Our Gemara on Amud Beis, based on a verse in the Megillah, tells us that Haman felt no satisfaction in all his wealth and success so long as Mordechai remained defiant and would not bow.

This is a common psychological distortion and error that people make. Despite having many successes, they can harp on one particular lacking or failure and blow it up beyond proportion. This can be done internally so as to magnify one’s failures and minimize successes, or interpersonally, such as intensively focusing and dwelling on a spouse’s or child’s deficiency, while disregarding or minimizing positive qualities. People can do this in regard to skills, intelligence, frumkeit or looks. 

This syndrome or cluster of mental attitudes and behaviors sometimes bears the mark of obsessive compulsive personality disorder. This is not related to OCD. Instead this is a kind of personality that has perfectionistic or rigid standards in certain areas, and can lose perspective while dwelling on relatively small and unimportant details. While not always true, people with OCPD can have difficulty with expressing emotions or showing empathy.

Haman could not let go of his competition with Mordechai, and eventually this brought about his downfall. He had everything except for the crown, but it wasn’t enough.  When someone has obsessive traits, they seem so real and reasonable to their own mind. Treatment is possible as with most psychological conditions, however the requirement is a recognition that there is a problem. The person who obsesses and is troubled about disappointments, frustrations or lackings that are out of proportion and beyond reasonable will be unlikely to change unless he or she can absorb feedback. The major obstacle here is that often such persons tend to be mistrustful of others and need painful lessons, such repeatedly failed relationships, to even get an inkling that their internal barometer is out of calibration.

Translations Courtesy of Sefaria, except when, sometimes, I disagree with the translation

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