Lessons of self-defense in the megillah for the Gaza war - editorial

Today is the beautiful spectacle of Purim in Jerusalem. While all other cities – those that are not walled cities as Jerusalem is and as Shushan was in the Book of Esther – celebrated yesterday, our Holy city is different. It is special.

Just as our city is unique, so, too, did the Jewish people reveal themselves to be a unique community unlike any other, in the Book of Esther.

While Haman wanted to eradicate the Jewish people for not prostrating before him, our people’s faith told them that they are not to bow down before anyone but their one true God and that any demand of such a sort is an abominable act of hubris.

Indeed, the story of Purim tells of King Ahasuerus, who had taken to wife Queen Esther of the Jewish people and niece of Mordechai. Haman, a high-ranking official in the king’s court, demanded that the people of the kingdom – “from Hodu and until Cush” – bow before him, but Mordechai refused to do so, leading to Haman’s wicked campaign against the Jews.

The stubbornness of the Jewish people

Our people are stubborn folk, it is true. But that stubbornness then, as it is today, is the basis of our insistence to take the right path, the humane path, despite all the pressures that surround us.

Israel is facing that very pressure today: to bow in the face of terror, to surrender to hate. Here, too, we are threatened – and, indeed, fell victim to – a murderous rampage.

When October 7 occurred, there was an influx of support for the Israeli people, and we needed it – though, of course, more than anything, we needed our victims and hostages back. But from October 8 and on, that support began to shift.

Slowly but surely, the global narrative began to sympathize – not with the Palestinian people, who are suffering under the oppressive and hateful regime of the terrorist organization Hamas – but with the terrorists themselves. They called it “justified retaliation.”

The pressure, then, was on Israel not to retaliate after so many were murdered, butchered, raped, set aflame, kidnapped, made to dress like dolls, starved, and tortured.

Like the Jews who refused to bow before an evil monarch, the Jews today refuse to bow in the face of terrorists. In both cases, our people were (and are) facing an existential threat. Then, it was Haman’s decree to kill the Jewish people in the kingdom; today, it is that same threat here in Israel.

In the megillah, Esther and Mordechai pursue diplomatic means to prevent the slaughter of their people. Esther hosts banquets for the very people attempting to murder her people in a carefully concocted plan to save their lives, even if it means putting her own at risk.

Ultimately, however, the king’s decree could not be undone, just as the horrors Israel faced on October 7 could not be undone. They did, however, manage to make it so that the Jewish people were permitted to defend themselves.

That is what the Israel-Hamas war ultimately comes down to; it is a war in the pursuit of self-defense.

In the Book of Esther, the Jewish response to those acting violently against them due to Haman’s order was careful. It required violence, yes, but only as self-defense aimed at neutralizing the threat.

This, too, is how Israel must continue to operate in the Gaza Strip. If this war goes on, it must be done to target those who threaten our statehood and our people and nothing more. This has been Israel’s pursuit all along, and it is Israel’s responsibility to hold any soldiers not operating per this command accountable.

Today, the Jewish people celebrate. We fasted and fought, and that is what allowed our people to exist for so long. Today, as well, as our nation is at war, we must remember those same principles that carried Queen Esther and her uncle Mordechai down their paths; even when it feels as though the entire world is against us, we must rally together, united, to defend our people.

As Golda Meir said, “We have no place else to go.”