Silicon Investor (SI) -- The First Internet Community

STOCKTALK

We've detected that you're using an ad content blocking browser plug-in or feature. Ads provide a critical source of revenue to the continued operation of Silicon Investor. We ask that you disable ad blocking while on Silicon Investor in the best interests of our community. If you are not using an ad blocker but are still receiving this message, make sure your browser's tracking protection is set to the 'standard' level.

Pastimes : Ask God -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Alan Markoff who wrote (21542)	11/2/1998 11:23:00 PM
From: nihil	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 39621

RE: Esther Nancy, I think you are very badly confused on this beautiful story.Esther was not Mordecai's niece, but his first cousin, daughter of his uncle Abihail. There is no suggestion anywhere in the story that Mordecai refused to bow to Haman because he was a Jew or that there was any discrimination against Jews before he repeatedly (and unnecessarily) insulted Haman in defiance of the King's orders. There was, of course, no reason to hang out day after day at the king's gate except to seek his well-earned recognition or to continue to spy on officials, even though his pertinacious insulting behavior endangered all Jews. If Mordecai was forbidden by his piety from bowing to the king or public officials, he must have somehow been able to justify his persuading Esther to engage in extramarital sex with a gentile to whom she would have by the customs of the day been required to bow to Xerxes among other degradations. Mordecai's telling the officials at the gate that he was a Jew could hardly have been in an attempt to gain exemption (because Darius son of Xerxes was not yet king), but must be considered race betrayal, as was his sacrifice of Esther to the king's lusts simply to be a stepping stone to his personal advancement.