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.
Blind faith is intellect’s most deadly foe. Intellect that would surrender to faith has forfeited its very nature.
True faith is intellect’s most vital partner. To travel beyond its boundaries, intellect must find a vision that transcends itself.
That is the meaning of true faith: A perspective that surpasses the field of intellect’s vision, a sense that there is something not only unknown, but unknowable; something before which all our knowledge is an infinitesimal point of nothingness.
And so, the mind that fears faith will choose a truth with which it is most comfortable, while the mind that has found a partner in faith will choose truth that is absolute.