Megillath Esther tells the story of a close call for the Jews, when a great threat, posed by the evil minister Haman, was thwarted by the beautiful Queen Esther and her uncle Mordechai. The Purim story describes what would become a template for future cycles of anti-Jewish hatred.

In this podcast Dr. David Neiman gives a dramatic account of the battles of Salamis and Thermopylae. It is at these battles that the Persian empire was defeated by the up-and-coming Greeks. This loss created a fertile environment for the events that would later occur in Megillath Esther.