Purim will be celebrated on March 7/8.

According to the narrative in the Book of Esther, Haman’s plot to destroy the Jewish people appears to have been instigated by the fact that Mordechai refused to bow down to Haman. Talk about an extreme reaction! What was it about Mordechai that so angered Haman?

The sages asked a similar question and noted that “the explanation is in the dictum of Rabbi Hisda, for Rabbi Hisda said: The one came [to the court] as a counselor and the other as an envoy. Rabbi Papa said: They also called him [Haman], ‘The slave who was sold for loaves of bread.’” (Megillah 14b/15a).

To understand the statement of Rabbi Hisda, it is necessary to review the story as recorded in Aggadat Esther 5:9. Mordechai was among the Jews who joined Ezra to begin rebuilding the walls of Jerusalem. Unhappy with the idea that the rightful owners of the land might return, the neighboring nations sought to stop them by claiming that the Jews did not have royal permission to rebuild. (They did, from King Cyrus.) It was determined that representatives from each side would be sent to King Cyrus. The Jews sent Mordechai, while the neighbors sent Haman, who “was the barber in the village of Kartzum for 22 years” (Megillah 16).

As they were traveling together to the king, Mordechai ate his food conservatively, whereas Haman gluttonously consumed his entire supply at the outset of his journey. Virtually famished, Haman asked Mordechai to lend him a loaf of bread. Mordechai agreed to provide the food if Haman would agree to enslave himself. When Haman agreed, the “bill of sale” was written on the sole of Mordechai’s shoe. “Subsequently, when Mordechai was sitting at the gate of the king and Haman passed, [Mordechai] extended his foot with the shoe on which the deed of sale was inscribed. Thereupon ‘Haman was filled with rage’ (Esther 3:5)” (Aggadat Esther 5:9).

Haman’s history with Mordechai only added to Haman’s deep animosity against the Jews that he had acquired from his own family, since he was a descendent of Agag, the last king of the Amalekites. (Click here for the story of the Amalekites.)

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