The biblical book of Esther culminates in the mass revenge by Persian Jews on the anti-Semites who were planning to slay them in accordance with Haman’s plans. To many modern readers, this description of a two-day orgy of violence is a source of discomfort or even embarrassment, with some synagogues omitting the passage from the public reading of Esther on the holiday of Purim. Yoram Hazony, however, argues that this segment of the book conveys a powerful lesson about the difficult moral territory that must be navigated by those in positions of political power:
Some have suggested that [the Jews’ leader], Mordecai, . . . had the option of restraining the fury of the promised Jewish onslaught: there was no longer much question of a real anti-Semitic assault, and if he feared there would be an anti-Semitic resurgence should he relent, he could have opted just to arrest or execute a few hundred gang leaders across the empire. Would this not have sufficed? Mordecai obviously did not believe such a minimalist response would have been enough, and his decisions are straight out of Machiavelli’s textbook of power politics. . . .
[According to Machiavelli], a minimalistic response to a genuine threat all but ensures two undesired consequences, both of them deadly. First, the defeated enemy will nurture the hope of revenge, and continues to be an active threat as he seeks an opportunity to reassert his challenge. Second, the mildness of the response encourages others to take advantage of what can be perceived as hesitancy or weakness on the part of the ruler. The only hope to avoid future outrages is thus the assertion of overwhelming power in the first instance. . . .
The trouble . . . for the contemporary reader is that today we are not supposed to permit ourselves any kind of pride or satisfaction over a victory that involves wholesale bloodshed, even if we do recognize it as having been necessary. . . . Among Jews, such disregard for power and force is always strongly present. It was the prophets of Israel who introduced into the world the ideal of an end to violence among nations, with Isaiah calling for swords and spears to be beaten into agricultural implements, and Jeremiah going so far as to call for a “new covenant” to be instilled in every breast at birth, so that men should no longer desire iniquity. . . . Yet the narrative [of Esther] is unambiguous in making the power and control that the Jews consolidated in the fighting a cause for celebration—and one of the book’s central moral themes.
More about: Biblical Politics, Esther, Morality, Nicolo Machiavelli, Purim, Religion & Holidays, War
