When Power Corrupts "Dat"
How arbitrary decrees and the intoxication of power are fueling this war of choice with Iran
The Hebrew word dat (דָּת) began as a Persian loanword meaning decree, edict, or commission. It fills the Book of Esther:
The king’s feast follows a dat permitting unlimited drinking (1:8).
A new dat is issued to replace Queen Vashti (1:19).
Haman accuses the Jews of following their own dat and defying the king’s (3:8).
He then enacts a dat calling for their annihilation (3:14).
After he is hanged, yet another dat authorizes the Jews to take revenge (8:13).
In the Megillah, dat is arbitrary, manipulated, and weaponized—a tool of ego, power, and political convenience. Decrees are issued and reversed at the whim of rulers and opportunists.
In modern Hebrew, dat means “religion,” and religion, too, is easily twisted into a banner for domination and bloodshed. When leaders casually bomb nations to “reshape” the Middle East, or “teach lessons” through firepower, they are echoing those ancient, blood-soaked imperial decrees.
The eagerness to wage war with Iran is nothing but the intoxication of power—a perversion of what dat should be. The so-called “existential threat” is a phantom conjured to justify what former top Israeli negotiator Daniel Levy describes as “Israel’s eradicationist war against the Palestinians.” It is a modern dat, an arbitrary decree of destruction masquerading as security.
In reality, Judaism and Islam have long influenced one another profoundly, sharing a language of restraint, humility, and ethical responsibility.
If our dat—our religion—means anything, it must be a brake on violence, not an accelerant. Let us oppose the illusory, blood-soaked “solution” of bombs and insist on the harder, nobler work of diplomacy, restraint, and mutual recognition.