In a recently published work, Seymour Epstein offers a radical reinterpretation of Esther—the biblical scroll (megillah) read in synagogues tonight to mark the holiday of Purim. The book, he suggests, is in fact a critique of its ostensible heroes. In Epstein’s understanding, Mordechai and Esther, having passed up the opportunity to return to the Land of Israel with other Jewish exiles, are portrayed as representing the confusion and vulnerability of life in the Diaspora. In her review, Sarah Rindner summarizes his case:

In Epstein’s reading, every moment of triumph in the megillah becomes a further indictment of the Diaspora. Epstein laments that Mordechai allows Esther to be [married to] a non-Jewish king instead of protecting his niece and her Jewish identity. Esther, too, is criticized for her failure to discern, independent of her uncle’s advice, the seriousness of the verdict against the Jews while sequestered in the king’s harem, and consequently for failing to stand up for her people herself in the face of adversity. Indeed, Epstein reads the entire book as a denunciation of the inevitable moral and spiritual compromises required by life in the Diaspora. . . . For Epstein, the megillah depicts the cycle of passivity and overreaction that is endemic to the Diaspora.

While Rindner finds much that is compelling in what Epstein has to say, she is ultimately unconvinced:

[A] midrash in the medieval anthology Yalkut Shimoni states that in the messianic era, all Jewish holidays will be nullified except for Purim, and then it adds Yom Kippur to the shortlist as well. . . . Perhaps the rabbis understood that, in a messianic era characterized by an overwhelming sense of security and spiritual well-being, [Jews] will lack the sort of heroic potential that is only possible in an environment where redemption is distant. The Diaspora of the megillah, in which God seems to have been replaced by a capricious tyrant, is the ultimate description of that reality.

[For] Epstein, Diaspora life is a joke when we consider the depth and integrity of Jewish life under independent political sovereignty. It is hard to disagree entirely. But perhaps one needs to experience the darkness of Shushan to grasp the infinite reach of divine providence. In their subtle appreciation of the megillah and the enduring significance of Purim, perhaps the rabbis have the last laugh.

While it is commendable that administrators of several universities finally called upon police to crack down on violent and disruptive anti-Israel protests, the actions they have taken may be insufficient. At Columbia, demonstrators reestablished their encampment on the main quad after it had been cleared by the police, and the university seems reluctant to use force again. The school also decided to hold classes remotely until the end of the semester. Such moves, whatever their merits, do nothing to fix the factors that allowed campuses to become hotbeds of pro-Hamas activism in the first place. The editors of National Review examine how things go to this point:

Since the 10/7 massacre, Columbia’s Jewish students have been forced to endure routine calls for their execution. It shouldn’t have taken the slaughter, rape, and brutalization of Israeli Jews to expose chants like “Globalize the intifada” and “Death to the Zionist state” as calls for violence, but the university refused to intervene on behalf of its besieged students. When an Israeli student was beaten with a stick outside Columbia’s library, it occasioned little soul-searching from faculty. Indeed, it served only as the impetus to establish an “Anti-Semitism Task Force,” which subsequently expressed “serious concerns” about the university’s commitment to enforcing its codes of conduct against anti-Semitic violators.

But little was done. Indeed, as late as last month the school served as host to speakers who praised the 10/7 attacks and even “hijacking airplanes” as “important tactics that the Palestinian resistance have engaged in.”

The school’s lackadaisical approach created a permission structure to menace and harass Jewish students, and that’s what happened. . . . Now is the time finally to do something about this kind of harassment and associated acts of trespass and disorder. Yale did the right thing when police cleared out an encampment [on Monday]. But Columbia remains a daily reminder of what happens when freaks and haters are allowed to impose their will on campus.