Modern highways are the descendants of those first deliberate lines drawn across the earth. Where gravel paths once cut through forests and deserts, asphalt now stretches in precise, engineered ribbons, carrying vehicles instead of caravans. The materials have changed, and the speeds have increased, but the intent remains the same. Highways exist to compress distance, to make the far feel near, and to turn vast territories into something navigable and coherent. They are the latest expression of an old ambition, to overcome geography through design.

And just as highways hold together modern nations, roads once held together empires.

Empires are held together through their roads. Roads serve as the quiet instruments of cohesion, turning distant outposts into extensions of the center. They allow orders to travel with certainty, goods to flow with consistency, and people to move with purpose. Places that would otherwise remain isolated and self contained become part of a larger whole, each tied into a shared system. The road makes presence possible and allows authority to arrive as something tangible and repeatable.

Over time, roads do more than connect the empire. They come to define it. They establish the channels along which commerce, culture, and control will move. Settlements rise where roads intersect, and influence strengthens where movement is easiest. The network begins to shape decisions, expectations, and possibilities. In this way, the empire is expressed through its roads, as the pattern of connection becomes the pattern of power itself, transforming land into structure and distance into reach.

That is the setting for the story of Esther and Jewish holiday of Purim.

The Scroll of Esther (Megilat Esther) is set during the time of the Persian Empire, during the 5^th century BCE.

The story opens in the royal court of King Ahasuerus, who rules a vast empire from India to Cush, 127 provinces. In the capital city of Sushan (in modern-day Iran), he holds a great feast and summons his queen, Vashti, to appear before his guests. She refuses, and the king, advised by his counselors, removes her as queen. A search is conducted throughout the empire for a new queen, and a young Jewish woman named Esther is brought to the palace. She conceals her Jewish identity at the instruction of her uncle and guardian, Mordechai. Esther finds favor in the king’s eyes, and he crowns her as queen.

Mordechai, who sits at the king’s gate, uncovers a plot by two palace guards to assassinate the king and reports it through Esther, saving the king’s life. Mordechai’s intervention is noted in the king’s journal, but nothing else is done. Meanwhile, the king elevates Haman to a position of great authority and commands that all bow to him. Mordechai refuses. Enraged, Haman resolves not only to punish Mordecai but to destroy all the Jews throughout the empire. He persuades the king to issue a decree ordering their destruction on a designated day based on a type of lottery he used to determine the date (where the word Purim comes from), and the decree is sent to every province.

When Mordechai learns of the decree, he mourns publicly and urges Esther to go before the king to plead for her people, even though approaching the king uninvited risks death. Esther agrees and fasts for three days. She then approaches the king, who extends his scepter to her, indicating she has found favor in his eyes and it was okay for her to approach uninvited. She invites the king and Haman to a banquet, and requests and additional banquet.

In the interim, Haman seeing Mordechai who still refuses to bow to him, sends Haman into a mad rage. His wife and advisors council Haman to ask the king to allow him to hang Mordechai. Haman in his zeal, constructs a gallows 50 cubits high and goes in the middle of the night to the king’s palace. Coincidentally, that very night, the king has trouble sleeping and calls for his journal. He reads that Mordechai had saved his life and was never rewarded. Finding out that Haman is in the antechamber, he calls for him and asks his advice. “What should be done for the man who the king wishes to honor?”

Haman, in his egocentricity can’t imagine anyone else the king would want to honor and suggests to the king: “Let the king’s own robe be brought, and a horse the king has ridden, bearing a royal crown. Let these be entrusted to a noble courtier, who shall dress the man the king wishes to honor and lead him on the horse through the city square, proclaiming: This is what is done for the man the king wishes to honor.”

The king commands Haman: “Go and do exactly as you instructed for Mordechai the Jew!” Haman does so and returns home despondent. From home he is rushed by the king’s guards to Esther’s second banquet.

At the second banquet Esther reveals that she is Jewish and accuses Haman of plotting her people’s destruction. The king, angered, goes out to the garden. Haman approaches Esther to plead for his life but ends up falling upon her on her couch (they ate on couches), exactly at the moment the king returns from the garden. The king, enraged, orders Haman to be hanged on the very gallows Haman had prepared for Mordechai.

The king elevates Mordecai to Haman’s former position and gives Esther and Mordecai authority to issue a new decree. They write in the king’s name that the Jews in every province may gather and defend themselves against any who attack them. On the appointed day, the Jews defeat their enemies throughout the empire. Mordecai records these events and establishes the festival of Purim, to be observed each year in remembrance of the days when sorrow was turned into joy and mourning into celebration.

The sages legislated four commandments (Mitzvot) to be performed on Purim:

1. Reading the Scroll of Esther, the night and morning of Purim.
2. Giving gifts to the poor.
3. Sending parcels of food to friends.
4. A joyous celebratory meal.

2,500 years later, Jews still commemorate Purim and perform these commandments with great joy, thankfulness and celebration. Over centuries, it has become one of the most festive holidays, with a tradition of children, and even adults, dressing up in costumes, which add to the celebratory festivities.

Purim this year is celebrated the night of Monday, March 2 and Tuesday, March 3.