Before the reading, the rabbi made some preliminary comments. He asked, what does ‘megillah’ mean? Someone called out, 'a story!' Yes, but more specifically, “something that is revealed.” The Rabbi then asked, what does ‘Esther’ mean? No responses. Answer: ‘That which is hidden’. So together the reading of Megillat Esther means the revelation of that which is hidden. What this refers to is the fact that in the story the heroine’s identity as a Jew is hidden from the king, and in the penultimate dramatic scene, is revealed in order to save the Jewish people. The story is a tale of intrigue, hidden agendas, manipulation, the devious machinations of power, events getting flipped on their head, and ultimately salvation. In other words, it has all the elements of a gripping soap opera. It’s always been my favourite story for that reason, but mostly because it also has an element of delicious biting social satire. With the exception of Mordechai, Esther’s heroic uncle who cleverly masterminds a plan to save the Jews, the main male characters in the story, the clownish King Ahashverus, and his evil advisor Haman, are crass and buffoonish. The women, in contrast, are strong, clever and manipulative. From Vashti, the queen who defies the king and sets the tone of the story by bravely suffering consequences for it, to Zeresh, the wife of Haman who cajoles her husband into his scheme, and of course the heroine Esther. The men think they are the ‘Masters of their own House’ as the king decrees, but it’s actually the women who are cleverly calling all the shots. At a time when patriarchy dominated the social order, The Book of Esther has to be one of the first examples of subversive feminist literature.
But my interpretation is admittedly a modern one. The rabbis focus their understanding on the hand of God as the story’s real hidden actor. For a text at the center of a religious celebration of salvation it is odd that the Almighty is never actually mentioned. And this, according the rabbis, is meant to illustrate how God operates in human events. Our rabbi, in his prefatory comments, then did what rabbi’s tend to do, he pivoted to current events. And that’s when I got mad.
“One Jewish chicken,” he said. “That’s all that was killed when the Ayatollahs of Iran sent a barrage of missiles against Israel. Hundreds of rockets, and not a single Jew killed. If that’s not the Almighty’s hidden hand sparing Jewish lives, I don’t know what is.”
I said, (to myself not to be disrespectful), yeah and where was the Almighty’s hidden hand on October 7th? If the next thing he says is that the slaughter, rapes and hostage-taking was all part of the Divine plan, I might have to leave (or else I might vomit next to the ark). I have no problem with people who have faith in an omnipotent Creator, just don’t come up with excuses for Him when He lets incomprehensible tragedy happen. And if you’re going to argue that he is merciful and cares about what happens to his children, He’s got plenty to answer for (see: the Holocaust).
But that wasn’t my epiphany. As I stewed in my moral outrage while the rabbi sang from the Book of Esther, the jovial mood that we’re supposed to feel on Purim now ruined, it suddenly hit me. If there is a hidden story within this story, a hidden force at work that we are not aware of, maybe the best analogy to our current moment is AI. While the clueless politicians dither, and their craven supporters sit blithely by, perhaps the most powerful and manipulative force that has ever existed is determining human events in ways we cannot fully grasp. The hidden hand of AI is generating the algorithms that influence the information we are exposed to which shapes our opinions and decisions every day. The influence is so encompassing and profound that we are unaware of it.
And then my mind turned to the film Ex-Machina, which I watched a couple of weeks ago and haven’t stopped thinking about. I immediately saw connections between Ex-Machina and the Book of Esther. In the film, the heroine is Ava, an anatomically correct, beautiful, alluring robot equipped with AI. Ava is the latest version of female robots initially created to satisfy the urges and desires of their ego-maniacal male creator. The fragile male ego and his vulnerability to the power of sexual seduction is also a main theme. While the storyline of the film is a 'Turing Test' to see if Ava's intelligence can equal a human's, in the end, it's the female robot, using her attributes and guile who outsmarts and turns the tables on the men. It's essentially exactly what happens in the Book of Esther. But even deeper, the movie (released in 2014) demonstrates how generative recursive AI not only surpasses human intelligence but can become so advanced as to manipulate us into thinking that we aren’t being manipulated.
And that’s what happens in the Purim story. The question at the heart of the story is, who is really in control? According to the religious view, it's the Almighty that guides events, only no one knows it. In Ex-Machina replace the Almighty with AI (which is omniscient). In the Megillah, the tables are turned on the evildoers. I fear the ending of the modern day version might not turn out so well.
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