04 Mar BREAKING THE MEGILAH CODE

Of all the twenty-four
books of Tanach, Megilas
Esther is the most
enigmatic. One must be a
Biblical cryptographer in
order to discover the many
secrets lurking under the
surface of the thrilling
Esther story. This is because Mordechai
and Esther had to write the Megilah under
the scrutiny of the antisemitic censures of
Persia and Medes – for the Megilas Esther
was included in its entirety in the chronicles
of Paras and Madai. Therefore, from the very
beginning, we find that Mordechai employed
numerous codes to clue us in to the real story.
As a primary example, the name Mordechai
gave to the Persian monarch, Xerxes, was
Achashveirosh. The Gemora in Masechtas
Megilah teaches us that the name itself,
Achashveirosh, already gives us a wealth of
information about the true nature of this very
wicked Persian king. Rebbi Yochanan reveals
that Achashveirosh is an anagram of the two
Hebrew words, aish v’shachor, fire and black.
It is therefore meant to convey that under his
cruel rule the face of the Jews was blackened
like fire blackens the bottom of a pot. Rav
tells us that Achashveirosh is a composition
of achiv shel rosh, that Achashveirosh was a
‘brother’ to another head of state, the wicked
Nevuchadnetzar. And just as Nevuchadnetzar

destroyed the Beis HaMikdash, so too
Achashveirosh halted the rebuilding of the
Temple. Further, just like Nevuchadnetzar
was a rabid Jew-hater, Achashveirosh was the
same.
The Gemora goes on to reveal that the word
Achashveirosh is a composition of the words
ach v’reish which means ‘woe for the poverty,’
for Achashveirosh was a merciless tyrant who
overtaxed his people and forced upon them
a life of miserable destitution. Thus, we see
already in Achashveirosh’s name alone that
the Megilah, in its clandestine fashion, paints
the backdrop of the Esther story as an era
where the Jews suffered under the tyrannical
rule of an antisemitic and evil monarch.
The Megilah is called Esther, which means
‘hidden.’ This is because the Divine Hand
was cloaked under the guise of palace
intrigue, and within the lust and caprice of the
royal court. Thus, without the tutelage of the
Divine scriptures, we might mistakenly think
that the downfall of Vashti was simply due to
royal debauchery and marital stubbornness.
However, again, the codebreaker will see
the Hand of Hashem at every turn. He will
discover that the Megilah says that after
Vashti’s execution, the king, “Zachar es Vashti
v’es asher asasah v’eis asher nigzar aleha – He
remembered Vashti’s legendary beauty, what
she did, and what was decreed upon her.”

The Gemora says that the hidden meaning
behind this is that she used to force the Jewish
maidens who toiled in her chambers to work
unclothed on Shabbos. Therefore, she was
asked to come unclothed on the seventh day,
which led to her demise.
But this is only the very beginning of the
Divine revelation of the attributes of midah
k’neged midah, measure for measure that
struck Achashveirosh and Vashti on that fateful
day. The Gemora tells us that Achashveirosh
made a one hundred and eighty day banquet
in an honorable observance of the ‘failure’ of
Hashem to rebuild the Beis HaMikdash by the
famous expected date known as the Seventy
Year prophecy. Thus, Achashveirosh’s
partying over the destruction of Hashem’s
House led to the destruction of his own home
through the execution of his wife.
The Medrash tells us that another reason
why Achashveirosh made the party in the
third year of his reign was because he was
engaged in making a copy of the awesome
throne of Shlomo HaMelech. (The original
throne miraculously locked itself and would
not allow him to sit upon it.) In another
example of poetic justice, for trying to sit
upon a copy of the holy throne of Shlomo,
he would be punished to sit in mourning over
his wife. The Gemora also tells us that when
it says that Achashveirosh showed yakar
tiferes gededulaso, the glory of his splendid
greatness, this language is similar to the
terminology used to describe the marvelous
garments worn by the Kohein Gadol in the
Temple. This phraseology informs us that
Achashveirosh wore the holy vestments of
the Kohein Gadol at his party. For having
the incredible temerity of donning the sacred
garments of the Holy Kohein Gadol and
wearing them at a drunken and promiscuous
banquet, Achashveirosh was punished
that through a sin of garments, namely
Vashti’s refusal to appear without garments,
Achashveirosh lost his royal and beautiful
wife.
When Achashveirosh heard of Vashti’s
astounding refusal to do his royal bidding,
which was a capital offense, he turned to
the yodei ha’itim, those who had a profound
understanding of the mystery of time.
Who were the yodei ha’itim? None other
than the Sages of Israel who understood
the complexities of the calendar and who
have the sublime knowledge to intercalate
leap years, etc. Perhaps intuitively,
Achashveirosh, knowing the national sense
of modesty of the Jewish people, was sure
that our Sages would issue a moderate
verdict for his young wife because they
would be able to ascertain the mitigating
circumstances of his own obscene request.
But, once again, the Megilah reveals the
powerful hand of midah k’neged midah. The
Sages of Israel declined to judge the case by
explaining that since the Beis HaMikdash
had been destroyed, they no longer had the
license to judge life and death capital cases.
Thus we see with frightening clarity that it

was Achashveirosh’s and Vashti’s obsession to
halt the building of the Temple that sealed her
fate because the case was subsequently turned
over to the capricious Persian judges.
Time and time again in this Megilah, we see
the attribute of midah k’neged midah which
precludes any element of chance. Thus,
Haman builds a gallows to hang Mordechai
and it is on that very gallows he is hung. He
and his vicious cohorts ambitiously plot to
annihilate Jewish men, women, and children,
and providentially on the 13th of Adar,
this fate befell the Jew haters themselves.
Achashveirosh kills his queen because of
his friend Haman’s advice and then will
subsequently kill his friend Haman because of
his queen’s advice.
May it be the will of Hashem that through the
tutelage of Megilas Esther we absorb the great
lesson of midah k’neged midah – that the way
we treat people so will we be treated. Let it
serve as a guide that we should not be strict
with others, so that G-d won’t be strict with us.
May it serve as an incentive that if we want
to be recipients of warmth, patience, smiles,
and caring, we behave in such a fashion with
others. And may it serve as an inhibition to
us so that we avoid improper behavior with
our fellow man, in order that such treatment
should not boomerang back against us. And
in those merits, may Hashem bless us all
with good health, long life and everything
wonderful.