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1) THE DOWNFALL OF HAMAN

(a) (R. Asi): If mortal writing for the merit of Yisrael is not erased, all the more so writing of Heaven!
(b) "Nothing was done for him" (Rava): They responded thusly out of hate for Haman, not out of love for Mordechai.
(c) (Beraisa): "He prepared (a gallows) for him" - for himself!
(d) Achashverosh: "Do so to Mordechai".

1. Haman: Which Mordechai?
2. Achashverosh: "The Jew"!
3. Haman: Many Jews are named Mordechai.
4. Achashverosh: "That sits in the gate of the king".
5. Haman: It is enough to give him (tax collection rights) over a village or river.
6. Achashverosh: Give him that also - "Don't omit anything you said".

(e) Haman found Mordechai teaching laws of Kemitzah. When Mordechai saw Haman coming, he thought he had come to kill him. He told his students to leave, and davened. Haman sat by the students until Mordechai finished praying.

1. Haman: What were you learning?
2. Students: When we have the Temple, one who brings a Minchah offering takes a handful of flour and gets atonement.
3. Haman: A handful of your flour overcame my 10,000 silver talents.
4. Mordechai: Evil one! A slave that acquired things, he and his possessions belong to his master!

(f) Haman: Put on these garments and ride the horse; this is the king's desire.
(g) Mordechai: It is not proper to use the royal garments before I go to the bathhouse and cut my hair.

1. Esther closed all the bathhouses and barbers, so Haman had to bathe him and cut his hair; he sighed.
2. Mordechai: What's wrong?
3. Haman: Someone who was more important to the king than all the nobles, must serve as a bathhouse attendant and barber!
4. Mordechai: Evil one! You used to be a village barber!

(h) After he cut his hair, he dressed him in the garments. Haman: Get up and ride.

1. Mordechai: I can't, I'm weak from fasting.
2. Haman bent down, so Mordechai could step on him to mount the horse. As he did so, he kicked him.
3. Haman: Doesn't it say, "In the fall of your enemy, don't rejoice"?
4. Mordechai: That applies to us; by you, it says, "And you will step on their high places".

(i) As Haman was leading Mordechai, he passed by his own house. His daughter saw from the roof; she assumed that Haman was riding, and that Mordechai was in front. She threw a urinal on her father. When she saw that it was her father, she fell to the ground and died.

1. (Rav Shashes): "Haman hastened to his house, mourning" - over his daughter.

(j) Question: "Haman told his wife Zeresh and all his friends" - then it calls them "his wise men"!
(k) Answer (R. Yochanan): Even one from other nations who says a wise thing is called a Chacham.
(l) "If Mordechai is from the seed of ha'Yehudim" - if he is from other tribes, you can overcome him; if he is from Yehuda, Binyamin, Efrayim or Menashe, you cannot.

1. Yehuda - as it says "Your hand is on the neck of your enemies".
2. The other 3 - "In front of Efrayim, Binyamin and Menashe, stir up your might".

(m) Question: "Fall, you will fall in front of him" (R. Yehuda Bar Ilai): Why the doubled language?
(n) Answer: They told him, Jews are compared to dirt and stars. When they descend, they are as dirt. When they rise, they rise to the stars (and their enemies fall in front of them).
(o) Esther told Achashverosh: "The oppressor is not concerned for damage to the king. He envied Vashti and killed her; he envies me, and wants to kill me!
(p) "The king said ... he said" - (R. Avahu): first he addressed her through a translator; when she told him that she descends from Shaul, he addressed her himself.
(q) "An oppressor and enemy, this evil Haman" (R. Elazar): She was pointing towards Achashverosh; an angel came and directed her hand towards Haman.
(r) "The king rose in his anger ... he returned from the garden" - we equate the rising and coming, the coming was also in anger.

1. He found angels that appeared as people, cutting down trees of the garden; they told him, they were instructed to do so by Haman.

(s) In the house, "Haman *is falling* on the bed" - (R. Elazar): An angel was pushing him on Esther.
(t) (R. Elazar): Charbano the evil was initially part of the plot. Now that he saw that it was failing, he abandoned it.
(u) "The anger of the king *Shachachah* (eased)" - the extra Chaf suggests 2 angers, of Hashem and Achashverosh; some say, over Vashti and over Esther.

(a) Question: "To all, (Yosef) gave clothing; to Binyamin he gave 5 changes of clothing" - how could Yosef stumble in something which he suffered from?
(Rava Bar Machsiya): The extra garment which Yakov gave Yosef caused our fathers to descend to Egypt.

(b) Answer (R. Binyamin Bar Yafet): Yosef hinted to Binyamin he will have a descendant that will go in front of the king in 5 royal garments.
(c) "And (Yosef) fell on (Binyamin's) *necks*)" - (R. Elazar): he cried over the 2 Temples in Binyamin's portion which would be destroyed. Binyamin cried over the Mishkan in Shilo (in Yosef's portion) which would be destroyed.
(d) "Your eyes see, and the eyes of my brother Binyamin" (R. Elazar): Just as I bear no grudge against Binyamin, who was not party to selling me, I bear no grudge against you.
(e) "For my mouth speaks to you" - my mouth is as my heart.
(f) "He sent to his father ... from the best of Egypt" (R. Binyamin Bar Yafet): old wine, which old people enjoy.
(g) "Also his brothers fell in front of him" - (R. Binyamin Bar Yafet): As people say, a fox in his time, bow to him.
(h) Question: Why is Yosef any less than his brothers (that he is likened to a fox)?
(i) Retraction: R. Binyamin learned from "And Yisrael bowed".
(j) "And he spoke to their heart" - (R. Binyamin Bar Yafet): He said things which are accepted on the heart - 10 lamps could not extinguish 1, how could 1 lamp extinguish 10?!

(a) "To the Jews was light, Simcha, rejoicing and honor". (Rav Yehuda): Light is Torah; Simcha is Yom Tov; rejoicing is circumcision; honor is Tefilin.

1. "All nations of the land will see that Hashem's name is called upon you - (R. Eliezer ha'Gadol): - These are Tefilin on the head.

(b) (Rav Ada of Yafo): The 10 sons of Haman and the word "v'Aseres" should be read in 1 breath, because they died at the same moment.
(c) (R. Yochanan): The "Vav" of "Vaizasa" should be elongated like a rod used to distance ships from rocks, because they were all hung on one gallows.
(d) (R. Chanina Bar Papa): All Shirim (songs, parts of Tanach in which part of each line is left blank) are written half-brick (the writing) on top of brick (the blank part), and brick on top of half-brick, except for the sons of Haman and the kings of Eretz Yisrael, which are brick over brick and half-brick over half-brick.

1. This is so they should not rise after their fall.

(e) "The king told Esther, in Shushan the Jews killed ..." (R. Avahu): an angel slapped him on his mouth (and reverted from his anger, and asked what else she would like).
(f) Question: "And when she came before the king, he said with the Sefer" - it should say, she said!
(g) Answer (R. Yochanan): Jews should say (when they read the Megilah) that she came before the king.
(h) "Words of Shalom and Emes" (R. Tanchum): The Megilah requires Sirtut (lines scratched in the parchment to ensure that the writing will be straight) like the (Emes of) Torah.
(i) Question: "And the utterance of Esther he fulfilled" - but not the fasts?
(j) Answer (R. Yochanan): He fulfilled the fasts and the utterance.
(k) "Mordechai ... pleasing to most of his brothers" - but not all - a minority of the Sanhedrin separated from him (because he was second to the king, which detracted from his learning).
(l) (Rav Yosef): Learning Torah is greater than saving lives - at first, Mordechai was listed 5th among the returning exiles, and after the events of the Megilah, he is listed 6th.
(m) (Rav): Learning Torah is greater than building the Temple - Ezra did not come to build the Temple while Baruch Ben Neriya (his Rebbe) was alive.
(n) (Rabah): Learning Torah is greater than honoring parents.
(o) Yakov was punished for 22 years that he was away, but not for the 14 years he learned by Ever.