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How did Mordechai overhear the plot to kill the king?

by Rabbi Yossi Marcus

  

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Some say that he learned of the plot through prophetic vision.1

The Talmud2 explains that the two plotters, Bigsan and Seresh, were speaking in their native tongue Tursi. Mordechai was a member of the Sanhedrin, and was therefore fluent in seventy languages. (At least a few members of the Sanhedrin had to be fluent in every language. This was because they would have to interrogate witnesses in their native tongues and were not permitted to resort to interpreters.)

Footnotes

  • 1. Targum Sheini.
  • 2. Tractate Megillah 13b
TAGS: mordechai

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Talmud
Usually referring to the Babylonian edition, it is a compilation of Rabbinic law, commentary and analysis compiled over a 600 year period (200 BCE - 427 CE). Talmudic verse serves as the bedrock of all classic and modern-day Torah-Jewish literature.
Mordechai
Cousin of Queen Esther, and Jewish leader in the 4th century BCE. Played a large role in saving the Jews after Haman, the Persian prime minister, plotted to exterminate them all. The holiday of Purim was established to commemorate this miracle.
Sanhedrin
The Jewish Supreme Court. The court would convene in a designated chamber in the Holy Temple, and was comprised of 71 of the greatest scholars of the time. Continued after the destruction of the Temples, but was dissolved in the 5th century when due to Roman persecution the seat of Torah scholarship relocated from Israel to Babylon.