A Bupkes Purim story
When you're too drunk to know between good and evil, who's to say whose genocide that was.
Another Purim festival just passed us by, and if you’re wondering why The Bupkes is only getting around to telling the holiday’s story now you clearly don’t understand the holiday’s story. And how could you? The Bupkes was too much in the Purim spirit to tell you about it. What a paradox!
So come closer, dear subscriber, because we’re not getting off the sofa. Please bring the magnesium tablets with you and keep the curtains drawn; the debilitating dizziness is only just starting to wane. No one said a mitzvah wasn’t a headache.
The Bupkes has a special tale to tell you, which involves clever Yids, zero miracles, and definitely no allusions to contemporary experience.
Here comes the whole megillah …
It begins, and ends, in Persia. … Oh, seriously? Persia? A little on the schnoz, don’t you think?
Fine. We’ll roll with it.
OK, Persia. At the time, which was sometime before time was common and in no relation to the more common way of counting time, it was a mighty and sprawling empire. King Ah-ah-choo-suerus (Gesundheit!) was having a fantastic time ruling over his subjects. He was mostly in it for the parties, letting the guys at Project 2025 BCE do most of the governing.
One of his most legendary events, though, went awry. After months of celebrating himself and the rule he deserved, Ah-ah-choo-suerus (Gesundheit!) called on his wife, Queen Vashti, to come out and — as the children’s version of the Book of Esther tells it — uh, dance for him and his bros. Vashti had the chutzpah to refuse.
The King was incensed. He couldn’t believe she actually believed the marketing hype that his debaucherous revelry was based on inclusivity and consent. So, Vashti had to vamoose — again, interpret that as you like depending on the age-appropriate version you’re reading.
As often happens after returning to the land of the lucid after a long bender, Ah-ah-choo-suerus (Gesundheit!) realized he made a terrible mistake. Offing his wife meant he had no queen to speak of. If he didn’t find a new one soon, it wouldn’t be long before the worst kind of rumor possible would spread across the empire, threatening his grip on power.
Ah-ah-choo-suerus (Gesundheit!) decided the best course of action — the only one, really — was to hold a Miss Persia pageant. That would be the surest way to find the fairest, not to mention most compliant, maiden in the land.
When Mordechai, the savvy leader of the Jews of Shushanistan, got word of this, he came upon the brilliant idea that in no way reinforced antisemitic stereotypes of conniving Jews out to trick their fellow citizen for their own gain. His orphaned cousin, Esther, whom he raised as a daughter and definitely had no weird fantasies about, was pretty hot (objectively speaking, of course!). Surely, she could win the pageant and become the next Queen of Persia.
It was never bad to have the ear of the guy on whose goodwill your life depended and, historically speaking, empires were real flip-floppers on the question of whether they preferred their Jews living, dead, or otherwise. Esther wasn’t really into it, but her interests were rather immaterial and Mordechai liked to watch.
His plan worked. Ah-ah-choo-suerus (Gesundheit!) was beguiled by her performance in the kandys contest, crowned her winner, and the Persian empire celebrated its new queen. The King just didn’t know he was in a mixed marriage.
Esther, though, wouldn’t become the only Jew hanging around the palace. Mordechai felt entitled to come around more, finding excuses to partake in the royal buffet or shvitz in the royal wellness center. The court staff found his presence irksome and he would have been ejected, but Mordechai got lucky.
One day, he overheard a couple of the King’s personal poop collectors plotting an assassination. Knowing Ah-ah-choo-suerus (Gesundheit!)’s death would ruin the whole point of having a Jewess next to the throne, he immediately reported the incident to the palace’s scatological management office and had them hanged.
For Ah-ah-choo-suerus (Gesundheit!), his survival was nothing short of divine intervention and a confirmation that his claim to the imperial executive was for a greater good. With gratitude for services rendered, Mordechai was granted all-you-can-eat buffet access.
For a while, everything was going swimmingly. Then, though, on his third trip to the waffle station, Mordechai caught wind of the King’s other decree. A new prime minister was appointed, who went by the name of Haman. This guy was a real wild card, known for adopting salutes from the Romans and fathering a bunch of kids.
Mordechai’s refusal of Haman’s first public order, that all subjects bend over for him, was just the excuse he needed to wipe out the Jews of Persia. Ah-ah-choo-suerus (Gesundheit!), still clueless to his wife’s Semitic truth — even though she repeatedly turned down his Friday date night bowling offers — needed little convincing to approve the plot.
What’s 10,000 silver talents among friendly mass murderers?
This was the moment Mordechai feared — and was waiting for. With Haman readying the gallows, it was time for Esther to make the big reveal. When Ah-ah-choo-suerus (Gesundheit!) learned the truth about his wife’s ethnic affinity, he was too bowled over by the crushing confines of cognitive dissonance to feel the vengeful rage that is the more common response when learning you’ve been duped.
Thousands of dead would be a statistic; one dead — especially when she’s the finest female in the land — now that would be a catastrophe.
The King could not bear the thought of signing his queen’s death warrant, mostly because finding yet another one would be such a hassle and then the rumors would really begin. So he took the path of least resistance: Kill Haman and put Mordechai in his place. The guy was already in the court sauna all the time, anyway.
Mordechai, Esther, and the Jews of Shushanistan celebrated their good fortune. In their euphoria, and just to be safe, they killed Haman’s ten sons, too. And some 75,000 Persians, which as it happens remains more or less the (unadjusted) going rate for weaponizing your collective historical trauma in the interest of ethno-national supremacy.
But by this point in the Megillah reading, amid the clamor of groggers and rush to the hamantashen, you can be forgiven for missing the genocidal endgame. With the kids coked out on candy and the adults eyeing the vodka, the only thing left to do is get so drunk you can’t possibly tell good from evil anymore.
After decades drinking the Manischewitz-flavored Kool-Aid, the distinction can be easy to blur.
