Some information you may not know about Purim.

Allow me to speculate on the book of Esther with the expectation of discovering a parallel that didn't come to light until the last seventy years, or so. I'm not the first one to see this by a long shot. This is the parallel between Haman's ten sons in the Purim story and the Nuremberg trials following World War II. In 1946, ten Nazi war criminals were hung for their horrific crimes. In the Purim story, the Talmud claims that Haman's daughter committed suicide rather than being dragged off to be hung with her brothers. Herman Goring also committed suicide rather than being hung before his scheduled execution. Thus the number of Nazis who were actually hung was ten... the same number as Haman's sons. One of the Nazi defendants even proclaimed these words... "Purim fest 1946."

The uncanny parallel to the story of Esther doesn't end there. Since the trial was conducted by a military tribunal, the sentence should have been by firing squad, or the electric chair as practiced in the U.S. However, the court prescribed hanging, exactly as in Esther's request. While I am purposely skimming over some other parallel events, let me relate this next one.

If you read the Purim story in the Megillat Hebrew version (written during the Roman occupation), you will find that 4 Hebrew letters are different from the way they should appear. This is in the Megillat Esther story where the ten sons of Haman are mentioned. Jewish sages have taught that whenever there is a variation of a letter, or spelling of a word in the text, then God must have a specific meaning. Thus the four Hebrew letters were examined and made to represent numbers (which is common in Hebrew). The four letters became 5-7-0-7. Incidentally, on the Jewish callendar the year 5707 was the year 10 Nazi war criminals were hung. The year 5707 was 1946. "That which has been is what will be." (source unitedwithisrael.org)

YBIC

Bruce Baber