathan, and thank you all for listening.