Outlook

Our enjoyment at Haman’s downfall has to do not only with its suddenness but with the way that he acts as his own worst enemy. When Haman first becomes aware of Mordechai’s refusal to bow down to him he retains enough composure to realize that it is beneath the dignity of the senior public official in the world’s dominant empire to respond publicly to the insults of a solitary Jew. He restrains himself and instead enlists King Achashveirosh in a plan to wipe out all the Jews of the vast Persian Empire.

Haman’s charge against the Jewish People is that they threaten Achashveirosh’s goal of creating a unified Persian Empire out of many disparate peoples. (Here I’m following Rabbi David Fohrman’s The Queen You Never Knew.) A nation is defined by its homeland and laws and yet the Jewish People refuse to acknowledge that they are no longer a nation by virtue of their loss of land. They retain their own laws as if they were still a nation despite being dispersed and scattered throughout the empire. Such a determined people Haman insinuates will always remain a threat to Achashveirosh’s grand plans.

Yet after leaving the first banquet in high spirits Haman is completely deflated by the sight of Mordechai sitting in the king’s gate and still refusing to acknowledge him in any way. He returns home fairly ranting to his own family about his wealth and numerous children all of which he pronounces worthless as long as Mordechai continue to ignore him. Only when his wife suggests building a gallows fifty cubits high does he regain a measure of composure.

By following Zeresh’s advice he has now done what he initially recognized to be beneath his dignity: He has personalized his dispute with Mordechai. Even within that framework he acts impetuously. Rather than waiting for the morning to seek Achashveirosh’s permission to hang Mordechai as Zeresh advised he hastens there in the middle of the night just as the sleepless king is learning from the royal chronicles of the great good done for him by Mordechai for which the latter was never properly recompensed.