[Avodah] Ratzuy l'Rov

[Arie Folger]

R'nTK asked:
> How does this square with the notion that Cyrus was Esther's son
> (or grandson)? I guess not everyone agrees that he was.

Darius the First  / the Great (who came after Darius the Mede; the
former was the first Persian Darius).

Those who argue that the Megillah played out after binyan bayit sheni
consider Seder 'Olam not to be actual history, but a historical
midrash, IOW mostly history, but with crucial deviations from fact
THAT WOULD BE OBVIOUS to the audience in those days. Furthermore, it
is argued that this kind of historiography is based on Tanakhi
precedent, as Ezra was, so this argument goes, wrote his book in a way
that strongly implies a nonfactual revisionist history, while in fact
properly reporting actual history. For more details on this theory,
listen to shiurim by R'Menachem Leibtag on Daniel, Ezra and Megillat
Esther, all downloadable from YUTorah.org.

> However the entire "gefeel" of the Megillah is that the Jews were in
> galus, that it was churban time.  The fear that they might be wiped
> out altogether would surely have been mitigated if some of them
> were already  living in Eretz Yisrael with the BHM'K rebuilt.  It just
> doesn't sound  right.

Why? After all, EY was every bit as much part of the Persian and
Medean empire as were India and Abyssinia (Hodu and Kush).

BTW, one of the supporting proofs of R' Leibtag's thesis is that there
is a Midrash that considers the vessels Jews drank from during the
feast to have been from the captured vessels of the beit hamiqdash.
However, as there is absolutely no disagreement about the fact that
the Megillah took place after Cyrus, therefore, the tradition about
the vessels in the Megillah is actually factually impossible, and
therefore must be taken to be a moral, rather than a factual
statement. Why is it impossible? Because Divrei HaYamim and Ezra both
state (with the same pessuqim, this is a textual hint that Ezra is the
continuation of DhY) that Cyrus released kol kelei beit haShem.
According to R' Leibtag, therefore, we must take the tradition about
the keilim as a moral statement, it is as if they were desecrating the
holy  vessels, perhaps because they had declined to return to EY and
the beit hamiqdash.

R' Leibtag's approach is the most convincing I have seen to date, for
dealing with the "missing 165-168 years."

Interesting stuff.

Kol tuv,
-- 
Arie Folger,
Recent blog posts on http://ariefolger.wordpress.com/
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