I must have read the Book of Esther (Megillah) hundreds of times. So it comes as a surprise that this year I discovered something that I had never seen before. The name “Mordechai” appears in the Megillah fifty-eight times. We all know that Mordechai is often referred to as “Mordechai the Jew (HaYehudi)”. For example, in the prayer “Shoshanat Yaakov”, recited immediately after the Megillah reading, we sing in unison, “Blessed is Mordechai the Jew!” Well, it turns out that Mordechai is called “Mordechai the Jew” only three times[1] in the entire Megillah and all of them are in the final seven verses. But this is not the surprising part. We all know that queen Esther was an orphan and that she was adopted by Mordechai (the Jew). We all know that her father’s name was “Abihail”, as it says in the Megillah [Esther 2:6]: “[Mordechai] was a foster father to Hadassah, also known as Esther, the daughter of Abihail his uncle.” In an admittedly informal poll, a full one hundred percent of those polled were absolutely certain that the name of Esther’s father appears in this verse. Incorrect. The first time it appears is in a later verse, when Esther is waiting to be taken to the king to be “considered” whether or not she would make a good wife [Esther 2:16]: “When the turn came for Esther daughter of Abihail – the uncle of Mordechai, who had adopted her as his own daughter – to go to the king, she did not ask for anything…” Up until this point the Megillah refers to her simply as “Esther”. But this is not the surprising part. The surprising part is that the next time Esther is referred to as “the daughter of Abihail” is seven chapters later, in the same verse that Mordechai is first referred to as “Mordechai the Jew” [Esther 9:29]: “Queen Esther, the daughter of Abihail, and Mordecai the Jew wrote down all [the acts of] power, to confirm the second Purim letter.” Now that is surprising. What is the connection between Esther’s father and Mordechai’s moniker?

Our answer begins with an explanation given by Rabbi Menachem Leibtag[2]. While Mordechai is not referred to as “Mordechai the Jew” until the very end of the Megillah, he is introduced as........

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