Here is what he tells her: “Think not that in the king’s palace you will escape any more than all the other Jews. For if you keep silence at such a time as this, relief and deliverance will rise for the Jews from another quarter, but you and your father’s house will perish. And who knows whether you have not come to the kingdom for such a time as this?” (Esther 4:13-14).
What we learn from this is what I term the Mordecai Mandate, which states: Even though God is at work in history toward this end, we remain responsible to do all that we can to preserve Jewish community and continuity. Failure to do so will bring harm to the Jewish people in our own time and context, for which are culpable before God. Therefore, any approach to outreach among Jews that disrupts or destroys Jewish communal cohesion is wrong.
Let’s break that apart for a moment:
- Certainly, God will preserve the Jews. Mordecai tells Esther, “If you keep silence at such a time as this, relief and deliverance will rise for the Jews from another quarter.” The reason he is confident of this is because of God’s faithfulness to his covenant.
- Mordecai warns Esther that failure to embrace her responsibilities and to do what she could, would have disastrous effects for her time and context. The same is true for us. Therefore we are always responsible to do all we can to preserve the Jewish community and its cohesion.
Although there are many who would place Jewish soul salvation at the head of a list of priorities, this will not do. Our highest priority remains obeying God, and it is disobedience to God and to his covenants for us to neglect our covenant responsibility for other Jews. And because it is disobedience, it can and should never be justified. Indeed, “any approach to outreach among Jews that disrupts or destroys Jewish communal cohesion is wrong.”
