에스더 1:8의 Musar

The first: It is to completely honor all of the creatures. Since he recognizes the virtue of the Creator that created man with wisdom - and the wisdom of the Creator is likewise in all of the creatures - and he, himself, sees that they are very, very honored; as the Creator of all, the virtuous Wise One, dealt with them in their creation. And if he disgraces them, God forbid, he touches on the honor of their Creator. And behold, this is similar to a wise smith - he made a vessel with great wisdom and he showed his creation to people. And one of them began to denounce it and to disgrace it. How much anger will come to that wise one - since they are disgracing his wisdom, in that they are disgracing the work of his hands. And so, too, will it be bad in the eyes of the Holy One, blessed be He, if they disgrace any creation of His creations. And this is [the meaning of] that which is written (Psalms 104:24), "How many are Your creations, Lord" - it does not state, "great," but rather, "many (rabu)," an expression [like], "the important one (rav) of the house" (Esther 1:8), [meaning] they are very important - "You made all of them with wisdom": And since Your wisdom has been involved with them, Your works become important and great. And [so,] it is fitting for a person to contemplate wisdom in them, not disgrace.

To come back to the statement of our sages that the Jewish people accepted the Torah voluntarily only because of their miraculous salvation from Haman's decree. I can think of three reasons why this acceptance occurred at that particular time in Jewish history. The sin they had committed at the time when they went to participate in the feast given by king Ahasverus was one committed totally voluntarily. The Jews had not been under any physical or political pressure to attend that feast and eat forbidden foods. The Book of Esther 1,8 goes to some length to stress that there was no religious compulsion regarding the drinking of non-kosher wine, nor was there any compulsion to eat treif: on the contrary, the Megillah emphasises that the king had given orders לעשות כרצון איש ואיש, to comply with every guest's wishes" (ibid.). Our sages (Megillah 12) comment on this that the king had given orders to comply both with the wishes of Mordechai and those of Haman; this is the meaning of איש ואיש in the verse. The Jews, having sinned voluntarily, now resolved to accept Torah voluntarily as an act of rehabilitating themselves.

But I believe that the explanation is as follows: We know that the Jews of that generation were deserving of death either because they bowed to the idol erected by Nevuchadnetzar or because they participated in the feast of the wicked Achashveirosh (Megillah 12a). Both Haman and Satan lodged accusations against them in this regard and in accordance with the attribute of judgment Israel should have been destroyed. Haman then became concerned that the Holy One Blessed is He might do exactly as described above, that is, take away a single righteous individual who was equal in weight to the entire rest of Israel. He knew that if this were to happen, another righteous person would be born on the spot and Israel would remain alive and well! Therefore it states, “And it was contemptible in his eyes to set his hand upon Mordechai alone.” For he knew that through the death of a single righteous individual, Israel would achieve atonement and he realized that Mordechai was equal to the rest of Israel put together. Therefore Haman and the Satan sought to destroy all the Jews in Achashveirosh’s kingdom. Now, according to the view that Israel had incurred the penalty of death in that generation because they participated in the feast of Achashveirosh it is impossible to say that they were guilty of consuming forbidden foods. For it states, “And the drinking was according to law, without compulsion” (Esther 1:8). This means that the drinking was in accordance with the laws of each individual. Therefore, since it is forbidden for a Jew to drink wine that had been poured out by idolaters, they were served kosher wine served only by Jewish waiters. Similarly, the food that was served to them was cooked by Jews. Achashveirosh did not compel them to eat or drink anything that was forbidden to them, as it is stated, “without compulsion … according to the will of each man” (ibid.).