Episode Details

From Bereishit to Esther: A Midrashic Journey, by Rav Yitzchak Etshalom

Chazal take the position that "Esther was the end of the (era of) miracles" (BT Yoma 29b). We explore how the Ba'alei haMidrash were guided by this perspective, seeing the story of Mordekhai and Esther as the ultimate resolution of remaining tensions that were created in the stories in Bereshit. Understanding the Purim story as the end of a long epoch of a particular type of Divine immanence, the Midrashim see numerous circles,  opened in Bereishit, as successfully closing in the 5th century BCE in Shushan.

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