The Biblical Story of Esther and the Immoral Society
February 28, 2017

Published in the American Thinker:

The Jewish holiday of Purim, which celebrates God’s salvation of the Jewish people from the annihilation scheme of the evil Haman, as recorded in the Biblical Book of Esther, is a mere few weeks away. While the narrative is thousands of years old and depicts occurrences in ancient Persia, the story’s relevance to contemporary society at large is striking, for it describes the eventual results of an absence of divine moral norms.

This concept was elucidated by the illustrious 20th century rabbinic scholar, Rabbi Dr. Joseph B. Soloveitchik, who taught thousands of students at Yeshiva University’s affiliated rabbinical school over the course of nearly half a century.

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Rabbi Soloveitchik explained, based on a careful reading of the Book of Esther, that the locus of its narrative – the Persian capital of Shushan – was the seat of an orgiastic society, drunken with unbounded enjoyment and self-gratification. Hence does the text of the Book of Esther give exceptional attention to the ornate furnishings of the king’s palace, the detailed cosmetics regimen of the women, the eunuchs of the king’s harem, and so forth, so as to portray Shushan as the apex of indulgence in pleasure and hedone. Such a society, devoid of divine morality and steeped in blind and limitless self-gratification, is most vulnerable for takeover by amoral totalitarianism.

Read more at the American Thinker.

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