by David Plotz
Esther shows up in the throne room. Ahasuerus, rather than chopping off her head, is thrilled to see her—she’s a stone-cold Persian fox, after all—and says she can have whatever she wants, even half the kingdom. She asks only that the king invite Haman to a feast. At the dinner, she requests that Haman and the king return for another banquet the next day. Haman is delighted at the royal favor, until he runs into Mordecai, who again refuses to bow. Haman goes home in a sour mood and tells his wife that Mordecai is spoiling his good time. His wife and friends, who just want to cheer up gloomy old Haman, tell him to erect a stake seventy-five feet high and have Mordecai impaled on it the next day. “Then you can go gaily with the king to the feast.” This puts a spring in Haman’s step and a smile in his heart.
That same night, the king has a hard time falling asleep, so he asks his servants to read to him from “the annals”: the history book– Congressional Record–New York Times where all important imperial events are recorded. His reader opens the book to the story of Mordecai averting the eunuchs’ assassination plot. The king is dismayed to hear that Mordecai has never received a reward for his good deed. Ha-man happens to arrive at the palace at this moment to get a bright and early start on the impaling. The king summons Haman and asks him the best way a king can honor a man. In a wonderful case of mistaken identity, Haman assumes that Ahasuerus wants to honor him and says that the king should put that man in royal robes and crown, and parade him through town on a horse. The king then orders Haman to do this—for Mordecai. Haman gulps, but does it.
chapters 7–8
Esther holds her second feast for Haman and the king. Ahasuerus again asks what he can do for her. This time she pleads for her life and the lives of her fellow Jews, who are scheduled for extermination. The
king—who is either amnesiac or criminally inattentive or a moron— doesn’t seem to remember that he himself ordered the slaughter of the Jews, since he exclaims indignantly, “Who is he and where is he who dared to do this?” Esther replies—and you can imagine her pointing her bejeweled finger—“The adversary and the enemy . . . is this evil Haman.” Haman cringes in terror. The king storms out of the room. Haman begs Esther to save him. In a marvelous moment—again, so cinematic!—Haman lies next to Esther on her couch and pleads for his life. At this moment, the king returns to the room and assumes that Haman is trying to rape Esther. “Does he mean . . . to ravish the queen in my own palace?”
It’s curtains for Haman, as you can imagine. They impale him on the stake meant for Mordecai. The king gives all of Haman’s property to Esther, who hands it over to Mordecai. The king names Mordecai as his new prime minister. With the king’s OK, Mordecai sends out a new order telling the Jews that they can defend themselves if they are attacked. All of Shushan celebrates the reprieve.
If it ended there, the story of Esther would be a perfect set piece, with unambiguous moral clarity. But it doesn’t. The first dark hints come in the last verse of Chapter 8, which says that many Persians now “professed to be Jews, for the fear of the Jews had fallen upon them.”
chapters 9–10
On the day Haman scheduled for the Jewish extermination, the thirteenth of Adar, Jews muster throughout the empire and slaughter 75,000 people in a one-day spasm. The book is slippery: it never tells us whether the Hamanites actually attacked the Jews. As the last verse of Esther 8 hints, the enemies seem to have been thoroughly cowed by Mordecai’s new power, suggesting that the Jews were taking vengeance against an already defeated foe. Given that the book doesn’t report any Jewish casualties, it’s pretty clear the fight was one-sided.
It gets worse. After the first day, Ahasuerus comes to Esther and tells her that 500 people have been killed in Shushan alone. He asks her what she wants now. The bloodthirsty queen says it’s not enough. The Jews of Shushan must be given a second day to kill. Moreover, she wants all of Haman’s ten sons impaled on stakes. The king says OK, and the massacre continues. The day after the murders, the Jews celebrate “with feasting and merrymaking,” and Purim is declared a Jewish holiday for all time.
I’m from a family of lax Jews, and I’m sure our Purim celebrations weren’t quite up to code. Even so, I am shocked at the difference between the Purim story I heard in synagogue and the Purim story in the Bible. At the synagogue, we certainly celebrated the death of Ha-man, but I don’t recall hearing about the orgy of violence that followed. The 75,000 killed, Esther’s insistence on a second day of slaughter, the vindictive impaling of Haman’s sons—all that was underplayed or ignored in the kid-friendly Purim story I was raised on. Those horrifying acts make Purim a much more ambiguous, and troubling, holiday.
TWENT Y- FO UR
The Book of Daniel
Nice Pussycat!
In which Jewish Daniel is brought with three friends to the court of King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon, then rises to power by interpreting the king’s dreams; his friends are tossed into a furnace for refusing to bow down to a statue, but they survive; Nebuchadnezzar goes crazy, then regains his sanity by worshipping God; his faithless heir is warned by a ghostly hand; the Persians conquer Babylon and make Daniel minister; he is framed for a crime and tossed into the lions’ den, which he survives; then he has many apocalyptic visions.
here are disappointingly few lions in Daniel, and they’re bit players. Daniel is instead a version of Joseph’s story: a holy man is held against his will in a hostile land, keeps his faith, loves God, and rises to power by interpreting dreams. Like Joseph, Daniel is about how people of faith are supposed to survive, and even prosper, in an alien land. It’s about how Jews maintain their Jewish identity when society wants to erase it, and how they find strength in small groups. In short, Daniel is a manual for surviving a diaspora, and this must be why it has remained so popular for so long. It also helps that it’s a thrilling story.
chapter 1
Having conquered Jerusalem and exiled the Jews, King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon invites a few of the best young Jewish men to live at his court and learn Babylonian ways. Presumably they’ll serve as his ambassadors to the Jews, helping him co-opt and integrate them. This tactic is straight out of Conquering 101: it’s what all smart imperial powers do. The English enrolled Indian rajas at their boarding schools; the United States sent young Native Americans to learn the “white man’s way” at government academies. King Nebuchadnezzar’s first class of young Hebrews includes Daniel and three of Daniel’s friends: Hananiah, Mishael, and Azariah—soon renamed, in Babylonian, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego.
Daniel, who’s one tough cookie, resolves not to assimilate and not to betray God. He refuses to eat the trayf Babylonian food, and persuades their supervisor to let him and his three pals subsist on beans, while all the other boys gorge on the king’s bacon cheeseburgers and lobster rolls. But God loves their kosher diet, and they prove healthier, stronger, and wiser than the young courtiers. Daniel gains special favor for his ability to interpret dreams and visions.
chapter 2
Nebuchadnezzar has a disturbing dream and orders his magicians to explain it to him—or be torn limb from limb. The problem is that he refuses to tell them what happened in the dream. So, they first have to guess what his dream was, then interpret it. Impossible!
Well, not so hard if I were king, because I have the most literal dreams in the world. My wife could do this guessing-interpreting thing in a snap. Let’s say I was anxious that our car was having problems; my morning conversation with Hanna would go like this.
David: Hanna, guess what I dreamed last night? Hanna: I bet you dreamed that the car was having problems and needed to go to the shop.
David: You’re right! How did you know? What do you think it means? Hanna: What it means, sweetie, is that you think the car is having problems and needs to go to the shop.
The pagan magicians fail at the guessing game, naturally. So, Nebuchadnezzar flies into a rage and—like Pol Pot—orders all the wise men in the kingdom killed. But before that happens, Daniel visits
the king and offers to interpret the dream. Aided by God, Daniel says that the king dreamed of a great statue of gold, silver, and bronze that was crushed by stone from a mountain. Then he says that the dream means the king’s empire will be destroyed, and eventually another kingdom will rise to rule the earth. Nebuchadnezzar is so impressed that he appoints Daniel and Daniel’s friends as top offi cials.
chapter 3
Nebuchadnezzar, who appears to be painfully literal-minded, commissions a statue ninety feet high and orders his subjects to worship it. Anyone who doesn’t bow down will be tossed into a fiery furnace. A few Babylonian anti- Semites inform the king that the Jews refuse to worship the statue. (Note the echoes of the book of Esther, in which Mordecai refuses to bow to Haman. Perhaps it is more accurate to say: note the echoes of Daniel in Esther. Daniel seems to have been written first.) Daniel’s three friends are singled out for their refusal to bow down. Nebuchadnezzar orders them tossed into the furnace. They say that God will protect them. He orders the furnace turned up to extra-crispy—it’s so hot that even the Babylonian guards are incinerated by the radiant heat. But when the three friends are tossed in, they relax in the blaze as though in a sauna. They emerge from the fire unscathed, and accompanied by a mysterious fourth man ( Jesus, according to many Christians). Nebuchadnezzar is astonished, promotes them, and makes blasphemy against the Lord a capital crime.
chapter 4
A weird chapter: All of a sudden, Nebuchadnezzar himself is the narrator. He has another dream, about a tree that’s chopped down. Daniel is summoned. Anxious, he tells the king that he wishes the dream were about someone else. But it isn’t. The dream means that Nebuchadnezzar himself will be chopped down by God. Sure enough, a year later the king is walking on the palace roof, congratulating himself on his power, when a voice from heaven rings out, “The kingdom has passed out of your hands.”
At this point, Nebuchadnezzar goes cuckoo crazy, completely nutso. He becomes a homeless loon, eating grass like a cow, growing hair like feathers. It’s very like The Madness of King George. After seven years, Nebuchadnezzar’s sanity returns, as suddenly as it was taken away. Why does he get his marbles back? Because he embraces the Lord. Yes, his majesty Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon, the sacker of Jerusalem, the scourge of the Jews, the villain of the books of Kings, Isaiah, and Psalms, has suddenly become a worshipper of God! It’s like Pharaoh coming to a seder.
chapters 5–6
Fast-forward several years. Nebuchadnezzar’s son, King Belshazzar, holds a swanky banquet for 1,000 nobles, gets ripsnorting drunk, and tells his servants to bring out the gold and silver vessels looted from the Temple in Jerusalem. Bad idea. As the Babylonians toast their idols using God’s cups, a ghostly hand appears in the room and scrawls a message on the wall of the palace (the original “writing on the wall”). It’s a Stephen King moment, not least for the king, who is so scared that “his knees knocked together.” None of Belshazzar’s magicians or scribes can read the message. Finally the queen, who has more common sense than the rest of the court put together, tells the king to call Daniel. The king promises Daniel power and glory if he can read the inscription. Daniel first rebukes Belshazzar for rejecting God, reminding him how idolatry drove his father, Nebuchadnezzar, crazy. Then Daniel translates the mysterious words, which are: “God has numbered the days of your kingdom and brought it to an end. . . . [Y]ou have been weighed in the balance and found wanting. . . . [Y]our kingdom has been divided and given to the Medes and the Persians.” Strangely, the king isn’t perturbed by Daniel’s dire prophecy. He even makes good on his promise and names Daniel as one of his top ministers.
But Belshazzar is killed that very night, and Darius the Mede (of Persia) conquers the kingdom. Darius retains Daniel as his adviser. Daniel is at least the third such biblical hero to rise to prime minister in a foreign land. (Joseph and Mordecai are the others.) It’s a curious role. I wonder if there is something in the nature of Judaism that makes this ministerial position so suitable. Perhaps Jews, when they’re in the minority, must always balance power and modesty. Their learning (or, in this case, divine inspiration) prepares them for positions of authority, but their status as outsiders bars them from the top job. So they settle into power behind the throne. (See Henry Kissinger.) Or maybe I am making too much of a few examples.
In yet another Haman-like attempt to “entrap the Jew,” envious Persian ministers scheme to oust Daniel from Darius’s court. They have Darius issue a decree barring his subjects from addressing prayers to anyone except Darius himself. The penalty: a night in the lions’ den. Daniel, though aware of the law, prays to God anyway. His rivals catch him and bring him to the king, who is dismayed that his favorite is in trouble. But the king can’t undo his own law and has Daniel sentenced to the lions’ den. (The king actually seals the mouth of the den himself, with a stone.) Darius can’t sleep, and when morning comes, he races to the den and rolls back the stone—um, does this remind you of another Bible story?—and finds Daniel, fit as a fiddle. Daniel says that God sent an angel to shut the lions’ mouths.
I always thought the story ended here, with Daniel’s rescue and Darius’s turn toward God. But, like many of the Bible stories I thought I knew but didn’t, the lions’ den has a gruesome coda. As soon as Daniel is rescued, Darius orders the arrest of the “men who slandered Daniel.” (This, of course, is an unfair characterization of them. They did not slander Daniel. Daniel broke the law about prayer. It was a stupid law, but Darius signed it. They were just enforcing it.) The men—and their wives and children—are sentenced to the lions’ den. “They had hardly reached the bottom of the den when the lions overpowered them and crushed all their bones.” Good God. Add this to the biblical roster of excessive revenge and collective punishment.
chapter 7–12
The rest of Daniel is a letdown after the preceding melodrama, though its prophecies are apparently important to Christianity. The second half of the book largely consists of trippy visions: winged lions and ten-horned beasties; a huge ram attacked by an enormous goat; a man with a body like beryl, a face like lightning, eyes like torches, etc. These visions are all about geopolitics and the end of days. Long story short: after a lot of geopolitical maneuvering, a great prince named Michael will show up, the dead will awaken, and the righteous will triumph. Do I even need to mention that there will be “appalling abomination[s]” all along the way?
T WENT Y- FIVE
The Books of Ezra and Nehemiah
Coming Home
In which the Persian emperor encourages Jews to return to Jerusalem, where they rebuild the Temple; the scholar Ezra restores God’s law and rails against intermarriage; the general Nehemiah rebuilds the city walls, over the objections of Arab neighbors.
he books of Ezra and Nehemiah recount much the same event—the repopulating of Jerusalem—from slightly different angles. The book of Ezra is told by a holy man. The book of Nehemiah is told by a politician. The first is more concerned with God and faith; the second with men and deeds. The books aren’t hugely interesting—though at this late stage in my Bible reading, I must confess, Ezra would have to invent cold fusion and conjure up a magical army of Penélope Cruz look- alikes to get me really excited.
the book of ezra
Chapters 1–4
Having conquered Babylon, Emperor Cyrus of Persia invites all Jews to return home to Jerusalem and rebuild the Temple. More than 40,000 Jews return, and quickly rebuild the foundation of the Temple. They hold a buoyant, song-fi lled celebration. The oldest Jews, the ones who can still remember worshipping at the original Temple before Nebuchadnezzar sacked it, weep with joy when they see the new foundation. The younger Jews, meanwhile, shout with joy. This leads to a lovely verse: “The people could not distinguish the sound of the joyful shouts from the sound of the people’s weeping.” Isn’t it wonderful the way memory, sorrow, joy, and the passage of time are all rolled up in that single sentence?
Chapters 5–6
There’s a stop-
work order on the Temple, because neighboring tribes object to the new building. (Even before zoning laws, there was NIMBY.) The new provincial governor, who doesn’t want to be stuck with a half-finished building, overrules the neighbors. The empire mandates the death penalty for anyone who tries to stop the project. (A provocative idea: I’m surprised Phoenix or some other pro- growth city hasn’t experimented with capital punishment for enviros and other bulldozer-blockers.) The Jews finish the Temple and celebrate the fi rst Israeli Passover in a long time. This is the Temple that stood until the Romans sacked it 500 years later, the Temple where the miracle of Hanukkah occurred, the Temple where Jesus routed the money changers.
Chapter 7
The emperor dispatches the Torah scholar Ezra to Jerusalem, authorizing him to appoint judges and collect taxes. The emperor also declares that the Torah is the law of the land. It’s the first offi cial establishment of the Jewish faith outside a Jewish kingdom.
Chapters 9–10
As soon as Ezra arrives, he discovers that the earlier Jewish returnees— even the priests—have committed an abomination by marrying local Canaanite girls. The “holy seed” of the Jews has been contaminated. Aware of the Torah’s teachings on mixed marriage, Ezra is beside himself. He tears his hair and beard out, apologizes to God for abandoning His commandments and polluting His land, and begs Him to have mercy.