Post date: Feb 26, 2015 4:24:46 AM
Purim is just one week away, so let's ratchet it up with two Vorts a day!
Enjoy!
Full replacement
Vayassem kisser malchus biroshah vayamlicheha tachas Vashti
And he set the royal crown upon her head and made her queen in place of Vashti
(2:17)
Achashveirosh performed two actions when he made Esther the queen.
(1) He physically set the crown on her head, thereby granting her the status of the queen.
(2) He designated Esther as the full and complete replacement for Vashti, thus crowning her as the queen of all of his provinces. He wished to equalize Esther’s status with that of Vashti who was a blood descendant of royalty within Persian lineage.
[Al Hanissim, p. 107]
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Sticking it to him
Ki higid lahem asher hu Yehudi
For he had told them that he was a Jew
(3:4)
All of the king’s servants who were at the king’s gate would bow down to Haman, but Mordechai refused to do so. Daily, the other servants would question Mordechai about his recalcitrance, and his response was always that he refused to do so because he was a Jew. This give-and-take was relayed to Haman by the very same servants to find out if this was in fact a legitimate exemption.
There’s an opinion that Mordechai and Haman were the two head butlers at Achashveirosh’s party. Since they were of equal stature with each other, Mordechai was under no requirement to show Haman an elevated level of respect.
Additionally, it was well known that Mordechai was on the Sanhedrin. He could usually be found sitting at the king’s gate (which was were officials regularly stationed themselves), so everyone (especially Haman) knew exactly who Mordechai was.
So when Mordechai was asked by the king’s servants day in and day out why he refused to bow to Haman, why was his answer to them that he was a Jew? Wouldn’t it have been a stronger argument to state the fact that he and Haman were colleagues of equal stature, or that he was a man of prominence due to his position within the Sanhedrin? Since each of these statements on their own could seemingly have been strong enough to answer the query of the other royal servants, why did Mordechai repeatedly state simply that he was a Jew?
Mordechai’s adamance at not bowing to Haman was based purely on the fact that he was a Jew and that doing so was forbidden. While Mordechai could have stated less confrontational reasons for not complying with the edict, he made a point to be as clear as possible when stating why he refused to bow. He was a Jew, and he wasn’t going to bow to another human being even if the law was under the authority of the king!
[Inside Purim, p. 154]