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As the Middle East — indeed, the world — stands at a critical crossroads, President Andrew Rehfeld’s op-ed in EJewish Philanthropy offers a powerful lens through which to understand this moment.

Turning to the Book of Esther for insight, he shows how the stories of Queens Vashti and Esther mirror the choices we face today. Their contrasting paths remind us that both moral clarity and pragmatic action are essential tools when confronting injustice and cruelty, and their ancient courage still feels powerfully relevant. He writes:

Yesterday, we celebrated Purim. I’ll share a secret: I hate the holiday. Or rather, I’ve long hated how we celebrate it. I don’t like costumes. And the carnival spirit set against a story that ends with 75,000 dead — even if killed in justified self-defense — has troubled me for years.

Despite my feeling about our celebrations, the Book of Esther, the holiday’s core text, is among the most finely crafted works in the Tanach, especially as a work of political theory, a reflection on power, complicity, protest and survival under an unjust regime. That’s why I embrace the traditional practice of reading it carefully every year.

Amid the new and unfolding war in Iran and challenges around the world, the Book of Esther is a story even more relevant for our times. King Ahasuerus, often portrayed as a bumbling, inept ruler whose inattention, if not outright perfidy, enables his deputies to commit unspeakable evils on the masses, could have been drawn from current world headlines. Whether in countries where brave citizens risk imprisonment or worse to protest repression or in democracies veering towards authoritarianism, the story of a leader unbounded by the rule of law feels painfully familiar. Against that political backdrop, the text offers two models of response: Vashti and Esther. One of protest that is often ineffectual but morally pure, and another of effective strategic action that often springs from self-interest rather than moral courage.