The least homely part of the Megillah, however, follows, where the Jews of Shushan and elsewhere proceed to kill their potential persecutors. The children of Haman are hanged with relish on the gallows prepared by their father. Like Amalek, they are blotted out. Of course, revenge is a solid motive in the ancient world until Christianity made turning the other cheek a positive value; and of course there are apologies that have been made to explain the killing of so many of the Persian empire; but to many a modern reader, the violence is an awkward and even distasteful end to the carnival atmosphere of the Megilla. Once the plot of Haman is foiled, his decree rescinded, and he (and his family) killed, it is less clear that the potential murderers of the Jews can be killed in anticipation with quite such gusto, without leaving a moral qualm. Support for the weak of the community cannot be separated as an issue from the use of power when you have it: it is part of the same dynamic. At Pesach – for Parsha Zachor and Purim lead swiftly to Pesach – this idea is repeatedly emphasized in the idea of the ger: you should treat the stranger well because you were a stranger in Egypt. Because of your Detail from Egyptian Chess Players by Sir Lawrence Alma-Tadema (1836-1912) experience when weak, you must understand what the proper use of power is. I do not need to stress, I hope, what the political implications of such a commandment are – but they are far-reaching both for one's personal life and for the behaviour of a state. It was in America that I heard the claim – it is one which you can find in the sources – that actually ger only means a Jewish convert and you should treat converts well. Nothing to do with "the other". Leave aside the current treatment of converts by the London Beth Din and the offensive articles in the JC. What is truly offensive about such a claim is the attempt to escape from one's moral responsibility by such an interpretation. The interpretation is flawed not least because the verse insists "you were the ger in Egypt", and thus, unless you believe that the Jews were all converts in Egypt, to understand ger as convert is untenable. But the motive behind such an interpretation is more worrying. It is an attempt to think that only Jews matter. And it is the attitude that lets us forget about stragglers, and lets us revel in the use of power even for murderous ends. It is an attitude that comes from the enjoyment of wealth and splendour without moral responsibility, without the feeling for the other – not the self – that is the basis of true morality. "Loving one's neighbour as oneself" is the whole Torah on one leg…And that means, as the great Jewish philosophers Levinas and Buber both understood, cherishing and exploring the other, and recognising how it is in one's relation to the other that one's moral self is formulated. This Pesach, when we narrate and study in the Haggadah how the Jewish people became a people, it would be worthwhile to think of the role of the ger in the story, and what it means for how we should live our lives as individuals and as a people. I wish you a happy and kosher Pesach. Professor Simon Goldhill, Chairman, CTJC
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