On the twenty-eighth of Adar the Jewish community received word that the Roman government had passed a cruel decree: Jews were forbidden to study Torah, to circumcise their sons, or to keep the Shabbat. Three pillars of Jewish life, snapped in one stroke of the imperial pen.
Rabbi Yehudah ben Shammua and his colleagues went to consult a Roman matron who received all the magnates of the city in her home. She advised them to come by night and raise a loud lament against the decree. They obeyed her counsel. In the dark streets of Rome they cried out, "O heavens! Are we not your brothers? Are we not the children of one mother?" — an allusion to Rebekah, mother of both Jacob and Esau, and so the common ancestor of Israel and Rome.
"Why should we be worse than every other nation and tongue, that you oppress us with such harsh decrees?" The cry rose to the Roman ears with its argument folded inside it. The decree was revoked that very night, and the Jews established a minor festival of thanksgiving on the twenty-eighth of Adar.
The Talmud (Rosh Hashanah 19a) tells this as a parable of unexpected allies and clever argument. Rebekah's twin boys became rival nations, but the memory of a shared mother could still pierce an empire's heart at midnight.