Why Doing the Right Thing For the Wrong Reason Still Matters
What we can learn from the story of Charvonah, the anti-hero of the Purim Megillah
The following is an excerpt from my 2019 book, The Muggle Megillah, which is available for purchase here. If you order on Amazon Prime today, you can have it in time for Purim!
Ahasuerus had hundreds of servants. Aside from Haman and Mordechai, seventeen others are mentioned by name in the Megillah. (All right, if you’re counting, there is a list of seven in chapter 1 and another list of seven in chapter 2, plus Bigtan and Teresh and Hatach.) But only one servant gets a shout-out in Shoshanat Ya’akov, the famous Purim song sung in many congregations after the megillah is read: Charvonah.
But why Charvonah out of all the others? Charvonah’s motto might have been “When all else fails, do the right thing.” According to Rabbinic tradition, he was actually part of Haman’s posse, but when he saw events turning against his boss, he started singing like a songbird. “Then Charvonah, one of the chamberlains who were before the King, said: 'Behold also, the gallows fifty cubits high, which Haman made for Mordechai, who spoke good for the King, stands in the house of Haman.' And the King said: ‘Hang him on it.’” For this — for being an opportunistic turncoat who flips on his former friend — Charvonah is enshrined in the Jewish Musical Hall of Fame?
Perhaps the point of it all is that heroes come in all sizes, shapes, and varieties. As dazzled as we are with the self-sacrificing heroics of an Esther or a Mordechai, we need to remember that most people don’t rise to those heights. In fact, many people lose their way in the moral thicket until it is too late or almost too late. Some, like Charvonah, recover themselves just in time to do the right thing, albeit for the wrong motives. In our imperfect world, they too belong in the category of heroes, even if there is an asterisk next to their listing.
The closest analogue in the Potter universe would be the Centaurs. Given to vague and unhelpful pronouncements (“Mars is bright tonight”), they don’t see their role as fighting evil, so much as charting it. Only Firenze takes an active role in helping the wizards of Hogwarts, and for that he is ostracized by his herd. It is only at the end of Book 7, when Hagrid is carrying an ostensibly dead Harry back to the castle, and berates the Centaurs — “Happy now, are yeh, that yeh didn’ fight, yeh cowardly bunch o’ nags?” — do they come to their senses and realize that no one is entitled to stay on the sidelines in the fight against evil. They show up for the final round of the Battle of Hogwarts and redeem their previous neutrality.
Not all of us will be a Mordechai or Esther, a Harry or Hermione.
But we can all be a Charvonah.