History Repeating Itself

In the middle of the month, we will be celebrating the festival of Purim, which means that 31 days later, it’s time for Passover. There is little in common between the ways these two festivals are observed. Passover is a well-orchestrated and mostly civil Seder around a beautifully set table versus a hectic Megillah reading on Purim with groggers (noise makers), costumes, and too much alcohol. A flat, tasteless matzah is the symbol of Passover foods, contrasted with the delicious hamantaschen filled with poppy seeds (or your favorite filling) that we eat on Purim.

But when we compare the biblical sources of these festivals (the story of Passover is told in the Book of Exodus and the Book of Esther tells the story of Purim), we notice many intriguing similarities.

The obvious resemblance is that a person at a top position in the kingdom, the Pharaoh in Egypt and Haman in Persia, is planning a genocide against the Jews (or the Israelites as they were called in Egypt). In Exodus, the Pharaoh ordered to kill all the Hebrew male infants, while Haman convinced King Ahasuerus to give him permission to annihilate all the Jews of the empire on a certain day (Purim). Neither of these plots succeeded, and the perpetrators paid a high price for their wickedness. Both were ironically punished by the way they tried to harm their victims. Haman built a 50-foot gallows on which he planned to hang Mordechai the Jew, only to end up hanged on the very same gallows. The Pharaoh who wanted to kill the Hebrew babies lost his own son during the last plague. We can sum it up with the punchline of the famous joke —“they tried to kill us, we survived, let’s eat!”

Less noticed and more surprising is the fact that both stories are set in motion by women who disobeyed a royal decree, and some of these women were even part of the Royal household. In Exodus, the Pharaoh’s homicidal plan begins crumbling down when the midwives, Shiphrah and Puah, keep the Hebrew babies alive. The one who saves baby Moses, who will ultimately defeat the pharaoh as a grown man, is none other than the Pharaoh’s own daughter who raises Moses, a Hebrew baby male, in her father’s palace. In The Book of Esther, it begins with Queen Vashti, who refuses to show up at her husband’s party and show off her beauty to a bunch of drunken men, and it was Queen Esther who turned King Ahasuerus against his loyal vizier, Haman.

Both saviors, Moses and Esther, kept their Jewish identity secret from others in the royal palace, most especially from the king. Even their names are Egyptian and Persian. It seems like the Pharaoh is aware of Moses’ Israelite origin only when he returns to Egypt demanding the freedom of his people, and Esther reveals her Jewish identity to her husband, the king, as a last resort to save the Jews of Persia.

There are more similarities between the xenophobia of Ancient Egypt and Ancient Persia, and it’s disturbing how many times since, and in how many places around the globe, these stories repeated themselves. Yet, there is one big difference between the Jews back then and the Jews today—we can defend ourselves. When we look at the modern versions of both Egypt and Persia (Iran), we see that the disdain for Jews has not changed, but the Jews did. For 30 years, Egypt tried to destroy modern Israel until she realized that it will not happen, and they signed a peace agreement. Modern Persia (Iran) is still dreaming to execute Haman’s ancient plan to blot out the Jews, but they know that that will lead to their own demise. Today, we don’t only survive—we thrive.