Some characters in the Purim story are transparent:
Queen Esther is good
Mordechai is good
Haman is bad
But what about King Ahasuerus?
Most of us remember the story of Esther mainly from what we were told in kindergarten and haven’t looked much deeper at it over the years.
Ahasuerus was usually depicted as a powerful king who summarily executed anyone who didn’t submit to his will.
But our sages looked a lot closer and were divided in their opinion.
Was he a foolish, ineffectual leader who was exploited and manipulated by his advisors? Or was he an evil, antisemitic despot who ordered the execution of his wife and old friends at the drop of a hat and was delighted to be presented with a good reason to annihilate all the Jews in his kingdom.
History tells us that he was not born into royalty but bought his position and was always scared that he would be ousted by another upstart.
On the other hand his wife Vashti had real royal blood. She was the daughter of King Belshazzar and great-granddaughter of King Nebuchadnezzar, born to the position of queen.
In one of his drunken stupors, during his six months long feast, Ahasuerus, demanded that she appear at his party wearing only her crown.
When she refused he had a problem. She had to be punished but how. His advisors told him that nothing but the death penalty would be fit such a ‘crime’. Otherwise women all over the kingdom might disobey their husbands whenever it suited them. And so he concurred.
When he sobered up he regretted what he had done, but now he needed a new queen. Many kings marry for political alliances, but not Ahasuerus. At the suggestion of his young advisors he ordered a country-wide beauty contest which they told him, would be best way to choose a fitting queen.
His inability to think through any problem and come to his own decision continued to plague him.
When Haman’s hatred for Mordechai boiled over and he determined to kill him and all the Jews in the kingdom, it took little to persuade Ahasuerus to comply. He didn’t question Haman’s wild accusations against an entire people. He was happy to get rid of all the Jews and needed to keep his friends contented so he could rely on their loyalty.
Rabbi Shmuel Goldin (Faculty, OU Israel) in his essay on Ahasuerus, suggests that he just wanted to live a quiet life where the problems of the outside world didn’t intrude into his palace. His subjects and their lives and problems didn’t interest him which is why anyone who approached him without an invitation risked the death penalty.
When, in the famous climax of the story, Esther declared denounced Haman as the person who wanted to murder her and all her people, Ahasuerus immediately ordered the execution of Haman, his previously close friend and second in command.
But that didn’t solve the horrifying problem that Haman had caused him.
Ahasuerus had signed and sealed that, in a few month’s time, the people of his kingdom could slaughter all the Jews, one of whom, he now discovered, was his own queen. The disastrous situation he had tried to keep outside had now encroached on his own personal space.
But Esther was not content with saving just herself she wanted to save all her people. As Rabbi Goldin points out, Ahasuerus’ solution, to give the Jews permission to fight back and defend themselves was a recipe for civil war in his own kingdom. But it would save him from having to admit he made a mistake with his first decree and it would keep the war outside of his palace.
So Ahasuerus allowed the Jews to save themselves even though it meant the death of many of his non-Jewish subjects. And he raised Mordechai to the honorable position of viceroy.
So was King Ahasuerus a sad, paranoid people-pleaser or an evil antisemite?
What do you think?
