After Haman was killed, Achashveirosh gave his estate to Mordechai and Esther and gave them permission to write a new royal decree, which permitted the Jewish people to gather together and kill their enemies. At that point, Mordechai went out wearing royal garments, which caused the Jewish people in Shushan to rejoice, and as a result, they had light, gladness, joy, and honor. On a literal level, the Megillah is informing us that after so much darkness, sadness, and public degradation, the Jews now felt redeemed and experienced light, happiness, and honor.
However, the Gemara in Megillah (16b) interprets each of these expressions as a reference to a mitzvah that the Jews were now able to keep: Orah (light) refers to Torah, simcha (happiness) represents Yom Tov, sasson (joy) corresponds to bris milah, and yekar (honor) refers to tefillin. If the Megillah wants to tell us that the Jewish people now had these four mitzvos, why does it do it using code words instead of explicitly writing: ליהודים היתה תורה ויום טוב וברית מילה ותפילין? Additionally, if the Megillah is informing us that at this point they performed these mitzvos, this implies that until now they were lacking these mitzvos, but why was that the case?
Rav Gedaliah Schorr and Rav Dovid Feinstein explain that these were not new mitzvos that the Jewish people suddenly received at this time. They received these mitzvos and performed them long before the episode of the Megillah. The problem was that they were performing them half-heartedly, by rote. They were going through the motions, but their hearts weren’t in it.
The Medrash records that when Haman approached Achashveirosh with his plan to destroy the Jews, Achashveirosh responded that he was scared that he would be punished like everybody else who had tried to start up with them in the past. Haman responded that this time was different, because the Jewish G-d had grown old and no longer had the strength to save them. If Achashveirosh recognized Hashem's power and believed in the miracles He had performed for us previously, how could he be so naive as to think that Hashem suddenly grew old and no longer had the ability to save us?
Rav Eliezer Ginsburg explains that Hashem kavayachol [so-to-speak] receives His strength from us, and to the extent that we are strong and committed to doing mitzvos with joy and alacrity, Hashem conducts Himself with strength and might to protect us, but when we perform mitzvos weakly and without vigor, Hashem’s manifested power diminishes. Therefore, when Haman saw that the Jews were doing mitzvos without energy, as if they had grown old and weak, he argued that now Hashem would conduct Himself as if He was also old and weak, and He wouldn’t be able to come to their defense.
One of the merits through which the Jewish people were saved was that Mordechai was learning Torah with the children. Why was he specifically teaching Torah to the children? Even though the adults were also studying Torah, they had lost their excitement and zeal. Mordechai recognized that everything children do, they do with enthusiasm, and the merit of their learning Torah with passion and fervor would kavayachol make Hashem young again and give Him the energy to save the Jews.
With this introduction, we can now appreciate that at this point in the Megillah, the hidden miracles that the adults had witnessed while living through these events inspired them to reaccept the Torah that they had originally accepted at Har Sinai under duress, but this time they accepted it willingly and lovingly (Shabbos 88a).
As a result, they no longer felt that they were doing mitzvos because they had to. They now learned Torah because they wanted to, as they realized that Torah is the true and only light. They now kept Yom Tov not because of a fear of punishment for desecrating it, but because they recognized that Yom Tov is the true source of simcha. They performed bris milah on their sons not only because the Torah requires them to do so, but because they understood that bris milah is synonymous with sasson, and they wore tefillin not just to fulfil the daily obligation to do so, but because they internalized that tefillin are the true source of Jewish honor.
Rav Dovid Feinstein suggests that for this reason, the Megillah refers to itself (9:26) not as a sefer [book], but as an iggeres [letter], which is unusual. The Megillah is one of the books of Tanach; why do we call it a letter? The difference between a book and a letter is that a book is something that after a person has read it once, he knows the plot and isn’t interested in reading it again. If somebody compels him to reread it, he will, but his heart won’t be in it. A letter, on the other hand, is something that we look forward to receiving in the mail, and as soon as it arrives, we tear it open and read it with excitement. The Megillah refers to itself as a letter to teach us that even though we read it year after year and generation after generation, we should do so each time as if we’re opening a newly delivered letter that we’ve been anxiously awaiting. (R’ Ozer Alport)
