Kaisipang Hudyo sa Ester 3:6: Gan Naul & Pur Hu HaGoral; Homilies for Purim

"to avert the evil of Haman the Agagite and his thought against the Jews" (Esther 8:3): You should know that Haman concluded to destroy the descendants of the Jews. And he acted on his conclusions, since he wrote books to all the provinces of King Ahasuerus to destroy the Jews. And were it not that God was with us, to repeal his counsel, he would have done according to his desire, God forbid. And nevertheless, his plan is never described with the expression, counsel (etzah), and you will not find it in the Scroll of Esther or in another source with the description, counsel. And the reason is clear from our words, since he did not conclude it from the intellect, and he did not evaluate it in his heart, among various contrasting thoughts which grow out of opposed models. For this evildoer sought to destroy a great nation without any blame, but just from his evil thought. For all 'the impulse of his thought is only evil'¹An allusion based on Genesis 6:5. ; the thought designed by his pride, as written explicitly in the words of Esther (Esther 8:5), "let dispatches be written countermanding the dispatches of the thought of Haman son of Hammedatha the Agagite, who wrote to destroy the Jews throughout the king’s provinces": The thought of his impulse to harsh anger; the thought of his impulse to great hatred towards the people of God, since he was an Aggagite enemy of the Jews; the thought of his impulse to evil; and so forth many times over. And the thoughts of these designs came to one conclusion towards evil. And Scripture testifies to this when saying (Esther 3:5), "and Esther was full of anger." That is to say that Haman's spirit was full of violence and anger, nothing could pass in front of him. A thought of the model of fear of God and His trepidation did not raise itself in his heart; a thought of the model of mercy did not raise itself; and likewise from the good models - since he was totally wicked. It is as is it stated (Esther 3:6), "and Haman sought to destroy all the Jews." That is to say his spirit desired to do evil, not from intellect and not from knowledge.

The will to Hamanite power is expressed also in subtle things like disgust for small revenge, “And it was disgusting in his eyes to put his hand out against Mordekhai alone” (Esther 3:6). The desire for totality, expressed by the forcing of all the ministers to bow down before him, to the point that the existence of one minister who does not consent to bowing deeply offends his mood. It also brings him to want to destroy all the Jews, to uproot the problem from its source. It is not enough to eliminate Mordekhai; rather there is a need to uproot and get rid of Judaism itself from the world, since it does not allow for submission to a great man like Haman. Here the move to a metaphysical struggle takes place: The God of the Jews diminishes the elevation of man; Jewish ethics is against the Hamanite will to power. Hence these ethics themselves must be uprooted; there must be a war with Divinity itself.