For He Told Them He Was a Jew

Esther chapter 3: Haman has become mighty, and all the king's servants are bowing to him. All except Mordechai.

3. Then the king’s servants, who were in the king’s gate, said to Mordecai, Why do you transgress the king’s command? 4. Now it came to pass, when they spoke daily to him, and he did not listen to them, that they told Haman, to see whether Mordecai’s words would stand; for he had told them that he was a Jew.

So I asked my Bibliodrama participants to be Mordechai, and posed the following question to them:
"Mordechai, you told Esther to keep her Jewish identity a secret. And yet you yourself reveal that you are a Jew - and in a very dangerous context, that of not bowing to Haman, offending him, and breaking the King's decree, to boot.
- At what point did you tell them you were a Jew? From the start, or in the course of time?"

My participant, Viktoria, replied as Mordechai: 
"In the beginning I kept it hidden. I was afraid to reveal my identity. But as time went on, and I daily did not bow, that action strengthened me. And it was during that process that I found myself suddenly deciding 'Enough of hiding, it's time to speak my truth. The time has come for me and us as a nation to stand up and not hide anymore, suffering the consequences if necessary."

I find it fascinating that, according to this interpretation, it was this situation with Haman, something that was the antithesis of all that is godly, that brought out this courage in Mordechai and enabled him to declare "I am a Jew". It reminds me very much of another biblical person who stands up and declares "I am a Hebrew" only because he finds himself in a strange situation that is not, seemingly, the godly route - and that is Jonah (Jonah 1:9):

I am a Hebrew and I fear the God of Heaven, who has made the sea and the dry land.

As I explain in another blog post "The Jonah Epiphany", this entire set of events with the sailors was not meant to occur; it would not have happened at all had Jonah obeyed God. And yet it enabled him to come to this place of growth for him, like Mordechai. 

We can deduce from this that even situations that seem difficult and wrong (and maybe specifically these) can be marvelous opportunities to bring out of us inner strengths we did not know we possessed.