Purim Torah Rings True

There are some perplexing questions on the Megillah which perhaps may be explained by putting together various passages of Gemara.

(1) Why did Esther invite Haman to the party with Achashveirosh?

(2) In Esther’s plea to Achashveirosh at her final party, she says that if the enemy would have sufficed with treating her nation like slaves then she would be silent. Why should she concede this point? Who even brought up this possibility?

(3) Why does Achashveirosh feign ignorance to Esther by stating: “Who is this, and who is he”? Is it not obvious that there is only one nation under threat of annihilation?

(4) Also, what is the need for the repetitive phrase “Who is this and who is he?”

(5) When identifying the perpetrator to Achashveirosh, why does Esther add a description–“An adversary and an enemy, this evil Haman”? Why didn’t she simply say, “It is Haman”?

The Gemara in Megillah (12a) records an interesting back-and-forth between R’ Shimon bar Yochai and his students. The disciples asked: “Why did the Jewish people of that generation deserve extermination?” He said to them: “You say [the reason].” They said to him: “Because they derived pleasure from the feast of that wicked one [Achashveirosh].” If so, only the Jews of Shushan should have been ordered to be killed, but not the Jews of the rest of the world. They [disciples] said to him [R’ Shimon bar Yochai]: “You tell us the reason.” He said to them: “Because they prostrated themselves to an image [Rashi: in the days of Nevuchadnetzar].” They said to him: “Should favoritism be shown in such a case?” Why weren’t the Jews ultimately punished? He said to them: “The Jews prostrated only outwardly [Rashi: out of fear].” They did not really intend to serve the idol. Similarly, G-d dealt with them only outwardly [to frighten them into repenting].

In fact, the Jewish nation did repent in response to the decree. The Gemara says in Megillah 14a: “Greater (i.e. more poignant) was the removal of the ring (from Achashveirosh to Haman) than (all of the pleading and prodding of) 48 prophets and 7 prophetesses, for all of the prophets and prophetesses could not awaken the Jews to repent but the removal of the ring (jolted them to) return to the proper path.”

The Gemara (Gittin 57b) says that Na’aman (commander of the armies of Aram) became a ger toshav; Nevuzaradan became a ger tzedek; Haman’s descendants learned Torah in Bnei Brak; Sisera’s descendants taught children in Yerushalayim; and Sancheriv’s descendants taught Torah publicly. The Ein Yaakov in Sanhedrin identifies the sage who descended from Haman as Rav Shmuel bar Shilas.

Why did Haman merit to have such an illustrious descendant? Rav Yaakov Kamenetsky explains that Haman unintentionally caused a great manifestation of kiddush Hashem. Every year, because of Haman, people would discuss the miracles Hashem performed by saving Klal Yisrael from his evil plots. The archenemy of Klal Yisrael in no way desired to cause any benefit to Klal Yisrael. Yet, since he unintentionally caused such a great kiddush Hashem, he merited having such wonderful descendants. Hashem does not withhold anyone’s reward–even if the reward is for an unintended and unwanted consequence.

Returning to the questions we started with, Haman realized that Esther was Jewish. At the party he was afraid for his life. He claimed that he did not really want his evil decree carried out; he only wanted to spur the Jewish nation to do teshuvah. (In fact, as the Gemara explained in Megillah, that was exactly Hashem’s plan.) He further claimed as proof of his intent that he had already returned the ring to the king.

Esther tells the king, “It is not true; Haman really wants to kills us. If he just wanted to scare us and belittle us, like slaves, I would have been silent. But he really wants to annihilate my people.”

Achashveirosh replied, “But he says he returned the ring!” Rabba says in Bava Basra (45a) that if an item is borrowed without witnesses present, the borrower does not need to return it with witnesses present. The borrower may claim any time that he returned it. So Achashveirosh says, “Who are these two witnesses that have seen me giving the ring to Haman? If there are indeed two witnesses, Haman would not be believed to say he returned it to me.”

Esther retorted that the rule that a person is believed with a claim of “I returned the item” is only regarding an individual who is presumed honest. Haman is an accomplished thief and liar. He is an evil adversary and enemy. He is not to be believed when he says he returned the ring. At this point, Haman became so frightened that he inadvertently showed that he really had the ring. Whereupon, Esther pointed it out to Achashveirosh. “Look at Haman–he has the ring.” (She was hoping this would occur, which is why she invited him to the party.) Now, Achashveirosh was forced to side with Esther.

(Admittedly, some elements of this answer are based on alternative facts.)

And the rest is history.