Law and order prevailed in the capital of Shushan, and Haman
sought a libel against the Jews that is strangely parallel to
these times in our own country where judicial law prevails.
"There is one nation, dispersed and disparate among the
nations... And they do not keep the statutes of the king..."
This was the rationale which Haman presented to Achashverosh
as grounds to issue the decree of annihilation against them.
Haman was a man of proper procedure. He would not dream of a
wild genocide, nothing that smacked of arbitrary martial law,
but an edict passed by His Majesty, himself. Everything
according to legislative order and detailed clauses.
"It shall be written to destroy them," he suggested to the
king. Something similar to a bill that must first pass three
readings and an unchallenged legal vote. And after the king
grants his permission, all the necessary formal steps are
taken. The king's scribes are summoned and they record the
legal promulgation to the pashas ruling each respective
province, to the ministers of each and every people, all duly
recorded and sealed by the king's signet ring. Haman is a man
of impeccable decorum and formality. He does not risk any
legal loophole that will threaten him legally at some future
time. He wants to remain on the safe side of the supreme
court, and not risk the judges claiming that he violated some
fundamental principle of a state of law and correct
procedure.
"And the edict was given in Shushan." Rashi says: "The
location of the king was where the law was issued." In other
words, law prevailed in every area, lest someone come and try
to undermine it through a court procedure. If we study to
what extent Haman showed a sensitivity to legalities and how
meticulous he was in executing every clause, the conclusion
is clear, that if he had been the attorney general, it would
have been impossible for his decision to be nullified by any
judge. His edict was airtight, flawless, devoid of loopholes
or errors that would not stand up to the hard and fast
principles of the State of legal procedure. He was fully
covered and safe.
The royal couriers went out in haste. Everything was signed
and sealed with the king's signet ring. Haman was exceedingly
efficient and organized; he anticipated every detail and was
always careful to have royal approval. "The copy of the
writing to be given out as a law in every province, was
published to all the peoples." Perhaps he had a premonition
that a day would come when he would be challenged for that
programmed genocide campaign, and then he would be able to
prove to all how punctilious he had been to the letter of the
law. Haman may have been arrogant and ambitious, but you
could not catch him doing something not perfectly legal and
proper. The Megilla notes this and states, "...for
thus did the king command him." Which proves that he would
not have risked anything without royal sanction.
*
"A State of Law" remark all the statesmen and historians with
reference to Achashverosh's system of rule. A model of
structured government based purely on law, with no flimsy
loopholes or clauses. No minister or executive would dare
lift a finger without making sure that all legal aspects were
in order.
Let us examine what exactly Mordechai did here and how he
began weaving his plan of action to save his people. "And
Mordechai knew everything that was going on," we are told.
Therefore, "He donned sackcloth and ashes and went forth in
the city and shouted a great and bitter cry. And he came up
to the gate of the king, for one must not come to the king's
gate in sackcloth."
What is the significance of this irregular show of sorrow? In
our modern world, he would be blasted with all kinds of
abusive names. "Diaspora tactics", the experts on Kol Yisrael
Radio would call it. "Archaic demonstrativity," the people of
the Hebrew Academy would term it. "The Middle Ages are upon
us again, with all of their ugliness!" the Left would say as
they presented a no-confidence motion against the government,
perhaps also demanding the establishment of an investigating
committee. And all the legal commentators of the radio
stations would raise the question, "Should we not consider
Mordechai's expulsion from the country?"
But the Megilla tells us: "And Mordechai knew." Not
only did he know, as Rashi explains, but, "He was told in a
dream that Heaven sanctioned [the decree] since the Jews had
bowed to the statue in the times of Nevuchadnezzar and had
joyfully partaken of the feast of Achashverosh." He also
knew, however, that this was a government of law, that
everything was done under the cover of legal procedure. If,
however, this is what happened in a country which transformed
the law from a means to an end, and the legal procedure
became an end in itself, something to be worshiped as
inviolate, it was necessary to first attack this point,
fearlessly and without hesitation. Even more: this would be
the very cornerstone of the rescue effort of his people.
This is why the Megilla tells us that "one must not
come to the king's gate in sackcloth." This negates royal
protocol; it is inconsonant with the law, says Rashi. The Ibn
Ezra goes one step further and explains that "This is abusive
to royalty." Logic would dictate an altogether different
tactic. If there is such a terrible decree issued by the
king, how can Mordechai dream of taking a step that not only
shows a lack of respect for the king, but is downright
degrading to him?
But we must not forget that we are dealing with a state based
on proper law. The decree to "destroy, kill and annihilate
all the Jews" was issued under legal cover. In such a
situation, if he acts according to the law, he is an
accomplice to the idolatrous fallacy that law is a goal unto
itself, something to be worshiped for its own sake and that
legal procedure is something above life, itself. Yechezkel
Hanovi exhorts and says, "And the sons rebelled against Me;
they did not walk in My statutes and did not heed My
ordinances to do them, which man should practice in order to
live by them." Chazal say (Yoma 85:), "To live by them
— and not to die through them." The novi
continues, "And I, too, have given them laws that are not
good, and statutes by which they will not be able to live..."
Radak explains there, "Since they despised My laws, I
delivered them into their enemies' hands that they should
pass harsh statutes against them, not like My statutes which
would have been good for them if they had followed them...
And laws by which they cannot live — their enemies will
impose laws and decrees upon them which will cause them to
die."
This came about, says Rashi, because they worshiped
Nevuchadnezzar's statue and partook of Achashverosh's feast.
This sin of abandoning Hashem's laws brought about this
terrible decree in the form of flawless law which could stand
up to all norms and codes. But it is as the Radak states:
"That their enemies will impose laws and decrees upon them by
which they will be unable to exist, but would die through
them." In such a situation, in defying such a state where
proper legal procedure prevails, one must not show the proper
diplomatic courtesy and exhibit respect for the law, but on
the contrary, one must come in sackcloth and ashes to express
defiance to the king and to abuse the law of such a land.
*
In the sharp interchange that takes place next, through
Hasoch, between Mordechai and Esther, this question occupies
central position. Mordechai is a godol beYisroel,
third in importance to the ministers who came with Zerubovel
(Ibn Ezra). He is capable of getting to the essence of the
mystery of these events and grasps precisely the why's and
wherefore's of Esther's attaining her present position. "Who
knows if it was not for this very time [and purpose] that you
reached royalty?"
When Esther's maidservants come and tell her that Mordechai
is walking about in sackcloth and crying out bitterly by the
king's gate, she is greatly dismayed. Such a thing? To thus
flout the laws and mores of the land? Her first act is to
"send clothing to dress Mordechai and to remove his sackcloth
from him." But the Megilla tells us that he refused to
don them. Only then did Esther realize that Mordechai
understood perfectly the implications of his deed. At this
point she sends Hasoch to find out what the meaning is of his
action. Mordechai then informs her of the terrible decree and
all of its details.
The argument in principle continues. Mordechai demands that
she pursue his mode of action, to flout accepted custom,
since this is the tactic required in battling a state in
which `law' prevails. Not only must one not honor such laws;
one must defy them, disregarding all personal risk, for this
is the only avenue of true deliverance. Mordechai demands
that she "go before the king" while she maintains that "every
man and woman who goes before the king unsummoned... is
slated for death." Mordechai persists that she go and not be
deterred by the danger, for if not, she and her father's
house will perish. Precisely by ignoring this unconventional
mode of action will she be sealing her doom.
Esther now finally understands the crux of the matter and
asks that not only he, but all of the Jews, back her up. She
realizes that her only recourse is "to thus come before the
king shelo kados, against accepted procedure." I, like
you and all of Jewry, must defy the law and custom of the
land. We must protest, even though the `media' declare this
an illegal demonstration or some celebrated judicial expert
declare this unlawful, that such violation has never before
been perpetrated in all the history of Achashverosh's
rule.
*
"Bad statutes and laws they did not have" is not merely a
monopoly of gentiles against Jews. It can also happen in a
Jewish state that has rejected the laws of the Torah and
constantly waves the banner of its own defiance and worships
its own `rule of law', when this law becomes an end rather
than a means and supersedes even the sanctity of life
itself.
We are more than sixty years after the horrendous days of the
European Nazi Holocaust. We must remember, and never forget,
that the Germans first prepared a very punctilious code of
laws. No Jew was killed wantonly without full coverage of
law. The world powers that are also guilty for the Jewish
blood that was split during the Second World War had plenty
of legal reasons for not intervening and not saving lives. To
our great disgrace, there were also Jewish national
institutions that rejected appeals to demand that the world
powers change their policies and divert some of their war
effort to saving Jewish lives — because this idea was
in direct opposition to their idolatrous worship of a `state
based on law'. This is law? This is order? This kind of law
and order does not protect people, as it is meant to do; it
leads to death!
When it is necessary to save, one can defy the law and negate
order. One must ignore accepted custom and protocol. Haman is
hanged on the gallows in a moment of the king's anger,
without judicial procedure; beheading the antisemite is a
vital act. In our modern society, a court injunction would
have been issued and an investigating committee would have
been appointed for an act committed without due process of
law in the king's garden!
