Sometimes it's easy to forget, Purim is a very serious holiday.

Haman makes a deal with the king. He's going to guarantee the king 10,000 talents of silver (approximately two-thirds of the kingdom's normal annual tax revenue) within a year. Money needed after the coffers the have been depleted from war. Haman's plans is to extort one of Persia's client nations, and when they can't pay up the full amount, he's going to have them all killed and take their property for the state (and what's left over for himself).

The king agrees, perhaps (or perhaps not) knowing that Haman specifically meant the Jews. He doesn't really care. He's told the victim is weak, disunited, unloved, and most importantly unable to fight back.

The plan begins. Perhaps Haman is already collecting from his Jew tax and adding the money to the king's coffers, and the Jews are starting to be impoverished, and they certainly realize they can't make up the missing sums.

The threat of death looms closer.

And then the miracle of Purim happens, and everything is turned around.

I've always wondered about two things. The first is why didn't the Jew take the booty from the fighting. After all it was theirs by right. The second is why did Mordechai and the King implement a tax.

In his amazing book "Esther, Ruth, Jonah Deciphered" Stephen G. Rosenberg provides an answer (to the second question, for sure).

One traditional answer as to why the Jews didn't take the booty was to send the king a message. The Jews are just looking to survive and not take from other people, that the Jews are controlled and united in their actions, etc.

But Rosenberg, by explaining the background of the 10,000 talents of silver provides the background for a different explanation. The tax at the end of the story that was implemented, was a tax created to make up the shortfall in the budget (that Haman had promised), but one that was fairly distributed, instead of just on the Jews. (Rosenberg also explains that the other nations that "became Jews" doesn't mean they converted - the wording is unusual - but rather they helped the Jews pay the Jew tax).

And that actually helps explain why the Jews didn't touch the booty. Haman had planned to take the Jews property and give that to the king as part of the 10,000. The Jews here did they same thing. They left the booty to the king and filled up the King's coffers.

Suddenly King Achashveirosh learns quite a lot. His queen is a Jew. His best advisors are Jews. The people looking out for him (without expectation of reward) are Jews. The people able to help him fill his coffers are Jews. The most able fighters in his kingdom are Jews. The most united people in his kingdom are Jews.

From a disrespected people at the beginning of the Megillah whose holy Temple vessels are used for binge drinking parties, to a people that everyone fears and respects at the end, that really is a Purim miracle.

Please God, in our day too.