Esther: For Such a Time as This

Haman the Agagite is second in the empire under King Ahasuerus (Xerxes), and he hates the Jew Mordecai, who refuses to bow to him. Haman persuades the king to sign an edict authorizing the destruction of all Jews throughout the Persian provinces — the first clearly named genocide in the historical record — on a date determined by casting lots (purim).

Mordecai tears his clothes, puts on sackcloth and ashes, and mourns through the city. When Esther, the queen, learns what he is doing, she sends to ask why. Mordecai sends back a copy of the decree and a charge: Go to the king and plead with him for her people.

Esther sends back the problem: anyone who approaches the king in the inner court without being summoned is put to death, unless the king extends the golden scepter. She has not been summoned for thirty days. She does not know if she is in favor. The risk is real.

Mordecai's response has been quoted in every political crisis since: Do not think that in the king's palace you will escape any more than all the other Jews. For if you keep silent at this time, relief and deliverance will rise for the Jews from another place, but you and your father's house will perish. And who knows whether you have not come to the kingdom for such a time as this?

Esther asks Mordecai to gather the Jews of the capital and fast for her three days. If I perish, I perish. She goes to the king. He extends the golden scepter. She does not ask immediately — she invites the king and Haman to a banquet, then a second banquet, building the moment.

At the second banquet, when the king again asks what she wants — up to half the kingdom — Esther speaks. She asks for her life and the lives of her people, who have been sold for destruction. The king asks: who has done this? Esther points: This wicked Haman. Haman has already had a gallows built to hang Mordecai. On it, instead, Haman is hanged.