Who Was Megillat Esther Written For?

 I heard an interesting question at the Purim Seudah this year. The host, Rabbi Baruch Rubanowitz asked, "Who was Megillat Esther intended for? Was it meant as a historical account for the non-Jewish population, or rather, to galvanize or send a message to the Jewish people?" 

I was enraptured by the question, alcohol and all, and think that the answer is not all that clear-cut. Or rather, it seems that it was clearly intended for both!

The Megillah ends off interestingly with a seemingly banal financial affair, i.e. Achashveirosh instituted a tax on all of the nations. This would seem like quite the non sequitur. It's like sharing an account of the Holocaust, and then capping it off, with what the per capita GDP was in Europe in 1945, or how much disposable income had fallen - or risen - in Germany, since the rise of the Third Reich until the end of the war. For the Jewish people, the tax rate in the Persian Kingdom had very little bearing on future generations, and so it would seem that the message was clearly designed for the non-Jewish, or gentile population: in other words, you, the non-Jews thought you'd be better off wiping out a disparate nation, with rites and rituals of its own - but at the end of the day, because Mordechai helped shore up Achashveirosh's kingdom, he was not only able to maintain its stability but rather impose taxes anew. Through the acumen and perspicacity of a man once deplored as a parasite with no function but to erode the kingship's reign, Achashveirosh was able to reign with an iron fist, and use his unchecked reign to add to his own coffers. This is a rather stark message, it would seem, for the non-Jewish world. Joe Lieberman, an observant Jew, who once ran for VP of the Democratic Party, averred that if there was conflict of interest between his Jewish faith and America's best interests, he would choose the latter; that, though, is not the modus operandi of a Jew. Rather - and this is the message for the non-Jewish world, you can best employ a Jew's faculties when he serves as an advisor, a consultant, not someone part of the governing apparatus - but rather in an auxilliary capacity, that helps it maximize its strength, and diminish from its weaknesses. 

There is though, also, a very clear message to the Jewish people. Esther asks for a second day to annihilate the Jews' enemies in the capital city, Shushan. Furthermore, presumably out of fear, the Jews of Shushan do not celebrate Purim festivities in its first year; only after Mordechai commands them to do so, do they get up the gumption to celebrate. Both of these attest to a fearlesness, the fact that the message was for the Jewish people. Lastly, I would like to add that interestingly, Achashveirosh first called Mordechai by his first name alone; when he asks Haman to honor him, he refers to him as Mordechai HaYehudi; it would seem that in that pasuk, it is a divine voice, ruach ha'kodesh; in the words of the passuk, Hamelech, Hashem, our King and the King of the Universe is saying that this is what is fitting for someone who fears me, for Mordechai Hayehudi, who has honored my name, at risk of everything he had. 

May this be in memory of Chananel Rubanowitz Z"L