Children in religious Jewish neighborhoods in Lakewood and Brooklyn dress up in costumes and deliver treats from house to house instead of asking for them–like a reverse Halloween.?? This is done to celebrate the delivery of scrolls containing ?good news? throughout the Persian (Iranian) Empire 400 years before Jesus.??? (Those messages from the king with ?good news? ?cancelled previous royal messages that had ordered all Jews to be killed on the day of the full moon for Persian month of March).
Adults celebrate the holiday with eating and drinking. ? ?But there is also a serious side, as adults read the entire Book of Esther?the longest and most recent book in the Old Testament.??? It tells of how Haman, the king?s chief advisor, ?persuaded the king to adopt a plan to greatly increase the royal treasury without making his subjects angry with tax hikes. ?Haman would pay the enormous sum of ?10,000 talents of silver? into the ?royal treasury?. ? Haman would get that money by having an exclusive ?government contract or charter letting his family’s organization kill all Jews in the empire?a small ?one percent? minority?and seize all their property.?? At the time, neither Haman nor the king knew that Esther, one of the king?s favorite wives, was Jewish.
When Mordecai, Esther?s uncle learned of this plan, he asked her to approach the king and persuade him to cancel Haman’s ?evil plan.? But Esther refused.? She said:? ?The law is well known that if any person enters the king?s inner court without being summoned, that person is put to death?unless the king raises the golden scepter?.
Mordicai responded:? ?Do not imagine that you of all Jews will escape with your life by being in the king?s palace.?? On the contrary, if you keep silent now, relief and deliverance will come from somewhere else–while you and your family die.?? And who knows, maybe you got your privileged position for such a time as this!? (Esther 4:13-14)
Esther then changed her mind and approached the king. ? The King raised his scepter, and let Esther speak to him. ? He then agreed to spare the Jews. ? When the full moon of March came, Haman was hanged on one of the gallows he had built to kill the Jews.??? Years later, President Abraham Lincoln often used the term ?Gallows of Haman? to describe plots cooked up by his enemies to destroy him, that destroyed his enemies instead.
Many Americans today enjoy wealth and privilege because of our Constitution and culture of liberty.??? But when our Constitution and our culture of liberty are both relentlessly attacked by the ?progressive? left, few Americans with wealth and privilege defend them.??? Like Esther, they remain silent because they are afraid to expose themselves, their families, and their businesses to criticism or retaliation that would put their wealth or privilege at risk.
But Mordecai?s warning to Esther applies to them as well.?? If they fail to defend our Constitution and liberty now, ?they will also lose everything if our country falls apart. Instead of worrying about losing their wealth and privilege, they should understand that our Constitution and America’s “exceptional” culture of liberty and laws to equally protect the “unalienable rights” of each individual is what gave them and their families wealth and privilege in the first place.???And maybe they got their wealth and privileged positions ??for such a time as this? so they could use their wealth and privilege to protect that Constitution and culture and government of liberty.
If you know anyone with wealth and privilege who privately complains about what is happening to our country, but does nothing about it, please contact us.?? Help us get in touch with them to persuade them to make an anonymous, tax deductible gift to www.libertyandprosperity.org.
This is a good post which is marred by one remark in the first paragraph.
Who told you that what Trick-or-Treater’s do should be labeled as begging?
I am sure that making another choice of words would not be a lot of work.
Just changed “begging” to “asking”. Linguists, historians, and scholars may say my description was technically correct or not a big difference. But I agree with you that I should not let a careless choice of words detract from the main message. Seth Grossman
When I was a kid back in the mid 50’s we used to dress up as “ragamuffins” and go “begging” on Thanksgiving day. We all called it begging. Most of the time we ended up with a few apples, walnuts and some pennies. I don’t know if it was just a regional thing or what. The sight of ragamuffins asking “anything for Thanksgiving” (instead of trick or treat on halloween)seemed to fade away towards the late 50’s, early 60’s.