The Purim holiday is told to us as a fairy tale. We have the king and queen who rule the land, the king throws a big party and disposes of his current queen. After this occurs we see a beauty pageant take place to gather all of the pretty girls in the land. The winner of the pageant is to be the next queen.
Esther wins the pageant and her uncle Mordecai chooses to loiter around the castle in hopes of overhearing updates about Esther’s wellbeing. The location in which Mordecai chooses to stand is around where Haman normally enters and exits the castle from. As Haman walks by the streets he orders everyone to bow down to him in respect of his royal position, as we know Mordecai doesn’t do so. The question that appears is why did Mordecai not bow down to Haman. In the Torah it states that one must not bow down to false prophets or idols. Seeing as Haman never presented himself as a god or a prophet there was no reason why he would be unable to bow down, other than his own beliefs. The other question is if Mordecai knew that Haman was going to walk by, why did he not go somewhere else so as to not make a scene?
As we know the rest of the story ends with Haman calling for the death of all the Jewish people due to Mordecai’s actions, and in the end it is Haman who is killed.
By: Penina Berger, International Religion Education VP
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