The Jewish holiday of Purim

I would like to share with all of you readers, the history and lesson behind the upcoming Jewish holiday. Jewish people around the globe will be celebrating the holiday of Purim from nightfall on March 11 until after the March 12.

In the year 364 BCE, Haman, one of the king’s top advisors, plotted with the King to annihilate and destroy all the Jews. The king decided to make a feast for all his constituents, hoping this would lead the Jews to sin which in turn would give him the upper hand. At the party, the king invited the queen to show off her beauty. When she refused to attend, the evil Haman suggested the queen’s execution. This led to the king crowning a modest Jewish maiden, named Esther, as the next queen. Esther was an integral part in having the malicious decree abolished. She had all the Jews gather, pray and fast to plea with G-d to save the Jewish people. In the end, the king gave the Jews permission to defend themselves and Haman was killed and hung.

In many ways, Queen Esther showed great self-sacrifice until the decree was abolished. As she represented the Jewish women of her generation and, ultimately of all those to come as well, she knew it was essential for her to ensure the continuity of the Jewish people. In response, she requested that the story and great miracle be recorded and read yearly lest women forget the important role they play.

One of the traditional foods we eat on Purim is the Hamantash - a three-cornered cookie filled with poppy seeds or jam. The meaning behind it: In the Book of Esther, G-d’s name is not mentioned but the story reads like a natural series of events. Nevertheless, G-d was still watching and orchestrating the miraculous victory. His “role” was simply hidden, just like the filling is hidden in the cookie. Below is a recipe for your enjoyment. Shared from Chabad.org

Filling of your choice (poppy seed butter, apricot or strawberry jam, chocolate filling)

Add the second cup of flour until the dough forms a soft, but not sticky ball. You may need 2-3 more tablespoons of flour if your dough is sticky.

Locally, the community is welcome to join us in celebrating Purim and enjoying the traditions of Hamatashen. We will be having a Megillah (Book of Esther) reading on March 11 at 8:30 p.m. at Chabad at 401 Suffolk Drive and on March 12 at 1 p.m. at the Main Post Chapel to accommodate our Jewish servicemen. Come dressed up.

Rabbi Benzion Shemtov, the son of Rabbi Yossie and Chanie Shemtov of Chabad of Tucson, grew up in Tucson. He and his wife Chaya have recently established Chabad of Cochise County, based out of Sierra Vista, to provide Jewish and holiday programs and Torah classes for all ages in the area.

There is a prophecy for modern times in the Book of Esther that predicts the end of the 20th Century Holocaust. I decided not to extract it, because Haim Shore puts the case so perfectly. The Hebrew letters didn’t come over, but you can get the whole book on Amazon.

16.2 The Case of Haman’s Sons This section has been the most difficult, and at times distressful, to write. There are two interrelated reasons for this. First, this section is related to the Holocaust. Second, my families, both on my late father’s side (my father’s name was Daniel, deceased 1967) and on my late mother’s side (my mother’s name was Havah, deceased 2005), both families perished in the Holocaust. Therefore, writing about the Holocaust, and suggesting that somehow a most bizarre coincidence in the Bible insinuates a forthcoming Holocaust, looks like an outrageous— perhaps even offensive— assertion.

After much hesitation and deliberation, I have decided to proceed with detailing this coincidence. This was done for two reasons.

First, the coincidence to be expounded in this section is not new, and it is well-known, at least in Israel. It had previously been recounted in various publications (for example, Katz 1991, 1996), and is routinely taught in seminars for nonreligious Jewish Israelis, delivered by religious not-for-profit organizations, like Arachim. 13 In discussing this coincidence, therefore, I am not introducing controversy or an as-yet-unknown coincidence.

Second, the reader was assured in the introductory chapter that we would expose Bible-related and biblical-Hebrew-related coincidences of any sort known to us, leaving the reader to decide the nature of the coincidence, whether random or otherwise (as alluded therein, the results of the statistical analyses are exempt from this characterization). Faithful to this principle of censorship-free exposure to all known curious coincidences in the Bible, the coincidence regarding Haman’s sons is expounded in this section, notwithstanding the personal difficulty that I experience in detailing that coincidence.

Esther, Mordechai, and Haman are the three central figures and heroes of the book of Esther. However, there is one more hero— hidden, unspecified, not mentioned even once. But the whole book is focused about how He conducts his world, in hidden ways, as is revealed only in the name of the book. As related elsewhere in this book (chapter 20), according to Jewish tradition, the name Esther is related to the verse in Deuteronomy, where God conveys to the people of Israel that in the face of their moral transgressions, he would hide his face from them— furthermore, he would even hide the hiding. This is succinctly summarized in Hebrew in three words: “Haster astir panai” 14 (Deutronomy 31: 18), commonly inaccurately translated as “And I will surely hide my face” (“… on that day for all the evils which they have perpetrated”). The root of the haster astir is S.T.R, which means “to conceal.” This is also the root of the name Esther, and the whole book is an allegory to the Divine’s ways of conduct that look random to us. How the Bible refers to the concept of randomness has been alluded to at some length in section 3.3. The reader may wish to review this section, where verses in the Bible that relate to randomness are addressed.

The coincidence of Haman and his sons is now expounded (refer to subsection 20.2.1, where the details of the story, though not the coincidence, is introduced in more detail). Haman is first mentioned in the book of Esther thus: “After these things King Ahasuerus promoted Haman, the son of Hammedatha the Agagite, and advanced him and set his seat above all the princes that were with him. And all the king’s servants that were in the king’s gate bowed, and reverenced Haman; for the king had so commanded concerning him. But Mordechai bowed not, nor did him reverence” (Esther 3: 1— 2). So we know that Haman was of an Amalekite origin (Agag was king of Amalek— 1 Samuel 15: 8), and that he is in a supreme position in the king’s court. Then the book of Esther relates how Haman had initiated a plot to murder all Jews in the king’s kingdoms: “Letters were sent by couriers to all the king’s provinces, to destroy, to slay, and to annihilate all Jews, young and old, women and children, in one day, the thirteenth day of the twelfth month, which is the month of Adar . And the king and Haman sat down to drink” (Esther 3: 13, 15). How very familiar …

The extermination plot, however, failed, by coincidence (or was it?). In a bizarre twist of events, the king changes his taste (perhaps following the drink he had with Haman), and both Haman and his sons are hung by the king. As the latter chain of events is recounted in Esther, “So they hanged Haman on the gallows which he had prepared for Modechai. Then the king’s wrath was pacified” (Esther 7: 10). And later, Haman’s sons were also killed: “The ten sons of Haman the son of Hammedata, the enemy of the Jews, they slew; but they did not lay their hands on the plunder” (Esther 9: 10). The king then reassures Esther, the queen: “And the king said to Esther the queen, The Jews have slain and destroyed five hundred men in Shushan the capital, and also the ten sons of Haman … now what is thy petition? and it shall be granted thee …” (Esther 9: 12).

Esther’s answer starts the bizarre coincidence. What does she ask the king to do? The answer is given in the next verse: “Then Esther said, If it please the king, let it be granted to the Jews who are in Shushan to do tomorrow also according to this day’s decree, and let Haman’s ten sons be hanged upon the gallows. And the king commanded it so to be done: and the decree was given at Shushan; and they hanged Haman’s ten sons” (Esther 9: 13-14).

The biblical narrator was very explicit to notify us that Esther knows that Haman’s sons were already dead. So what is the sense in asking the king, in reply, to hang them on a tree?

Rashi (1040-1105), the most prominent Jewish interpreter of the Bible, is aware of the difficulty, and he is very succinct in explaining the hanging of Haman’s sons: “those that were killed.” Other interpreters are mute about it, though the Malbim (1809-79) explains that the objective of “hanging the dead” was to intimidate the enemies of the Jews who had thought that the “Jews Annihilation Decree” was still valid.

We may consider another perspective, also based upon well-established Jewish tradition. We have alluded elsewhere (chapter 20) to the fact that in the book of Esther, the name of the Divine is not mentioned. It is therefore traditionally assumed that when the king’s name is explicitly mentioned— namely the king “which reigned from India even unto Ethiopia, over an hundred and seven and twenty provinces” (Esther 1: 1), this implies that Ahasuerus is intended. Elsewhere, when only the word “king” appears, reference is to the King of Kings (for example, consider Esther Rabbah 3: 10). Thus, the king’s decree to hang Haman’s sons (giving an impression of a second execution) is in fact a decree from the Divine. Furthermore, Jewish scholars lay a rule regarding the appearance in biblical text of the word “tomorrow” (a rule not relating explicitly to Esther): “There is tomorrow now and there is tomorrow after some time” (Midrash Tanchuma, Parashat BA, 13). Thus, when Esther requests of the Divine to hang Haman’s sons “tomorrow” (Esther 9: 13), this can be in the future and not necessarily the next day.

Hanging of Haman’s sons may be interpreted, in the framework of the coincidence that we expound here, as a decree from God (Esther 9: 14, where only “king” is referenced), and it may be sometime in the future, consistent with how tomorrow is sometimes used in the Bible.

Who might these ten men, to be hanged on the tree some time in the future, be— and why is this important?

We have earlier referred to the position of the Talmud that special letters in the Bible were given to Moses from Sinai. Such special letters appear in relative abundance next to the listing of the names of Haman’s sons (Esther 9: 7— 9).

There are four such letters.

The letter vav, enlarged, appears in the name of Vajezatha (Vayzata15 in the Hebrew text). The letter tav appears small in the name Parshandatha. 16 The letter shin appears small in the name Parmashta. 17 Finally, the letter zayin appears small in the name Vajezatha (Vayzata15 in Hebrew).
Four letters: one large (vav, which has a value of 6) and the other three small letters (tav, shin, and zayin, in that particular order).

Rewritten together, we have (read from right to left): [picture here]

This looks amazingly similar to how a Hebrew calendar date is read. (Refer for an explanation of the Hebrew calendar to subsection 2.1.2.) For example, the Jewish year starting October 4, 2005, is which in Hebrew-calendar count is 5766 (the 766th year of the sixth thousand).

Similarly, the above first letter may be perceived as implying the sixth thousand, and the other three letters give the year 707 (of the sixth thousand)— in other words, a Hebrew calendar year of 5707.

Employing the Hebrew Date Converter (http:// www.hebcal.com/ converter), one finds this year to correspond to the year 1946.

On October 16, 1946, newspapers world over notified their readers that ten Nazi criminals were hanged after being indicted in the famous Nuremberg trials.

Were only ten charged?

Not at all. In the Nuremberg trials, twenty-three Nazi war criminals were charged. Whose verdict was it to go to the gallows? The New York Times headline, in a late city edition from that day, tells it all:

“Goering Ends Life By Poison, 10 Others Hanged In Nuremberg Prison For Nazi War Crimes; Doomed Men On Gallows Pray For Germany.”

Out of twenty-three charged, eleven had a verdict to be executed on the gallows. However, two hours prior to execution time, Nazi criminal Goering succeeded in committing suicide. This brought down the number of men hanged to exactly ten, in the year 1946, Hebrew date [picture here]

Haim Shore (2012-12-11). Coincidences in the Bible and in Biblical Hebrew (Kindle Locations 6313-6273). iUniverse. Kindle Edition.

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