What did Mordecai get wrong?

Even great men can be undone by priorities that are not properly ordered

At the end of biblical book of Esther (read by Jews during today’s holiday, Purim) the text reads, “Mordecai the Jew was viceroy to King Ahashverosh and was great among the Jews, most of whom accepted him.” (10:3) But Mordecai had just manufactured Jewish salvation from the impending genocide arranged by the evil Haman. Why would only “most” of the Jews accept him? If ever there was a leader deserving of universal acclaim this seems to have been the guy.

The answer lies in the larger historical events surrounding the story. When Mordecai is first introduced we learn that before he lived in Persia (where this story took place) he “was exiled from Jerusalem with the exile that happened to Yoknaya the king of Judah who was exiled by Nebuchadnezzar the king of Babylon.” This was the famed Babylonian exile (“by the rivers of Babylon where we sat down and there we wept when we remembered Zion”) initiated by the destruction of the First Jewish Temple in Jerusalem.

Secular chronologies set Haman's plot and downfall 474/3 BCE, after the rebuilding of the Second Temple, finished in 516 BCE. Jewish sages however set Haman's actions five years before the Second Temple's completion. The secular timeline also makes Mordecai at least 112 years old during his confrontation with Haman. The Jewish timeline makes him 68 years old (assuming he left Jerusalem as a baby). The secular timeline therefore makes Mordecai implausibly old and a Jew who has chosen to continue living in Persia despite the reconstruction of his birth city, Jerusalem. The Jewish timeline makes him a man at or near the peak of his powers, living in Persia while the struggle to rebuild the Temple was ongoing. The timing in fact perfectly overlaps with a period after the Persian king Cyrus gave the Jews permission to rebuild the Temple but the building had been stopped by inteference from Israel's enemies, described in the book of Ezra.

With this background we can understand why, despite his accomplishmensts, not all Jews of the time were impressed by Mordecai. Though he acted with infalliable honor, good sense, and courage throughout the terrible challenge of Haman's effort to extreminate the Jews, Mordecai was fighting a battle even less important than continuing the construction of the new Temple, something that goes unmentioned throughout the text. In the words of Rabbi Adin Steinsaltz, "There were some who objected to him because the building of Jerusalem and the Temple were not renewed during his tenure."

This teaches an important lesson. While Mordecai deserved great praise in his time (and deserves it also in ours), he missed what was most important: the need to reestablish Jewish freedom at our holiest site.

The implications for our own time should not require further explanation.