Esther's story is remembered each year at the Jewish Feast of Purim, when the Book of Esther is read and celebrated the Jews outliving the plot of the wicked royal official Haman. It's one part history, one part Story Time and one part relief from a happy ending.
But what about Esther herself? It's true that she had to exercise some courage to save the local Jews, herself included, but she had no original plan to be noble. If anything, it seems that she thought she had left the Jews behind when she became Queen. It was Mordecai, her relative and a mid-level management official in the king's court, who convinced her that their fates were all tied together and that it was up to her to prevent to prevent the mass slaughter planned by the schemer Haman.
So poor Esther had no choice but to be brave, for her own sake at least. If her plan could save the lives of other Jews, well, so much the better. She could then go back to the good life as the lucky queen of a vast kingdom.
What for me is the disappointment of the story is that when the thick-headed King Ahasuerus finally realizes through Esther that he has almost been tricked into having to stand aside and watch his own execution order carried out against the Jews, he then turns with redoubled anger on the plotters and makes them the victims. At the moment when Esther or Mordecai could have intervened on the side of mercy by asking that the plotters be banished or imprisoned, they silently watch the slaughter intended for them, unsparing to women and children and totaling, according to the record, some fifty thousand people. No doubt Esther and Mordecai were thereafter honored by the Jews, but one can't help wondering if they ever felt sorry for not intervening on behalf of humanity.
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