This calculated step lent a religious significance to the ceremonious bowing. Yet, there was one person who bowed to no men, and who acknowledged no deities. Beneath the surface, the Book of Esther is about an era in which the sensitivity of Jews to their own Jewishness was on the wane. Ironically, there arose at that same juncture an enemy who hated the Jews specifically because of their Jewishness. And, as the Talmud goes on to tell us, the Jewish response to their enemy was not to run from the scourge of their Jewish identity, but to realize that nothing in the world was more precious to them than their very Jewishness.
Light represents a fresh commitment to studying the wisdom of the Torah.
Joy, gladness and honor represent a reinvigorated attachment to the holidays and other observances like circumcision, and the wearing of tefillin. The Jews of Persia had now come full circle. Where once they were so casual about their Jewishness that they could enjoy a party celebrating their own physical and spiritual downfall, now events had brought about a fresh appreciation of Jewish life. On the surface, the story of the Jews in Persia could have been about any people who escaped near annihilation at the hands of their Persian hosts. Yet, aided by the vision of our sages, we are able to see that beneath the surface lays the story of a unique Jewish struggle to maintain a passionate sense of identity amidst a host culture that was at times welcoming and, at times threatening.