So Haman took the garb and the horse and arrayed Mordechai and paraded him through the city square; and he proclaimed before him: ‘This is what is done for the man whom the king desires to honor!’ (Esther 6:11)

Rembrandt’s etching of the triumphal procession of Mordechai depicts Mordechai in full majestic regalia holding the royal scepter. His serene facial expression contrasts with Haman’s, which is fraught with tension. The people prostrate themselves and offer tribute to the man of honor while the king and queen observe the procession from the royal balcony.

The Book of Esther is a story of reversal of fortune. This recurrent theme surfaces at various points in the plot. One particularly striking example concerns the exploits of Mordechai and Haman.

The Bible identifies Mordechai and Haman as scions of Israel and Amalek, respectively.  Mordechai is a relative of Saul, King of Israel, and Haman of Agag, king of the tribe of Amalek.

It may be recalled that Saul was commanded to eradicate the Amalekites (1 Samuel 15). He wipes out the tribe, but spares their king Agag. Mordechai, identified as the descendant of Saul’s father Kish, finds himself on the stage of history opposite his archenemy Haman the Agagite.  The showdown is about to begin again.

Haman’s good fortune seems clear:

King Ahasuerus promoted Haman son of Hamedatha the Agagite; he advanced him and seated him higher than any of his fellow officials. All the king’s courtiers in the palace gate knelt and bowed low to Haman, for such was the king’s order concerning him (3:1-2)

There is but one small snag; Mordechai’s intransigence.

But Mordecai would not kneel or bow low. When Haman saw that Mordechai would not kneel or bow low to him Haman was filled with rage. But he disdained to lay hands on Mordechai alone; having been told who Mordechai’s people were, Haman plotted to do away with all the Jews, Mordecai’s people, throughout the kingdom of Ahasuerus. (3:5-6)

Why was it that instead of responding to Mordechai’s insubordination with a personal punishment, after learning that Mordechai was Jewish – ‘For he had explained to them that he was a Jew’ (3:4) – Haman attempted a Final Solution?

What might serve to explain the intensity of this disproportionate reaction? The simple reason may relate to old enmities. Haman resolved to take this opportunity to win the battle of his Amalekite ancestors of centuries earlier and to restore their lost dignity. However, in his presentation to Ahasuerus he plays a different tune:

There is a certain people, scattered and dispersed among the other peoples in all the provinces of your realm, whose laws are different from those of any other people and who do not obey the king’s laws; and it is not in Your Majesty’s interest to tolerate them. If it please Your Majesty, let an edict be drawn for their destruction and I will pay ten thousand talents of silver to the stewards for deposit in the royal treasury. (3:8-9)

The xenophobic description of Haman’s anti-Semitism is echoed throughout history. Joshua Trachtenberg describes the identical phenomenon in the Middle Ages:

Why are Jews so cordially hated – and feared? By what mysterious legerdemain can a weak, defenseless minority be invested in the public eye with the awesome attributes of omnipotence? How is it that men believe of the Jews what common sense would forbid them to believe of anyone else…There can be but one answer: people believe such things because they want to believe them. They are predisposed to accept any and all accusations, irrespective of objective merit, that fit into their preconceived notion of the Jew. The specific charges are nothing more than rationalizations of an underlying animus…What is the real meaning of the charges leveled against the Jew? Whether as international Communist or international capitalist, and all the more as the two in one, he is the archenemy of Western civilization. He is alien, not to this or that land, but to all Western society, alien in his habits, his pursuits, his interests, his character, his very blood. Wherever he lives he is a creature apart. He is the arch-degenerate of the world, infecting its literature, its art, its music, its politics and economics with the subtle poison of his insidious influence, ripping out its moral foundation stone by stone until it will collapse helpless in his hands. This is his final goal: to conquer the world, to refashion it in his own craven image, enslave it to his own alien ends.

The nations of the world can never accept the Jewish desire to keep from assimilating and to maintain a separate identity. They are viewed askance: ‘They are a people that dwells apart, not reckoned among the nations.’ (Numbers  23:9). Unaware that their actions are a solemn expression of their religious commitment and in accordance with a spiritual mission, the nations see only separatism, and respond with hatred and violence. To this very day, this tension has not been resolved.

But fortunes were reversed and Haman’s plans were foiled. It was not Mordechai’s civil disobedience, which was recorded, in the royal ledger. It was his civil service, having foiled the plot to kill the king. The reward was that Haman was forced to bestow honor upon Mordechai, parading him in royal garb through the streets of Shushan declaring: ‘This is what is done for the man whom the king desires to honor!’

And indeed, this was the man the king desired to honor. Not merely the earthly king but the Heavenly King, the Master of the Universe desired to honor Mordechai. He not only vanquished his implacable enemy and replaced him in Ahasuerus’ court; he was selected for posterity as the symbol of the triumph of Israel over Amalek, of good over evil, of light over darkness.