One of the things that I really enjoyed about working through the book of Esther with you is that we kind of know how it ends

because the thread of the book is that

this monster, Heyman,

he achieves power right under the nose of the king and somehow in this great civilized empire

he is able to put together a support system and a plan and financing and

enough popular agreement to circle a date on the calendar with a red pen to

eradicate all of the Jews and

the reason that I think we've been able to

have a little bit of fun with the story and

really treat it tonally a lot like the Jewish people have

every year when they celebrate Purim and have for millennia

I think one of the reasons we've been able to take that tone is because we do know the outcome and because Heyman's efforts

so

colossally fail

It's cathartic. It's satisfying and so I've enjoyed that this is

been yes a very high stakes book with scary stuff being talked about and covered but

You're all through it. We've been able to strike a certain tone and I think it's felt right

It doesn't feel right today though

Because yesterday morning I still had sleep in my eyes and decided to read some news before I got out of bed

and thumbed through my phone a little bit and before I could even make decisions

About whether or not I wanted to set eyes on certain things that I was seeing in my feed

I'd already set eyes on them and I will never forget what I saw

...