Tanach Thoughts

Time for something a little different. Last Shabbat's parasha was Beshalach, which included the introduction of the manna (מן - man). According to Shemot 16:33-34 , Moshe told Aharon to take a jar of sorts (the modern Hebrew צנצנת (tzintzenet) refers to a glass jar, but Rashi interprets  it to mean the more likely pottery vessel of sorts), fill it with manna and place it somewhere for safekeeping. This was eventually put into the Ark of the Covenant for all time. Fast-forward thousands of years later: Ramban (Nachmanides), having narrowly escaped from the clutches of the Church of Aragon after having utterly crushed the Dominican Friar Pablo Christiani in the infamous Disputation of Barcelona , disembarks from a ship at the port of Akko (Acre) in the Land of Israel and settles down there, before passing away some three years later. While there, he sends letters to friends, family and acquaintances in Europe. One of the letters was particularly famous as it was mentioned by a number...

Happy Shushan Purim!  As mentioned in the previous post , my chavruta and I think that Achashverosh needed special convincing to agree to let Haman issue a decree to kill all of the Persian Empire's Jews. As promised, I will proceed to explain why: It's quite simple: In Esther 3:8-9 it says: "Haman then said to King Ahasuerus, “There is a certain people, scattered and dispersed among the other peoples in all the provinces of your realm, whose laws are different from those of any other people and who do not obey the king’s laws; and it is not in Your Majesty’s interest to tolerate them. If it please Your Majesty, let an edict be drawn for their destruction, and I will pay ten thousand talents of silver to the stewards for deposit in the royal treasury.”" I think people typically think that Haman was expressing criticism of the religion of the Jewish people here because the word he used is דתיהם which in modern Hebrew refers to religion. However, the English translati...