Monday, February 19, 2007

Daf Yomi - Megillah 12 - A Boor Leaps to the Front

It is written [1:16]: Memuchan declared before the king and the ministers. The Gemora states that Memucan is Haman, and he was called Memucan because he was destined for punishment.

Rav Kahana said: From here we see that an ordinary man (by the fact that he was mentioned last, it is obvious that he was the least important amongst them) always pushes himself in front.

My brother, Reb Ben asked me: we say by dinei nefashos maschilin min hatzad (min hakatan), meaning that by capital punishments, Beis Din begins debating with the smallest. Accordingly, what was wrong with Memuchan speaking first?

I saw from the Sha'ar bas Rabim an answer: Haman is the one who said (3:8): There is one nation, scattered and dispersed among the nations throughout the provinces of your kingdom, whose laws are unlike those of any other nation and who do not obey the laws of the King. It is not in the King's interest to tolerate them. Haman is stating that we do not follow the Jewish laws. If he doesn't follow the Jewish laws, then evidently he jumped first to state his opinion out of haughtiness and not because the halacha is that way. (It is a bit drushy though.)

7 comments:

Anonymous said...

Great Purim Torah

Anonymous said...

It is written [1:16]: Memuchan declared before the king and the ministers. The Talmud Yerushalmi states that Memuchan is Daniel who was also Memuchan to be killed as he was later by Haman went bringing back and forth the messages between Esther and Mordecai.

Anonymous said...

yasher koach!

Anonymous said...

Memuchan and Eitz have the same Gematriyah hence its Haman because he was prepared to hang on tree
-BEN ISH CHAI

Anonymous said...

According to Pirkey D'Rebbi Eliezer (end of chapter 49) Daniel was indeed Achashverosh’s advisor Memuchan

Anonymous said...

Esther contains many interesting words. On the surface they're Hebrew-- a closer look reveals the internationalization of names and loan-words from no less than seven languages.The names Memuchan (1.16) is related to the word "faithful". However, Memuchan means, in Persian, `a man of little faith'. The Talmud identifies Memuchan with Daniel. Daniel indeed had lost his faith in Israel as the bearer of God's promise.

Anonymous said...

I see alot of people e-mailing that Memuchan is Daniel but didn't say that Tosfos brings that Yerushalmi with a little bit of a different explaination why he advised as he did. But to answer the original question, the gemara "darshens" the words that the Sha'ar bas Rabim as referring to our not marrying them as opposed to their being different from us. Maybe,eventhough we start with the katan the av beis din needs to turn to him to start and it is done in a controlled manner, whereas it seems that Haman may have just shouted out his opinion before anyone else had a chance to even look at him to start.