Mordecai Did Not Kneel Because the King Did Not Order It!

The Scroll of Esther is unclear in many ways. This concealed presentation of the story might have been understood at the time, but later it created a fertile ground for imaginary explanations. The traditional explanations for the story are that Esther was selected because of her beauty; Mordecai was a holy man that dared to refuse the king’s order to kneel to Haman because of his confident that the Lord will provide a miracle to save him and his people; that the king was an alcoholic drunkard, unable to make up his mind; and Haman was Anti-Semitic with a desire to kill all the Jews. Such a picture is very funny but has limited educational value and it is hard to believe that this is the purpose of the Bible. The following study will explain the story as a logical well thought gamesmanship struggle of courtiers in the king’s palace, and the wiser informed person gained the upper hand.

One of the major questions in the Book of Esther is why did Mordecai risk his life, the life of Queen Esther, and the whole Jewish nation, with his stubborn refusal to kneel before Haman. There are many explanations for Mordecai’s actions, but none of them are satisfactory. Mordecai himself knew that, in Jewish law, it was not prohibited to kneel before a man; and, indeed, the great Jewish minds refused to follow Mordecai’s action, and to establish such a religious rule. In this article, I will try to prove that Mordecai— based on his thorough knowledge of the king’s court—concluded that the order to kneel before Haman was not authorized by the king, and his refusal was designed to expose and depose Haman.

Mordecai’s goal was to save the Jews from extinction and to avoid the fate of the Ten Tribes of Israel, who were deported from Israel some hundred years earlier and assimilated and became extinct. Mordecai followed Moses guidance in his struggle to preserve his nation by bringing a disaster and then trying to avert it.

In order to understand the story, the Scroll will be used as a testimony document, using rules of legal analysis, and the theorems that appear in Rabbi Yitzchak Etshalom’s book Between the Lines of the Bible. Using these tools, the inner thoughts of the participants will be exposed, which will teach us how to analyze similar situations in our own society. The article will show that: Haman’s desire for respect usurped the king’s power, which led to his untimely demise; Esther, with the guidance of Mordecai, grew from a timid girl to a powerful queen; and Mordecai, the leader of a small nation scattered all over the kingdom, established a network of supporters and succeeded in protecting his niece, and becoming the right-hand man to the king. In the article, several possibilities will be presented without supporting evidence; nevertheless, I will prove that the participants, in these events, should have thought about, or carried out the actions, I am imagining for them.

The story developed around several orders of the king. Because I am not privy to the king’s true intentions, I will read the story very carefully. I’ll demonstrate that the king found Haman guilty of fabricating an order to kill, without actual royal authority. But, I have no way to prove directly whether the king authorized the order to kneel before Haman. Although a person’s character and habits are legally inadmissible in court, there are several exemptions to this rule when a person is operating from his usual habit­s and modus operandi. In emphasizing these exemptions, it is well documented that the story is made up of many dual related incidents that explain, and complete one another, to create a clearer picture. In order to establish that Haman was not authorized to demand that the king’s dignitaries kneel before him, as Etshalom mentioned in his lecture, I will prove the following three items:

1. Haman wished to have the king pay homage to him with a parade given in his honor;

2. Haman changed the king’s order by adding explanatory words, which contradicted the king’s intent after he’d already obtained the king’s approval;

3. Mordecai was privy to the king’s conversations. The king, with his promotion of Mordecai to his right hand man, approved of Mordecai’s being knowledgeable of all that occurred in the court.