Hadassah's Festival

Today is Purim, when we celebrate the Story of Esther from the Story of Esther, found in the book of Esther, found in the Bible.

The story of Esther is the story of how, when the nation of Israel was exiled to Persia, the evil Haman tried to destroy them and the beauty Queen Esther and her cousin and guardian Mordecai worked to save them.

Here are a couple of things to know about Purim:

- The Book of Esther is the only Book of the Bible where God is not mentioned.

- Emily (my daughter) gives this overview of the Jewish holidays - The evil people wanted to Destroy us, God saved us, let's eat! An appropriate summary of the Story of Esther if you are hungry and only have a couple of seconds to summarize the holiday.

- Purim means lots. Sort of like dice that were rolled. On this holiday, they were used by Haman et. al. to decide when to wipe out the Jewish people.

- Xerxes (Esther's husband) is charmingly portrayed in the movie 300. He is pictured above with Gerard Butler as the Spartan Leonidas.

The same year, the movie One Night With The King was released, which was a little closer to the Biblical account. Omar Shariff and the guy who played Dr. Baltar in the new version of Battlestar Gallactica were in that movie.

In any case, look up the book of Esther in your Bible. It is an intriguing story.

Oh, and here, look at this.