As U.S. forces gather around Iran (ancient Persia) this week for a controversial pre-emptive strike against their nuclear program, we are reminded of another controversial pre-emptive campaign in our history.
It was the pre-emptive strike of Mordechai—provoking Haman by not bowing down—that led to the attempted genocide of all Jews in the extensive Persian Empire. But pre-emptive strikes are not limited to warfare.
Doctors sometimes diagnose asthma by testing the body’s defenses. If they suspect that someone has dangerously sensitive airways, they don’t wait for a random asthma attack in the middle of the night.
They perform what is known as a bronchial challenge. A mild irritant is introduced in a controlled setting, and the lungs are monitored. If the airways constrict, the diagnosis is confirmed. The irritant did not create the disease. It revealed inflammation that was already there. Better a provoked spasm in a hospital than suffocation at home.
And this is a parable for what takes place in the Megillah, as we read on Purim.
After King Ahasuerus elevates Haman, all officials at the royal gate are commanded to bow. Everyone complies, except Mordechai. Day after day, he refuses. Courtiers warn him. They pressure him. Yet he stands upright. The response is explosive. Haman is “filled with rage.”
But the fury is not limited to a single dissenter. When Haman learns that Mordechai is a Jew, he drafts a decree to annihilate every Jew in the empire—men, women, children across 127 provinces.
At that moment, the Persian Empire’s airway constricts.
The hatred was not born that day. It was an ideological weapon just waiting for a trigger. Mordechai did not invent it; he exposed it. He introduced the irritant that forced the system to reveal its pathology. Only after seeing the reaction clearly could the Jewish people organize, fast, appeal to Esther, and ultimately reverse the decree.
That was Mordechai’s Persian asthma test.
Not everyone was comfortable with it. The Megillah closes by saying that Mordechai was “accepted by the majority of his brethren” but not by all. The sages notice the nuance. Some contemporaries, even respected rabbis, may have believed that his refusal to bow sparked the crisis unnecessarily. Why provoke Haman? Why risk awakening a sleeping hatred? Why not bow and preserve communal calm?
It is an ancient argument: Is peace the absence of friction or the absence of illusion?
The story feels uncomfortably modern. When the State of Israel defends its nearly 9 million citizens against the brutality of Hamas, critics often say the same thing: You are provoking antisemitism. If only you were quieter, softer, less assertive, the airway would remain open.
But the green bandanas on campuses, the chants in Western capitals, and the open celebration of a massacre were not created by Jewish self-defense. They were revealed by it. The bronchial challenge exposes the disease.
Revelation, uncomfortable as it is, carries a strange blessing. Now at least we know what we are facing. Illusions dissolve. Allies are clarified. Societies must decide whether they will tolerate the disease or treat it.
Today, as we await a pre-emptive strike by America on Iran, many people are asking, “Why provoke a sleeping lion?” The Megillah gives us the answer.
Mordechai’s test was dangerous. It triggered a crisis, but it saved the Jewish people. Sometimes, diagnosis is noisy. Sometimes, exposure feels like provocation. But hidden inflammation does not disappear through appeasement. It waits undiagnosed and inevitably undermines our long-term health.
Better a spasm in daylight than complete suffocation in denial.
