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Megillat Esther is the only book in the Tanakh where the name of God never appears explicitly, yet it is the most carnivalesque festival of the Jewish year. The story unfolds in the Persian capital Shushan around the 5th-4th century BCE under King Achashverosh (commonly identified with Xerxes I, sometimes Artaxerxes II). A near-genocide is averted at the last moment, the gallows built for the hero hangs the villain, and the whole reversal becomes Purim, a day of feasting, gifts, masks, and mandatory drunkenness "until you cannot tell the difference between blessed Mordechai and cursed Haman." Persian Jews still pilgrimage to the joint tomb of Esther and Mordechai in Hamadan, Iran, one of the oldest continuously visited Jewish sites in the diaspora.
Cultural note, Purim is the Jewish festival closest to a carnival. Costumes (children and adults), public reading of the Megillah with noisemakers (ra'ashanim) drowning out Haman's name, triangular pastries (oznei Haman / hamantaschen), gift baskets between neighbors (mishloach manot), and obligatory charity to two poor people (matanot la'evyonim). The Talmud rules a person should drink "ad delo yada", until unable to distinguish "cursed Haman" from "blessed Mordechai." It is also the only festival the rabbis say will continue to be celebrated in the Messianic era, when other holidays are said to fade.
Megillah Characters
Plot & Key Events
Purim Mitzvot
Festival Customs
Hamadan Pilgrimage Site
The Hidden Hand: A Reading
A short narrative reading on the theology of Esther. Why is God absent from the text? The rabbis read "Esther" itself from the root s-t-r, "hidden." The Megillah is the book of hester panim, the hidden face, providence working through coincidences, beauty contests, sleepless nights, and gallows that turn on their builders.