Today is the Fast Of Purim. And tonight we read the Book of Esther.
Once upon a time, in the ancient Persian kingdom, there arose a government bureaucrat named Haman, a power-hungry Jew-hater who used the machinery of big government to contrive a genocide of the Jewish people. He told King Achashverosh that the Jews of his kingdom were different.
Here’s how Megillat Esther describes it:
After these events, King Achashverosh promoted Haman the son of Hamedasa, the Agagi, and raised his status, and made his position higher than all the other ministers who were with him. And all the king’s servants who were at the king’s palace gate were bowing down and prostrating themselves to Haman, for so the king had commanded regarding him, but Mordechai [the Jew] would not bow down or prostrate himself.
In every generation there arises a Haman who seeks to destroy the Jews. The ancient Jew-haters of Persia have again risen and this oldest of enmities is playing itself out on the international stage where nuclear weapons have replaced swords and spears.
One of the most interesting features of Megillat Esther is the absence of G-d’s name. This is to teach us that we must not count on miracles or heavenly deliverance.
The name Esther means hidden, which references Esther as a secret Jew in the King’s household, and the hidden hand of G-d.
It is proper that the Jewish people pray and fast, but ultimately we are the authors of our own fate. Thus, we must seize history by the throat and act vigorously in our own defence.
Governments will always seek to consolidate ever greater chunks of power. That is the nature of government as it is the nature of man. Jews and non-Jews must always be on guard against those who seek to curtail freedom in the name of allegedly free stuff—higher and ever higher taxes is the price for government entitelements.
Seraphic Secret strongly urges our friends in the Catholic community—actually, all our non-Jewish friends—to read The Book of Esther. Because at this very moment President Obama is asserting that Catholics are different.
And you are. You believe in a power higher than Obama.
