In Al Hanisim, when we thank God for saving us, Haman’s intent is quoted. He wanted “to destroy, kill and wipe out all of the Jews, from young to old, [including] children and women, on one day, on the 13th [day] of the 12th month, which is the month of Adar, and to plunder their possessions” (Esther 3:13). This last clause seems problematic, for several reasons.

First of all, it’s awkward to include “plundering our possessions” while thanking God for saving our lives. Would the loss of material possessions mean that much after being murdered? Why was this included in the prayer of thanks and praise? Would our expression of gratitude be less complete if this part of the verse wasn’t quoted?

Secondly, although our possessions being plundered might have been a primary motivator for our enemies to kill us (since they could then take our belongings), and is therefore included in the wording of the decree, the word “decree” is not included in Al Hanisim; we are describing what “Haman wanted to do,” not what he decreed. Was having our “possessions plundered” part of what “he wanted,” or just a means to accomplish what he wanted? If taking our possessions was not part of his goal, saying that this is what “he wanted” is misleading. Additionally, we are stating that Haman wanted to plunder our possessions. Not that he wanted our possessions to be plundered by others so that they would kill us, but that he himself wanted to take our things. How can we say Haman wanted our possessions for himself if they would have been taken by those who killed us, not by Haman?

The very notion that the king of the Persian Empire would allow a genocidal decree seems rather far-fetched. He had to maintain the loyalty of 127 different provinces, and wiping out one of the nations he was supposed to be protecting would be problematic. Did Achashverosh really want to be thought of as barbaric by the people of his empire? Not only that, but he didn’t even seem to be aware that such a decree was issued! When Esther pleaded for her life and the life of her people (7:3), he asked her who wanted to kill them (7:5). Unless he was feigning ignorance, wasn’t it obvious who it was? How many nations in his kingdom were slated to be wiped out?

Another peculiar aspect of the degree was choosing one day to carry out the genocide, which is rather impractical. Why did Haman limit the day of Jew-killing to just the 13th of Adar? Wouldn’t it have been more effective if there was a longer Jew-hunting season? Additionally, the decree to wipe out every Jew was issued in Nisan (3:12), to be carried out 11 months later, in Adar (3:13); why did Haman make the date so late? Did he believe in the “lottery” so strongly (see 3:7) that he was willing to wait, giving his victims time to foil his diabolical plan? With such advance knowledge of the planned genocide, why would any Jew remain in the Persian Empire? Why didn’t they move to Greece, or somewhere else not under Achashverosh’s rule? Why didn’t they rebel or at least cause a major commotion? There were powerful Jews in the capital city of Shushan; why was Mordechai the only one who seemed to “know” what was really going on (see 4:1)? Was Esther so sheltered in the palace that she had to ask Mordechai why he was mourning (4:5)?

In “Esther/Ruth/Jonah Deciphered,” Stephen Gabriel Rosenberg, Ph.D, asks numerous questions about the plot of the Purim story (including why the Jews didn’t just leave), and makes some fascinating suggestions. Although not all of them are consistent with the Megillah’s text the way it was understood by our sages, or even with some of his own suggestions, one of his main suggestions makes a lot of sense, has historical backing, and would explain a lot of otherwise curious verses.

One of the main issues facing Achashverosh, at least by the time Haman became second-in-command, was the finances of the kingdom. During the first two years of Achashverosh’s rule, the Persian army had quashed a rebellion in Egypt (Kush’s northern neighbor, at the western end of the empire), and Achashvelrosh had thrown a six-month party, giving the leaders of each of his provinces a turn to have a private audience with the king in order to solidify his rule and gauge how they would react if he attacked Greece. After a less than successful war with Greece, the royal treasury was depleted, but placing additional taxes on the people of his empire would hardly be tolerated. It was at this point that Haman came up with a plan to raise revenue without increasing taxes across the board.

Taxes had been levied on property owners, with local governors collecting the property taxes within their province. Haman suggested adding a head tax on top of that, but only on one nation, one that was “scattered and separated among the nations in all of the provinces of the empire” (3:8), so it had no real power base to fight the tax. Administering this new head tax on the people of a scattered nation would be quite onerous, so rather than the king hiring tax collectors, Haman offered to become a “tax farmer” (purchasing the right to collect taxes), paying the king a flat amount (10,000 talents of silver, see 3:9), to come from “those doing the work” (ibid.), i.e. those collecting the tax, with anything collected above and beyond the 10,000 silver talents going to Haman. In order to raise such a substantial amount, an exorbitant sum was imposed on each person — man, woman and child (Dr. Rosenberg goes through the numbers to show how high the tax on each “head” was.)

This head tax would be extremely difficult to pay; even those who could, would likely have to use their life savings and/or go into severe debt. Therefore, the consequences of not paying it would have to be severe. And they were; any person whose “head tax” was not paid by the due date (the 13th of Adar) could be put to death. [It was standard operating procedure for anyone executed by the king to have all their possessions turned over to the king‘s treasuries, and Haman was officially acting on behalf of the king. In order to make sure the head tax was paid, the decree included the provision that anyone who didn’t pay it by the due date would be executed (see 3:9), whereby his possessions would automatically belong to the king.] In other words, the decree wasn’t framed as a genocide that allowed for the taking of the victims’ possessions, but as a highly focused head tax that gave the tax collectors the legal right to do whatever it takes to collect it — including executing those who failed to pay it.

Did anyone think that failure to pay would really bring about mass executions? Was the decree seen as a death warrant or a harshly-worded tax levy? Achashverosh, desperate to raise needed funds, went along with it; “the money is given to you” (3:11), i.e. any funds collected above the 10,000 silver talents for the royal treasury belonged to Haman, “as well as the nation, to do to it whatever you see fit” (ibid.), i.e. you have the authority to set the consequences of not paying, even death. Therefore, when Esther told Achashverosh that had the consequences of not paying the tax “only” been being sold into slavery, she wouldn’t ask him to intervene, but because the intention was to kill her people (7:4) she had to ask him to, he was taken aback, having thought of Haman’s decree as a tax levy, not an order of genocide. Although the decree was known by all (3:14), and caused widespread despair in the Jewish communities (4:3), no one fled the empire, as they also viewed it as a harsh tax levy rather than a death warrant. Only Mordechai understood that Haman’s real intent was to murder Jews — men, women and children — using unpaid taxes as a cover, which is how he framed the decree when he described it in the Megillah.

[Even after Haman was hanged, his decree was still in force. The only way to prevent those who hated us from using the decree as an excuse to kill us, or those who were collecting the tax from doing whatever it took to collect it — i.e. execution –— was to issue the counter decree that allowed us to fight back.]

Although we are thanking God for sparing our lives, since the decree that would have led to this genocide was framed as a tax levy, it would be inappropriate to ignore that facet completely, and the “plundering of our possessions” was therefore included in Al Hanisim. And since Haman would have been allowed to keep everything he collected beyond the 10,000 silver talents, it could be said that it was Haman himself who wanted to plunder our possessions.

Since the circumstances that allowed the decree to have been issued centered on the need to raise funds to cover the expenses of Achashverosh’s wars, it’s fitting that the Megillah ends with him placing taxes on everybody (10:1). After all, raising funds for the royal treasury played a primary role in the Purim story, with Haman’s genocidal decree being disguised as a tax levy.

Rabbi Dov Kramer wrote a weekly D’var Torah from 5764-5776, most of which are archived at RabbiDMK.wordpress.com and AishDas.org/ta. This piece was originally written for Purim 5773.