Post date: Mar 05, 2017 4:36:57 AM
“Yavo Hamelech v’Haman…u’machar e’ese kidvar Hamelech”
Let the king and Haman come…and tomorrow I shall fulfill the king’s word
(5:8)
Why didn’t Esther state her request at the first party instead of postponing it until the second party?
The Ibn Ezra says that at the time of the first party, Esther had not yet seen any kind of sign indicating that the fast had accomplished anything. She was concerned that she did not yet have the Divine assistance that she needed. So she opted to postpone her request by a day with the hope that by then she would be reassured by a sign of some kind. As it turned out, the next day Mordechai was led through the streets of Shushan on the royal horse by none other than Haman. She took this as a clear sign that the tides were turning, and that this day (at the second party) was in fact an opportune time to present her plea to Achashveirosh.
The Akeidas Yitzchak (a Spanish Rov from the late 15th century) tells us that Esther wanted to test the waters—she wanted to determine how Achashveirosh might react to her request. His mood would determine how and if she would present her request to him. Once she saw that he was agreeable to Esther postponing her request until the next day, she knew that he was not upset at her for arriving at his chambers uninvited, and that he would be open to hearing her request.
The Gemara (Megilah 15b) tells us that as Esther approached Achashveirosh uninvited, the Shechina (Divine Presence) departed from her when reached the Chamber of Idols. (At that moment she recited the Pasuk, “My God, my God, why have You forsaken me?” [Tehillim 22:2]) Then, at her first party, Haman arrived with an idolatrous image on his clothes, and, according to R' Yonason Eibeshitz, Esther felt unable to make her request to Achashveirosh in the presence of the idol while, again, lacking the accompaniment of the Shechina. (Perhaps she took this cue from her experience of the Shechina departing her the previous day. Or perhaps she took her cue from Moshe Rabbeinu who left the idol-filled city in order to Daven to Hashem.) When Haman arrived for her second party, he had just finished leading Mordechai through the streets and had not had a chance to change back into his idolatrous clothes. Esther took this as a sign that the Shechina would be with her, and she made her presentation to Achashveirosh.
[Megillas Esther: The Answer Is..., p. 156]
“El hamishteh asher e’esseh la'hem”
To the party that I will make for them
(5:8)
Why does Esther phrase the invitation to her first party in the singular (“Aseesee lo”), while the invitation to her second party is made in the plural (“E'esseh la’hem”)?
The Melo Ha’omer explains quite simply that Achashveirosh was alone when she presented the invitation to the first party. However, both Achashveirosh and Haman were present when she extended the invitation to the second party.
There was actually more to this according to the Meshech Chochmah. He suggests that Esther was trying to plant suspicion in Achashveirosh’s head that there was something going on between her and Haman, which was why she invited Haman in the first place. But when she saw at the first party that her husband hadn’t picked up on her hint, she got more blunt. When she extended the invitation to the second party, she made sure to phrase it in the plural so as to equate Achashveirosh and Haman in the hope that doing so would raise his suspicion.
R. Yonason Eibeshitz has a fabulous explanation of the difference in the invitations. The first party was held on the sixteenth of Nissan, the second day of Peach which is Yontif in Chutz La’Aretz, a day when one may not cook for a non-Jew. So, when Esther extended her first invitation in the singular, she was really inviting Haman whom she was permitted to cook for since he was technically Mordechai’s slave. Of course, Achashveirosh assumed that he was the primary subject of the original invitation. Since the second party was the following day, which was not Yontif, Esther did not have the same restriction to contend with, so she phrased her invitation in plural, thereby inviting both of them to partake of food at her party.
[Megillas Esther: The Answer Is..., p. 158]