The grand 180-day feast hosted by King Achashverosh came to an end on this day.
Achasverosh miscalculated the start date of Jeremiah's prophecy which promised the rebuilding of the Holy Temple after 70 years of Babylonian exile. When, according to his calculations, the seventy years had passed and the Jews were not redeemed, he orchestrated this grand party to celebrate the "demise" of the Chosen Nation. During the course of the party he brazenly displayed many of the vessels looted from the Holy Temple by the Babylonian armies.
Links:
Esther 1 (For a vivid description of the feast.)
The Royal Feast
The Jewish community of York, England, consisting of 150 souls, was massacred by a bloodthirsty mob. Among the martyrs was the Talmudic scholar R. Yom Tov of Joigny.
In today's "Nasi" reading (see "Nasi of the Day" in Nissan 1), we read of the gift bought by the nasi of the tribe of Menasseh, Gamliel ben Pedahtzur, for the inauguration of the Mishkan.
A woman’s influence is different from a man’s. A man needs to conquer, to vanquish an opponent. Therefore, his victory is often superficial—he may get the other guy to nod his head, but not to surrender his heart.
A woman is able to reach inside a man, so he may not even recognize her influence. He feels as though this was his idea all along. Her conquest is through nurture.
From where does this talent come? Paradoxically, from the woman’s union with a man. In that union, she discovers what it is to be a woman, and how a woman conquers with love.
So too, from the man’s union with a woman, he can learn to heal the world through nurture. To be truly a man.