An Ancient Story with Current Relevance

There’s a story we tell this time of year. A mighty empire has the world under its influence, but its ruler is a fool and a simpleton, easily manipulated by perceived slights and flattery, surrounded by advisers selected for their loyalty. At the start of the story, the ruler drinks and boasts as his court of cronies egg him on.

In his nation are a population of refugees, who practice a minority religion. His most loyal adviser suspects that population of divided loyalties, and distrusts them. He writes an executive order for the ruler to sign declaring it open season on the refugees; the plan is so arbitrary that a throw of dice determines when it takes effect. The foolish ruler, not in the habit of reading, signs it. Around him, the nation begins to prepare to purge themselves of the refugees.

The members of this minority group know what is coming, and mourn their doom.

The story finds a way out of this terrible situation.

In the story, one of the refugees has a stunningly beautiful niece; the ruler is a great lover of beauty contests, and her beauty appeals to his ego. She seduces the leader and convinces him to take pity on her people. The ruler, too proud to revoke his past order, issues a new order allowing the minority population to defend itself from the bloodshed. In a satisfying twist, the evil adviser loses his position, and the uncle takes over as the new adviser.

Jews honor this heroic inversion, from that day until this, by celebrating the holiday of Purim. During the month of Adar, they sing joyful songs. They give gifts to each other, donate to the poor, and their children dress up in silly costumes. They read the story, the biblical Book of Esther, from a scroll; and they make noise to drown out the name of the evil adviser.

The adults drink heavily: so heavily, the tradition goes, that they cannot tell the difference between the evil of the evil adviser Haman and the good of the uncle Mordechai.

Before this year, I had never really understood why drinking heavily is a critical part of the ritual.

Today, though, the names “Bannon” and “Trump” fit all too well into the slots once labelled “Haman” and “Ahasuerus.” From today’s perspective, we can see that this story has no good ending. Escaping death is a start, but is certainly not enough. Everyone in the story lives in a world whose foundations are shattered: irresponsible leadership can change policy on a whim, and your potential killers are all around you.

But for the slightest of coincidences — dare we say miracles? — of a sexy niece and an overheard message, everything would collapse. Mordechai and Esther might have saved us from this particular edict, but what will be signed next?

The story resonates too well. In his first few days in office, Donald Trump signed an executive order that threw the nation’s airports and immigration services and refugee services into turmoil. Protesters and courts stopped the order, but the message was made clear: Muslims are not welcome in Trump’s America. Visa holders and permanent residents now take their own gambles on whether they will be allowed to re-enter if they leave the country. A business trip from your home, family and children might suddenly become exile.

Nor is the threat limited to Muslims. The Jewish survivors of that story see themes again today. In the week I’m writing this, a Jewish cemetery in St. Louis was vandalized, and JCCs across the country have been getting bomb threats. The president seems to go out of his way to avoid mentioning anti-Semitism, except to assure us that he, personally, has nothing against the Jewish people.

The story does not tell us what it’s like to be the adviser from a hated minority population, working for the man who signed an order to kill your people. It does not tell us what the minority population does, so close to power but so hated. (Perhaps Jared Kushner might have thoughts.)

The story ends before we learn if an empire can survive a ruler so foolish. Ahasuerus is usually thought to be the Persian emperor Xerxes I. He inherited the Persian empire at its apex, lost a needless war of expansion, and was assassinated by a general; he was the first in a line of emperors who left the once-great empire smaller then they found it.

All this happened around 450 BC. Over two thousand years later, Jews still tell the story. The most recognizable food of the holiday, the Hamantash, is parody of something about the evil adviser Haman — even if no one remember what it is that is being parodied. To get a sense for this, picture a debate in a thousand years about whether a “Cheeto” is a kind of a carrot or a type of cheese. Jews summarize the holiday with a joke (“they tried to kill us, we survived, let’s eat”), and laugh joyfully, and Purim is a time of celebration.

And we drink, as we have done for two millennia. Like the Jewish refugees in Shushan, we know we live on a crumbling foundation, and our security might be transient.

Our next steps look like those in the story, too. Like Mordechai, we will listen carefully to find opportunities where we can resist in small ways, and hope they can add up to make a real change. Like Esther, we will sometimes hold our noses in compromise in service of a greater good.