Monday, February 26, 2007

no loyalty among the wicked

Megillat Esther

Haman gets stuck taking Mordechai around on the kings horse declaring how Mordechai saved the king. He is forced to show Mordechai greatrespect when he had been expecting it for himself.

Even worse, while leading Mordechai around town, Haman's daughter dumps the days trash on his head, mistaking him for Mordechai.

Haman has had a pretty lousy day.

He gets home and tells his wife and friends what happened to him.

In 6:13 they respond to Haman, "אם מזרע היהודים מרדכי... לא תוכל לו" - If Mordechai is from the Jews.. you will not be able to overcome him."

Why did Zeresh not say somethign like this earlier and try to dissuade him from attacking Mordechai risking these results? What good does it do to tell him this now? She is just rubbing salt on his wounds!!??

This is a classic case of CYA. They are starting to distance themselves from Haman. They see his star has risen and is now on the way down. They are changing teams.

We see a bit further in the megilla in 7:9 when Harvona tells Ahashverosh about the gallows that Haman had prepared a similar event. How did Harvona know about the gallows? He must have been involved with Haman. Yet he very quickly changed sides and snitched out Haman. He saw that Haman was a goner and he acted accordingly.

There is no loyalty among the wicked. Everybody is looking out for their own interests.

4 comments:

Rafi G. said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Neil Harris said...

Great thought!! Maybe you can help me...
Before I actually read your post (that I printed out b/4 Shabbos) I had a similar question about this same event. At the end of pasuk 5 Haman comes home and says that he's invited to the party but it doesn't mean a thing to me as long as Mordechai haYehudi is sitting at the gates. Zeresh and the gang all say, "Let's make gallows..."

Then at the end of pasuk 6 they say what you quote:
" "אם מזרע היהודים מרדכי... לא תוכל לו" (ah, the beauty of cut and paste).
What as changed to make Zeresh realized this is a real big issue?
I have a theory, but I'd like some other thoughts.

Rafi G. said...

if I understood your question correctly, here are my thoughts:
1. you mean end of perek 5 and end of perek 6. not passuk..

2. in large part, that was aa part of this post and the other post. It depended on which way Haman's star was going. These were bandwagon people. When Haman was on the rise, everyone thought he was indestructible and they were in his court. Let's make a gallows, let's do this or that.

when Haman's star was falling, everybody jumps ship and is discouraging.

Neil Harris said...

It was late when I typed sorry. I think that the term אם מזרע היהודיםis important.