Study Megillah folio 14A with parallel Hebrew-English text, traditional commentary, and modern study tools. Free access to Babylonian Talmud online.
The actions of Ahasuerus and Haman can be understood with a parable; to what may they be compared? To two individuals, one of whom had a mound in the middle of his field and the other of whom had a ditch in the middle of his field, each one suffering from his own predicament. The owner of the ditch
At a later point, one day, they happened to have met one another. The owner of the ditch said to the owner of the mound: Sell me your mound so I can fill in my ditch. The mound’s owner, anxious to rid himself of the excess dirt on his property, said to him: Take it for free; if only you had done so
§ The verse states: “And the king removed his ring from his hand” (Esther 3:10). R' Abba bar Kahana said: The removal of Ahasuerus’s ring for the sealing of Haman’s decree was more effective than the 48 prophets and the 7 prophetesses who prophesied on behalf of the Jewish people. As, they were all
A baraita states: 48 prophets and 7 prophetesses prophesied on behalf of the Jewish people, and they neither subtracted from nor added onto what is written in the Torah, introducing no changes or additions to the mitzvot except for the reading of the Megilla, which they added as an obligation for
The Talmud asks: What exposition led them to determine that this was a proper mode of action? On what basis did they add this mitzva? R' Ḥiyya bar Avin said that R' Yehoshua ben Korḥa said that they reasoned as follows: If, when recalling the exodus from Egypt, in which the Jews were delivered from