Esther and the Second Beit HaMikdash

Megilat Esther provides a lot of detail about the miracle of deliverance from Haman’s evil plot to annihilate the Jews throughout the kingdom of Ahashverosh. But the Megila makes no explicit mention of the return to Zion of Jews in the same approximate period of time, and their project of rebuilding the Beit HaMikdash (as related in the books of Ezra and Nehemiah). Our Sages z”l, however, saw a great deal of connection between the story of Purim and the building of the 2nd Beit HaMikdash.

Join Rabbi Yitzhak Zuriel and study a number of sources in Chazal — in the gemara and midrashim — to understand this perspective of the Sages of the Talmudic period, which itself gives deeper meaning to many details of the story told in the Megila about the events that transpired in Shushan the capital, far away from Jerusalem.