|
The Story of Purim
One month before Pesach (Passover) is the Rabbinacal Holiday called Purim.
| The story of Purim takes place shortly after the destruction of the first Temple which was located adjacent to the Wailing Wall in Jerusalem. Mordechai and the beautiful Esther were now living in the capital of the King Ahasuerus, King of Persia.
|
|
Ahasuerus was having a party and he invited all the people to come and celebrate with him. The reason for the party was what he thought to be the cancellation of the prophecy of Jeremiah, saying that the Jewish people will be redeemed in 70 years. In short, he miss counted. Ahasuerus was seriously drunk and wanted his queen to come wearing only the crown to the party. She would have gladly come if not for G-d giving her leprosy dimensioning her once beautiful appearance.
The King was furious but what should he do? Now comes Hamen (don't forget to stamp you feet when you hear his name). He is the born evil Jew hater know as Amalek. He advises the king to kill the queen for the betterment of the kingdom. If he didn't make an example of this wife, women disobedience then every man will loose his kingdom in his own home. The king takes the advice and the queen is killed.
Now after the king sobers form the alcohol he finds himself with out a wife. Again the same Haman comes up with advice to help the king and the kingdom. The advice is to take all the prettiest girls in all the countries and for the king to pick a bride from one of them. After the king has 'interviewed' the potential bride she is left in a state of waiting until the king will call again.
King Ahasuerus loved Esther more than his other women and made Esther queen, but the king did not know that Esther was a Jew, because Mordecai told her not to reveal her identity. She was seeded in the court of the king by G-d, later to become the one who but her life on the line to save the Jewish people.
As it will be with Jew haters they are not satisfied with all that they have no matter how successful they are in their life. Their need is destruction of the Jewish people and that means more then all they have. (Haman said this) Haman hated Mordecai because Mordecai refused to bow down to Haman, so Haman plotted to destroy the Jewish people. In a speech that is all too familiar to Jews, Haman told the king, "There is a certain people scattered abroad and dispersed among the peoples in all the provinces of your realm. Their laws are different from those of every other people's, and they do not observe the king's laws; therefore it is not befitting the king to tolerate them." Esther 3:8. The king gave the fate of the Jewish people to Haman, to do as he pleased to them. Haman planned to exterminate all of the Jews.
Mordecai persuaded Esther to speak to the king on behalf of the Jewish people. This was a dangerous thing for Esther to do, because anyone who came into the king's presence without being summoned could be put to death, and she had not been summoned. Esther fasted for three days to prepare herself, then went into the king. He welcomed her. Later, she told him of Haman's plot against her people. The Jewish people were saved, and Haman was hanged on the gallows that had been prepared for Mordecai
|
