His resolve to ruin the Jews taken, Haman appeared before Ahasuerus
with his accusation against them. "There is a certain people," he said,
"the Jews, scattered abroad and dispersed among the peoples in all the
provinces of the kingdom. They are proud and presumptuous. In Tebet, in
the depth of winter, they bathe in warm water, and they sit in cold
water in summer. Their religion is diverse from the religion of every
other people, and their laws from the laws of every other land. To our
laws they pay no heed, our religion finds no favor with them, and the
decrees of the king they do not execute. When their eye falls upon us,
they spit out before us, and they consider us as unclean vessels. When
we levy them for the king's service, they either jump upon the wall,
and hide within the chambers, or they break through the walls and
escape. If we hasten to arrest them, they turn upon us, glare at us
with their eyes, grind their teeth, stamp their feet, and so intimidate
us that we cannot hold them fast. They do not give us their daughters
unto wives, nor do they take our daughters unto wives. If one of them
has to do the king's service, he idles all the day long. If they want
to buy aught of us, they say, 'This is a day for doing business.' But
if we want to buy aught of them, they say, 'We may do no business
to-day,' and thus we can buy nothing from them on their market-days.
"Their time they pass in this wise: The first hour of the day, they
say, they need for reciting the Shema; the second for praying; the
third for eating; the fourth for saying grace, to give thanks to God
for the food and drink He has granted them; the fifth hour they devote
to their business affairs; in the sixth they already feel the need of
rest; in the seventh their wives call for them, saying, 'come home, ye
weary ones, who are so exhausted by the king's service!'
"The seventh day they celebrate as their Sabbath; they go to the
synagogues on that day, read out of their books, translate pieces from
their Prophets, curse our king, and execrate our government, saying:
'This is the day whereon the great God rested; so may He grant us rest
from the heathen.'
"The women pollute the waters with their ritual baths, which they take
after the seven days of their defilement. On the eighth day after the
birth of sons, they circumcise them mercilessly, saying, 'This shall
distinguish us from all other nations.' At the end of thirty days, and
sometimes twenty-nine, they celebrate the beginning of the month. In
the month of Nisan they observe eight days of Passover, beginning the
celebration by kindling a fire of brushwood to burn up the leaven. They
put all the leaven in their homes out of sight before they use the
unleavened bread, saying, 'This is the day whereon our fathers were
redeemed from Egypt.' Such is the festival they call Pesah. They go to
their synagogues, read out of their books, and translate from the
writings of the Prophets, saying: 'As the leaven has been removed out
of our houses, so may this wicked dominion be removed from over us.'
"Again, in Siwan, they celebrate two days, on which they go to their
synagogues, recite the Shema, and offer up prayers, read out of the
Torah, and translate from the books of their Prophets, curse our king,
and execrate our government. This is the holiday which they call
Azarta, the closing festival. They ascend to the roofs of their
synagogues, and throw down apples, which are picked up by those below,
with the words, 'As these apples are gathered up, so may we be gathered
together from our dispersion among the heathen.' They say they observe
this festival, because on these days the Torah was revealed to their
ancestors on Mount Sinai.
"On the first of Tishri they celebrate the New Year again they go to
their synagogues, read out of their books, translate pieces from the
writings of their Prophets, curse our king, execrate our government,
and blow the trumpets, saying: 'On this Day of Memorial may we be
remembered unto good, and our enemies unto evil.'
"On the ninth day of the same month they slaughter cattle, geese, and
poultry, they eat and drink and indulge in dainties, they and their
wives, their sons and their daughters. But the tenth day of the same
month they call the Great Fast, and all of them fast, they together
with their wives, their sons, and their daughters, yea, they even
torture their little children without mercy, forcing them to abstain
from food. They say: 'On this day our sins are pardoned, and are added
to the sum of the sins committed by our enemies.' They go to their
synagogues, read from their books, translate from the writings of their
Prophets, curse our king, and execrate our government, saying: 'May
this empire be wiped off from the face of the earth like unto our
sins.' They supplicate and pray that the king may die, and his rule be
made to cease.
"On the fifteenth of the same month they celebrate the Feast of
Tabernacles. They cover the roofs of their houses with foliage, they
resort to our parks, where they cut down palm branches for their festal
wreaths, pluck the fruit of the Etrog, and cause havoc among the
willows of the brook, by breaking down the hedges in their quest after
Hosha'not, saying: 'As does the king in the triumphal procession, so do
we.' Then they repair to their synagogues to pray, and read out of
their books, and make circuits with their Hosha'not, all the while
jumping and skipping like goats, so that there is no telling whether
they curse us or bless us. This is Sukkot, as they call it, and while
it lasts, they do none of the king's service, for, they maintain, all
work is forbidden them on these days.
"In this way they waste the whole year with tomfoolery and
fiddle-faddle, only in order to avoid doing the king's service. At the
expiration of every period of fifty years they have a jubilee year, and
every seventh year is a year of release, during which the land lies
fallow, for they neither sow nor reap therein, and sell us neither
fruits nor other products of the field, so that those of us who live
among them die of hunger. At the end of every period of twelve months,
they observe the New Year, at the end of every thirty days the New
Moon, and every seventh day is the Sabbath, the day on which, as they
say, the Lord of the world rested." (112)
After Haman had finished his arraignment of the Jews, God said: "Thou
didst well enumerate the holidays of the Jews, yet thou didst omit the
two Purim and Shushan-Purim which the Jews will celebrate to
commemorate thy fall."
Clever though Haman's charge was, the vindication of the Jews was no
whit less clever. For they found a defender in the archangel Michael.
While Haman was delivering his indictment, he spoke thus to God: "O
Lord of the world! Thou knowest well that the Jews are not accused of
idolatry, nor of immoral conduct, nor of shedding blood; they are
accused only of observing Thy Torah." God pacified him: "As thou
livest, I have not abandoned them, I will not abandon them."
Haman's denunciations of the Jewish people found a ready echo in the
heart of the king. He replied: "I, too, desire the annihilation of the
Jews, but I fear their God, for He is mighty beyond compare, and He
loves His people with a great love. Whoever rises up against them, He
crushes under their feet. Just think of Pharaoh! Should his example not
be a warning to us? He ruled the whole world, yet, because he oppressed
the Jews, he was visited with frightful plagues. God delivered them
from the Egyptians, and cleft the sea for them, a miracle never done
for any other nation, and when Pharaoh pursued them with an army of six
hundred thousand warriors, he and his host together were drowned in the
sea. Thy ancestor Amalek, O Haman, attacked them with four hundred
thousand heroes, and all of them God delivered into the hands of
Joshua, who slew them. Sisera had forty thousand generals under him,
each one commander of a hundred thousand men, yet they all were
annihilated. The God of the Jews ordered the stars to consume the
warriors of Sisera, and then He caused the great general to fall into
the power of a woman, to become a by-word and a reproach forever. Many
and valorous rulers have risen up against them, they all were cast down
by their God and crushed unto their everlasting disgrace. Now, then,
can we venture aught against them?"
Haman, however, persisted. Day after day he urged the king to consent
to his plan. Ahasuerus thereupon called together a council of the wise
men of all nations and tongues. To them he submitted the question,
whether the Jews ought not to be destroyed, seeing they differed from
all other peoples. The sage councillors inquired: "Who is it that
desires to induce thee to take so fatal a step? If the Jewish nation is
destroyed, the world itself will cease to be, for the world exists only
for the sake of the Torah studied by Israel. Yea, the very sun and moon
shed their light only for the sake of Israel, and were it not for him,
there were neither day nor night, and neither dew nor rain would
moisten the earth. More than this, all other nations beside Israel are
designated as 'strangers' by God, but Israel He called in His love 'a
people near to Him,' and His 'children.' If men do not suffer their
children and kinsmen to be attacked with impunity, how much less will
God sit by quiet when Israel is assailed God the Ruler over all
things, over the powers in heaven above and on earth beneath, over the
spirits and the souls God with whom it lies to exalt and to degrade, to
slay and to revive."
Haman was ready with a reply to these words of the wise: "The God who
drowned Pharaoh in the sea, and who did all the wonders and signs ye
have recounted, that God is now in His dotage, He can neither see nor
protect. For did not Nebuchadnezzar destroy His house, burn His palace,
and scatter His people to all corners of the earth, and He was not able
to do one thing against it? If He had had power and strength, would he
not have displayed them? This is the best proof that He was waxed old
and feeble."
When the heathen sages heard these arguments advance by Haman, they
agreed to his plan, and put their signature to an edict decreeing the
persecution of the Jews. (113)