ותכתב אסתר המלכה בת אביחיל ומרדכי היהודי את כל תקף לקים את אגרת הפרים הזאת השנית
“Then Queen Esther daughter of Avichayil wrote, along with Mordechai the Jew, with full authority to ratify this second letter of Purim.” (Esther 9:29)
Why is the letter ת enlarged? The Rokeach explains:
Esther wrote the history of Purim for posterity – for all time. The enlarged letter is telling us that the kesivah, the writing she did, was not simply to inform the people of that era of the events that transpired in Shushan; she wrote for all the ensuing generations as well. This monumental kesivah is symbolized by the large ת of ותכתב.
The Rokeach references the Gemara in Megillah (7a), which states that when Esther initially sought to document the events and write the Megillah, she was met with resistance. The Chachomim informed her that Tanach already contains the requisite three instances pertaining to the destruction of Amalek. We have a tradition, based on a pasuk in Mishlei, that there can be only three references to destroying Amalek.
הלא כתבתי לך שלישים, surely I have written for you [in the Torah] threefold (Mishlei 22:20), says the pasuk, and Chazal deduce from here שלשים ולא רבעים, threefold and not fourfold. Since there are already three, Esther was advised that the Megillah should not be written, Esther countered their claim with another pasuk:
ויאמר ה' אל משה כתב זאת זכרון בספר ושים באזני יהושע כי מחה אמחה את זכר עמלק מתחת השמים – “Hashem said to Moshe, ‘write this as a remembrance in the Book and recite it in the ears of Yehoshua, that I shall surely erase the memory of Amalek from under the heavens’” (Shemos 17:14).
כתב זאת זכרון בספר said Esther, is a direct instruction to write the history of Purim. The Chachomim acquiesced, and she wrote the Megillah.
The Rokeach points out that the gematria of the phrase, ותכתב אסתר המלכה בת אביחיל, is the same as that of זאת זכרון בספר ושים באזני יהושע, the pasuk that records the Ribbono Shel Olam’s oath to destroy Amalek.
The Rokeach then provides an alternative explanation for the enlarged letter ת. The letter ת is the twenty-second, and final, letter of the aleph-beis. The Medrash teaches that there were twenty-two women who had a profound impact on Klal Yisroel. These twenty-two wise women, these n’shei chayil, are the subject of Shlomah HaMelech’s Eishes Chayil.
Esther was the twenty-second of these women, and she is therefore represented by the twenty-second letter, the letter ת, which is written large to allude to her status as the twenty-second eishes Chayil.
