All this is considered a triumph by the narrative itself and by later Jewish tradition. But contemporary readers often find it difficult to look upon the account of the Jews’ war against their enemies in this way, tending to lose interest in the story after the death of Haman. This is despite the fact that Haman is hanged well before the actual turning point in Mordechai and Esther's struggle to save the Jews, and long before the actual war itself, which is the event that in fact brings the Jews redemption.

There is good reason why the account of the Jews’ bloody and overwhelming victory, which in other societies would be remembered and savored with pleasure, is often underemphasized, passed over in discussion, and even, in some cases, avoided as if it were an object of shame. The liberal societies of our time are founded on the principle of nonviolent resolution of disputes. The doctrines of the social compact, the rule of law, the voluntary division of labor, and the mutual benefits of contractual exchange – all these are the basis not only for our political order, but also for a prevailing consciousness, whose hold is all the stronger as one approaches the more educated populations within Western society. Individuals who have grown up in this culture have few life experiences to suggest to them that there is any real need for force, violence, and war; and their educators strain to inculcate in them the belief that it is a virtue to “outgrow” the use of force. On such a view, reason and appetite are the only familiar and appropriate springs of human action. And all that is sought by reason and appetite – food, possessions, sex, and knowledge – can be obtained in quantities by most members of an industrialized and free society without recourse to force, and even, it is thought, without the subjugation of any individual by any other.

For those who see the world this way, the functioning of the human spirit, which, for lack of understanding, they refer to using pejoratives such as the “lust for power,” is a mystery.