The Right to Self-Defense – For One Day Only[1]
According to Megillat Esther, even after Haman was hanged, Esther was not at ease. The decrees he had issued remained in force, and the danger hanging over the Jews had already been set in motion through the imperial bureaucracy, liable to be carried out with the full efficiency of the empire. Queen Esther’s bold attempt “to revoke the letters devised by Haman…” (Esther 8:5) and to erase the evil decree as though it had never existed – failed.
Despite once again entering the king’s inner court at the risk of her life, Ahasuerus explained to her what lay beyond a request for “half the kingdom” (5:3, 6; 7:2): “For a decree written in the king’s name and sealed with the king’s signet ring may not be revoked” (8:8). In other words, one cannot govern a vast empire of 127 provinces if every Persian satrap and local leader believes that royal edicts can simply be rescinded; if so, no difficult order would ever be implemented.
Ahasuerus’ solution was characteristic of him and of the “kingdom of the ring” – removing responsibility from himself: “You may write concerning the Jews as you see fit, in the king’s name, and seal it with the king’s signet ring” (8:8). From this unusual situation emerged the idea of a state-sanctioned legal right of Jewish self-defense against rioters and pogroms: “The king has permitted the Jews of every city to assemble and fight for their lives; if any people or province attacks them, they may destroy, massacre, and exterminate its armed force… in one day…” (8:11–12).
The edict was formulated in precisely the same terrible language as the decree of annihilation, and it permitted the Jews only to defend themselves against their enemies on that single day when their enemies had been authorized to set upon and destroy them. The regime chose to remove itself from the situation and suspend imperial law with respect to the Jews for one day: the enemies of the Jews would be permitted to destroy, slay, and annihilate them; and the Jews would be permitted to defend themselves – even to destroy, slay, and annihilate “those who attacked them,” and only them. The law would not intervene on either side that day.
Haman’s decree authorized only the rioters to destroy and kill; the letters of Mordechai and Esther created parity between the sides, for the Jews were permitted to defend themselves – not to initiate attack, but only to strike those who organized to attack them. It appears that for the Jews, this was enough to achieve a decisive victory.
Divine Concealment and the Destruction of Diaspora Jewry
From the days of the Roman legions in the Land of Israel to the riots and pogroms in Eastern Europe in more recent years, the same method repeatedly prevailed: the authorities would withdraw from the scene for a day or for several days, and the rioters would vent their fury upon the Jews.
The overwhelming majority of massacres and pogroms throughout the generations were not initiated or carried out by the ruling powers themselves; rather, the authorities simply removed themselves and gave the rioters a free hand – explicitly or through clear hints. One element of the miracle of the Scroll of Esther almost never recurred: even Jews who were close to the authorities generally did not secure for their people a legal right to defend themselves against their enemies.
All this continued until the Nazi Haman arose and began personally to implement – with the full force of state power and notorious German efficiency – “the scheme of Haman son of Hammedatha the Agagite, who had written to destroy the Jews in all the king’s provinces” (Esther 8:5): “to destroy, massacre, and exterminate all the Jews, young and old, children and women…” (3:13) – not for a single day, but for many long years.
This was, in effect, the destruction of Diaspora Jewry: the systematic and comprehensive annihilation of one-third of the Jewish people, and of all the Jews who had lived in villages and small towns across Europe. After the Holocaust, Jewish communities remained only in large and medium-sized cities.
Following the sweeping destruction of Jews throughout Europe – from Russia and Lithuania through Poland, Czechoslovakia, and Germany to France – only Hungary remained outside direct German control until nearly the end of the war. Hungary was occupied on March 19, 1944. After Passover of that year, the train transports began, carrying Jews from villages, cities, and towns to their destruction at the terrible pace of ten thousand people per day – until the cooperation of the Hungarian police ceased, and the Holocaust was halted at the gates of Budapest. The murders continued, but a large portion of Budapest’s Jews were saved.
Thus a historic transformation in Jewish life concluded: there were no longer Jewish communities spread throughout any land in villages and small towns – except in the Land of Israel. Diaspora communities remained only in large and medium-sized cities (and were undergoing accelerated processes of assimilation).
Moreover, the Jewish Diaspora – from Babylonia to Europe – possessed a Jewish language (Judeo-Arabic, Ladino, or Yiddish) and an autonomous Jewish culture under the patronage of kings, emperors, caliphs, and heads of state. After the Holocaust, however, the Jews who remained throughout the world became full citizens integrated into the cultures of their cities and countries (with high rates of assimilation).
The Holocaust thus brought about the destruction of the autonomous Jewish Diaspora, and Holocaust Remembrance Day stands as the opposite of Purim – which had marked the salvation of the Diaspora.
In truth, the Jewish exile had begun to disintegrate long before, with the winds of emancipation; yet it was utterly destroyed in the Holocaust – the third destruction in the history of the Jewish people.
Once the internal justification for survival and deliverance in exile was lost, the Jewish Diaspora no longer retained a right to exist. No political advocacy and no “Queen Esther” could influence the Nazi Haman or restrain him.
From this reality also emerged the dramatic decision of the United Nations. The establishment of a Jewish state in the Land of Israel signifies, first and foremost, a legal right for Jews to defend themselves under international law – not for a single day, but permanently.
Within the Zionist movement and the institutions of the Yishuv in the Land of Israel, the “state-in-the-making” had already been a living reality even before the Holocaust, within the framework of the “national home” recognized by the League of Nations in accordance with the Balfour Declaration. The Holocaust, therefore, did not bring about the establishment of the state. However, international recognition of an independent Jewish state possessing its own military force tragically matured only in the wake of the Holocaust.
Yom HaAtzmaut – Israeli Independence Day – has taken the place of Purim as the festival of deliverance and departure from exile. On Purim, we are left to read the Scroll of Exile and to remember the divine concealment that characterizes the “scroll of reversal” and the Diaspora as a whole – the Name of God is not mentioned in the Scroll at all; there is no prayer, nor any explicit expression of sanctity.
[Of course, most important of all is to increase our gifts to the poor, who look to this day with hope.]
The reading of the Book of Esther teaches us that, according to the logic of the Scroll itself, its historical role has been completed. We will no longer remain silent even if “we are sold only into slavery,” and our legal right to stand for our lives is not limited to a single day.
We return from Purim to Passover, taking from the miracle of Purim the legal right to stand for our lives – but as a permanent condition. We leave behind Diaspora lands of wandering and exile and bring about the miracle of the ingathering of exiles[2] in the State that gathers them in, in the Land of Israel.
[1] An excerpted summary from my book Zakhor ve-Shamor – Teva ve-Historia Nifgashim be-Shabbat u-ve-Lu’aḥ ha-Ḥagim (full-text available online at https://www.sefaria.org.il/Zakhor_VeShamor).
[2] See my book Nes Kibbutz Galuyot, Tel Aviv, 5771 (2011).
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