According to rabbinic tradition, the holiday of Purim, which began yesterday evening, is a celebration not only of the salvation of Persian Jewry from the wicked designs of the courtier Haman, but also of the contemporaneous Jewish reaffirmation of the Covenant under the leadership of Ezra. With this in mind, Rachel Friedman examines the book of Esther’s frequent use of the word dat—which in modern Hebrew means “religion” but in the Bible is usually translated as “law” or “custom.”

The book of Esther centers on the action and intrigue at the royal court of King Ahasuerus in the Persian capital of Shushan (Susa), repeatedly calling attention to its silliness and eccentricities. Nowhere does the Persian court appear more ridiculous than in its use of dat—a Persian loanword denoting a decree, edict, or commission—to create rules and legalisms that center on frivolity, whim, and individual excess. The opening feast follows the dat that there is no restriction on drinking: “Drinking was by ordinance without restraint, for the king had given orders to all the officials of his palace to do as each one desired.”

The frivolous nature of Persian dat is also reflected in the royal decree that the king enacts when Queen Vashti refuses to appear before him to display her beauty to the guests at his royal banquet. The author, poking fun at a drunken king who attempts to solve a personal problem through dat—or law of the land—describes how Ahasuerus turns to his legal consultants for advice in dealing with Vashti’s conduct.

To the rabbis, the dat of the royal Persian court—a whimsical and loose system of arbitrary royal decrees—stood in sharp contrast to Torah law—a just, comprehensive, and definitive legal system given by God, the universal King, to the nation of Israel at Sinai. Far from being driven by personal human agendas like the Persian dat, the Torah defined Jewish peoplehood and religion. And far from being manipulable and changeable at the whim of a human king, . . . the Torah is the eternal law of the divine King.

Thus, to the rabbis the essence of the story of Purim was the reacceptance of divine dat.

Last week, Jordanian police arrested sixteen members of the country’s branch of the Muslim Brotherhood for acquiring explosives, trying to manufacture drones, and planning rocket attacks. The cell was likely working in coordination with Hamas (the Palestinian offshoot of the Brotherhood) and Hizballah, and perhaps receiving funding from Iran. Ghaith al-Omari provides some background:

The Brotherhood has been active in Jordan since the 1940s, and its relations with the government remained largely cooperative for decades even as other political parties were banned in the 1950s. In exchange, the Brotherhood usually (but not always) supported the palace’s foreign policy and security measures, particularly against Communist and socialist parties.

Relations became more adversarial near the turn of the century after the Brotherhood vociferously opposed the 1994 peace treaty with Israel. The Arab Spring movement that emerged in 2011 saw further deterioration. Unlike other states in the region, however, Jordan did not completely crack down on the MB, instead seeking to limit its influence.

Yet the current Gaza war has seen another escalation, with the MB repeatedly accusing the government of cooperating with Israel and not doing enough to support the Palestinians.

Jordanian security circles are particularly worried about the MB’s vocal wartime identification with Hamas, an organization that was considered such a grave security threat that it was expelled from the kingdom in 1999. The sentiment among many Jordanian officials is that the previous lenient approach failed to change the MB’s behavior, emboldening the group instead.