Heroine

Hebrew Nations and the Book of Esther (25 February, 2013, ADAR 15, 5773)

Contents:
1. Introduction
2. Recording of Brit-Am Lecture on the Book of Esther
3. YouTube Clip. Queen Esther.
4. Quick Summary of the Book of Esther
5. Was Esther Blond?
6. A Matriarchal Aspects of Israelite Tribes. Every Wife in her own Time.
7. Jews and Israelite Tribes
8. Esther Rectifies the Lacking of her Ancestor, King Saul.
9. Purim and Haman
10. We are all Human and we all have Responsibility as Israelites!
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1. Introduction
February 24, 2013 was the feast of Purim in most of Israel. February 25 is the feast of Purim in Jerusalem. There are a few places, such as Tiberias, where Purim is celebrated on both days.
The Feast of Purim is based on the Book of Esther.
We have a recorded Lecture based on the Book of Esther.
Below there is also a brief summary of the Book of Esther followed by a few notes collated and slightly adapted from Purim Messages we sent out in previous years.
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2. Recording of Brit-Am Lecture on the Book of Esther

The Book of Esther Summarized with some Brit-Am Insights (ca. 1 hour 13 minutes)

Talk has been well received.
I could not access this recording through Explorer BUT I had no trouble at all with Google Chrome!
This talk was recorded without much preparation in March 2009. My voice was a bit raspy and the delivery a triple hesitant but it still sounds good.
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3. YouTube Clip. Queen Esther.

Duration ca. 41 minutes. To Continue to Read Text Please Scroll Down

4. Quick Summary of the Book of Esther

Based on (with slight adaptations, there were inaccuracies in the Wikipedia version)
Book of Esther. From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
party, initially for his court and dignitaries and afterwards for all inhabitants of the capital city Shushan. Ahasuerus orders the queen Vashti to display her beauty before the guests. She refuses. Worried all women will learn from this, Ahasuerus removes her as queen and has a royal decree sent across the empire that men should be the ruler of their households and should speak their own native tongue. Ahasuerus then orders all beautiful young girls to be presented to him, so he can choose a new queen to replace Vashti. One of these is the orphan Esther, whose Jewish name is Hadassah. After the death of her parents, she is being fostered by her uncle Mordecai. She finds favor in the king's eyes, and is made his new queen. Esther does not reveal that she is Jewish. Shortly afterwards, Mordechai discovers a plot by courtiers Bigthan and Teresh to assassinate Ahasuerus. The conspirators are apprehended and hanged, and Mordechai's service to the king is recorded.

Ahasuerus appoints Haman as his prime minister. Mordechai, who sits at the palace gates, falls into Haman's disfavor as he refuses to bow down to him. Having found out that Mordechai is Jewish, Haman plans to kill not just Mordechai but all the Jews in the empire. He obtains Ahasuerus' permission to execute this plan in return for payment of ten thousand talents of silver, and he casts lots to choose the date on which to do this, the thirteenth of the month of Adar. On that day, everyone in the empire is free to massacre the Jews and despoil their property. When Mordechai finds out about the plans he and all Jews mourn and fast. Mordechai informs Esther what has happened and tells her to intercede with the King. She is afraid to break the law and go to the King unsummoned. This action would incur the death penalty. Mordechai tells her that she must. She orders Mordechai to have all Jews fast for three days together with her, and on the third day she goes to Ahasuerus, who stretches out his sceptre to her which shows that she is not to be punished. She invites him to a feast in the company of Haman. During the feast, she asks them to attend a further feast the next evening. Meanwhile, Haman is again offended by Mordechai and consults with his friends. At his wife's suggestion, he builds a gallows for Mordechai.

That night, Ahasuerus suffers from insomnia, and when the court records are read to him to help him sleep, he learns of the services rendered by Mordechai in the previous plot against his life. Ahasuerus is told that Mordechai has not received any recognition for saving the king's life. Just then, Haman appears, to ask the King to hang Mordechai, but before he can make this request, King Ahasuerus asks Haman what should be done for the man that the king wishes to honor. Thinking that the man that the king is referring to is himself, Haman says that the man should be dressed in the king's royal robes and led around on the king's royal horse, while a herald calls: "See how the king honours a man he wishes to reward!" To his horror and surprise, the king instructs Haman to do so to Mordechai. After leading Mordechai's parade, he returns in mourning to his wife and friends, who suggest his downfall has begun.

Immediately after, Ahasuerus and Haman attend Esther's second banquet, at which she reveals that she is Jewish and that Haman is planning to exterminate her people, including her. Overcome by rage, Ahasuerus leaves the room; meanwhile Haman stays behind and begs Esther for his life, falling upon her in desperation. The king comes back in at this moment and thinks Haman is attempting to rape the queen; this makes him angrier than before and he orders Haman hanged on the gallows that Haman had prepared for Mordechai. The previous decree against the Jews cannot be annulled, but the king allows the Jews to defend themselves during attacks. As a result, on 13 Adar, five hundred attackers and Haman's ten sons are killed in Shushan, followed by a Jewish slaughter of seventy-five thousand Persians, although they took no plunder. Esther sends a letter instituting an annual commemoration of the Jewish people's redemption, in a holiday called Purim (lots). Ahasuerus remains very powerful and continues reigning, with Mordechai assuming a prominent position in his court.
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5. Was Esther Blond?
Purim concerns the Book of Esther.
A Midrash says that "Esther" was "yirakraket".
The word for green is "yerak" but in Midrashic terminology it usually means "yellow".
"Yirakreket" according to Iben Ezra and in Modern Hebrew would mean "a little green" but in Midrashic (and according to Rashi Biblical) Hebrew it can mean "very yerak".
i.e. it could mean "very blond".
Esther apparently did not look typically Jewish.
This could be why King Ahaseurus did not realize from what nation she came?
At all events, whether Esther was really blond or not, blonds were to be found amongst Israelite Peoples alongside brunettes, black-hairs, and redheads.
See:
THE PHYSICAL ANTHROPOLOGY OF THE HEBREW PEOPLES
and
Pictures of Ancient Hebrews

Whether Esther was or was not blond she was an important heroine in Israelite History.
The Book of Esther in the Bible is dedicated to her.
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6. Matriarchal Aspects of Israelite Tribes. Every Wife in her own Time.

Based on "Kuntres, Zug MeKudash. Torah veTefilah" (1998) by Zeev HaLevi Kamen.

Jacob the forefather of the Israelite Tribes was also known as Israel. Jacob had four wives. His two main wives, Leah and Rachel were sisters. His other two wives, Zilpah and Bilhah were maidservants of Leah and Rachel.
For symbolical reasons the monarchs of Israel had to come from both Leah and Rachel. David (from Judah and therefore from Leah) was destined to be the main anointed monarch and to have first claim to the kingdom. Every King after David who not of the Davidic line has in some sense a questionable status.
Since it was needed that at least one of the monarchs should come from Rachel, It was more appropriate that a king from Rachel should come first, before the appearance of David. This king was to be Saul.
Saul was from the tribe of Benjamin son of Rachel. In a sense Saul was anointed by virtue of Rachel.
Esther was a descendant of King Saul. Esther is referred to as Queen Esther. Esther epitomizes the matriarchal aspect of Israel.

Divine Providence wished that the two aspects of royalty in Israel should be recognized, the male and the female: The male aspect from descendants of Leah
was realized in David who comes from the Tribes of Judah.
The female determinant from Rachel was fulfilled in Queen Esther.

My father, William Hugh Davis, said that there was an opinion that it needed the presence of female monarchs to fully draw out the masculinity of British subjects.
This ties in with the above article since we consider the British to be primarily descended from Joseph and thus through Joseph from Rachel.
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7. Jews and Israelite Tribes
The Messiah through Divine Inspiration will be able to tell which Tribe each and every Israelite belongs to.
Meanwhile the Israelite Nations is split into sections:
1. The Jews who are aware of their ancestry.
2. The Ten Lost Tribes who on the whole are not aware of their ancestry.

The Festival of Purim is built around the Book of Esther. The book of Esther tells how Mordecai and his niece Esther saved the Jews of the Persian Empire from extermination at the hands of Haman.

Descendants of former inhabitants of the Kingdom of Judah or those who became attached to them are considered Jews.
Mordecai (the uncle of Esther) from the Tribe of Benjamin is referred to as a Jew (Esther 2:5 3:4). We see how descendants of other Israelite Tribes, such as of Benjamin, who were descended from Jews who had been in the Kingdom of Judah are also referred to as Jews.
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8. Esther Rectifies the Lacking of her Ancestor, King Saul.

Mordecai and Esther were descended from King Saul.
We saw how King Saul lost the Kigdom because he did not immediately kill Agag the King of the Amalekites. Consequently it was stated that the Kingdom would be given to "A NEIGHBOUR OF THINE, THAT IS BETTER THAN THOU" [1-Samuel 15:28].
The Story of Esther tells how the wife of the King of Persia, AHASUERUS, offended him and so it was decided that her office should be given to another:
"LET THE KING GIVE HER ROYAL ESTATE UNTO ANOTHER THAT IS BETTER THAN SHE" [Esther 1:19].
Consequently Esther was chosen. The giving of the Kingdom to another that is "BETTER THAN" the one holding it in the two cases of Saul and Vashti the deposed Queen of Persia suggest an association. Esther was a descendant of King Saul (also called "Kish" Esther 2:5, after Kish his father 1-Samuel 9:1) and the Midrash says that her being chosen as Queen was a kind of belated compensation for King Saul. Saul had been replaced by David who was better than he. Vashti was to be displaced by Esther who was better than her. This was a kind of compensation to Saul since Esther was descended from him. Haman the counsellor of the King of Persia was a descendant of Agag (Esther 3:1) whom Saul had failed to kill. According to tradition after his capture and in the brief time before the arrival of Samuel his delayed execution Agag managed to have intercourse with a pagan serving maid and so continue his line from which emerged Haman. In the Book of Esther it relates how Haman attempted to destroyed the Jewish people but is foiled by Mordechai and Esther and he himself with his sons is put to death (Esther 7:10, 9:10). It was as if Esther and Mordecai the descendants of Saul were able to rectify the offence of their forefather.
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9. Purim and Haman

It may be a coincidence but the family name "Hamman" was that of an SS officer in charge of exterminating the Jews of Lithuania.
A Nazi document says:

"The goal of clearing Lithuania of Jews could be achieved only through the establishment of a specially selected Mobile Commando under the command of SS Obersturmfuhrer Hamman, who adopted my aims [of complete elimination] fully and was able to ensure the co-operation of the Lithuanian partisans and civil authorities concerned" "Robert S. Wistrich, "Hitler and the Holocaust. How and Why the Holocaust Happened" (2001) p.100.

There was at least one other prominent Nazi who was also named Hamman
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10. We are all Human and we all have Responsibility as Israelites!

Esther 4:
13 And Mordecai told them to answer Esther: 'Do not think in your heart that you will escape in the king's palace any more than all the other Jews. 14 For if you remain completely silent at this time, relief and deliverance will arise for the Jews from another place, but you and your father's house will perish. Yet who knows whether you have come to the kingdom for such a time as this?'

Esther was being asked to risk her life and try and save her people.
Mordecai warned her NOT to think of herself. Esther at the superficial level could have stayed as she was.
The King did not know her nationality and apparently had decided not to do so. Esther was in a favorable position. She could stay as she was and survive. Mordecai warned her not to entertain such thoughts. If she thought to save herself in the end she would perish and so would all her family. The Jewish people would be saved in some other way and Esther would have lost her chance.

These remarks of Mordecai are interesting and important in themselves. What is particularly of interest is that Mordecai deemed it necessary to direct such words to Esther!
In other words, Esther was as frail and vulnerable as everybody else. She could have failed. She could have given in to her basic survival instincts and sought to save herself at the expense of others.
She did not.

Cyrus the King of Persia was destined to allow the Jews to return to Jerusalem and rebuilt the city and the Temple.
Cyrus may well have been of Israelite descent. Another legend claims that Cyrus was the son of Queen Esther and King Ahaseurus.