Purim in the Eyes of Our Generation

The Seeds of Unification

Megillat Esther calls Mordechai a “Judean man” and “son of Yair son of Shimi son of Kish, a Benjaminite.” The gemara is bothered by the apparent contradiction; one of its answers is that while he was genealogically from Binyamin, the people of Yehuda would argue that they deserve the credit for him because, as a descendent of Shimi, had David Hamelech killed Shimi ben Geira, Mordechai would not have been born.

Confident of his Predictions or Not?