Purim's heroines provide a springboard for Jewish feminists
in their quest to widen the role of women in religious life.
In the folklore version - the one that most of us have
learned - Purim is a wonderful story.
Mordechai, the hero, enters his cousin Esther in a beauty
contest organized for the purpose of selecting the next
queen of Persia, so that she could deliver the Jewish people
from their impending doom.
Political intrigue and sexual innuendo, a dumb king and
a wily villain, a proud Jewish man and a stunning Jewish
Mata Hari - what more could we ask for as the dark winter
days begin to make way for the first signs of spring?
Yet, a more careful, critical reading leaves feminist readers
uncomfortable. The story of Purim, which is the story of
Esther, can also be seen as a tale of sexual subjugation
and political savagery, with a misogynistic and murderous
king, an ambitious sycophant, a genocidal despot, a rebellious
woman and a docile queen as its main characters.
Jewish feminists have been grappling with these messages
for the past two decades, and combing Megillat Esther in
search of new answers.
They are continuing the quest this year with a host of
planned events ranging from study days sponsored by the
Schechter Institute for Jewish Studies, and a performance
of a different version of the story of Esther by Theater
Group Jerusalem.
Kolech, a feminist Orthodox women's movement, plans to
organize and sponsor women's Megilla readings in communities
throughout Israel and the territories.
Institutions such as Tal Torah, a learning center dedicated
to the intergenerational Torah study for women, is planning
readings for mothers and daughters.
Several communities in the Gush Etzion area, where Kolech
is quite active, have received copies of Megillat Esther
for birthday and family gifts, and it is from these scrolls
that they will read next week.
These Purim programs are part of a wider effort by Jewish
feminists to reclaim a role in Jewish study, ritual, and
community, and to reappropriate Jewish heroines into our
teaching and learning.
"What we know of women's past are those things men
considered significant to remember, seen and interpreted
through a value system that places men at the center,"
writes Judith Plaskow in her book Standing Again at Sinai.
Even when canonical texts focus on women, such as the matriarchs,
or war heroines such as Deborah or Yael, the feminists say
that commentators have paid women scant attention.
Interpretive texts, shaped by male authors and editors,
have failed to speak to the women's experience in the narrative
or to modern women's experiences as they read a biblical
text, they say.
"The central conflict for Jewish women today,"
says Gabriella Lev, director of Theater Group Jerusalem,
"is how to be part of a tradition that sees you as
inferior, because you are a woman."
More recently, historians have uncovered the stories of
extraordinary women since the biblical era who have distinguished
themselves despite living in often restrictive circumstances.
Feminists have begun to reinterpret biblical heroines through
the prism of their own experiences as women, and, in so
doing, have found sources of wisdom and insight.
It is hardly surprising that Purim would be one of the
main focuses for this renewal. First of all, it is one of
only two holidays whose texts are named for women. (The
other is the Book of Ruth, read at Shavuot.)
Secondly, both men and women are commanded to read the
Megilla, although the Orthodox don't count women for a prayer
quorum.
"Women's celebrations of the Purim festival do not
threaten the 'comfort level' of change within the Orthodox
community," explains Margalit Friedman, a leader of
Kolech.
Or maybe, suggests Lev, it is because Esther herself wrote
the Book of Esther.
In Chapter 9 verse 29, the text reads, "And Esther
the Queen wrote all these things to Mordechai the Jew."
The text is written in the feminine, Lev notes. The feminine
conjugation of the verb "wrote" is highlighted
in the traditional form of the text.
In the tractate of the Talmud that relates to the Book
of Esther, it says how she wrote to the 72 rabbis and sages
who formed the Knesset Yisrael (the ruling legal body of
Judaism at that ancient time) and demanded, "Kitvuni
Ledorot [Write me down for generations]."
The rabbis resist, fearful that the story will "arouse
jealousy among the nations." But Esther insists, demanding,
"Kiv'uni Ledorot [Fix me for all generations to come]."
"She demands this of the rabbis," says Lev, "and
she demands this of all of us."
Looking back through the generations and forward through
the centuries at the millions of little girls who have dressed
up and will dress up as Queen Esther, Lev notes that this
is truly "a unique way to fix yourself in the consciousness
of your people."
But in her one-woman show, Esther, Lev challenges the audience,
"Who was Esther?"
Esther is not a Hebrew or Jewish name. Traditional sources
reveal that Esther's Hebrew name is Hadassah (Myrtle), while
the Talmud explains that the name Esther comes from the
goddess of beauty and passion, Eshtoret. In Hebrew, Esther
also refers to the word hester, which means "hidden."
"Indeed," says Lev, "so much of Esther and
her life is hidden from us."
The Book of Esther, which is marvelously detailed in some
ways, provides little information about Esther. She is described
as an orphan, as though she has no past and no present,
only a role to play in the future of her people.
Even her age is unclear. When she challenges the audiences,
most people tell Lev that they think of Esther as 16 or
18, a virginal young woman. But the sages have traditionally
taught that Esther was 40, a mature woman, at the time of
these happenings. Some rabbis even contend that she was
72 - a comment that draws laughter from Lev's audience.
Noting that some have compared Monica Lewinsky to the figure
of Esther, Lev adds: "Imagine how the course of history
would be different if Monica Lewinsky would have been 72."
Esther's age is more than a male fantasy, says Lev. If
Esther is a mature woman, then the story emerges from the
realm of sexual innuendo and passion to a more significant,
powerful, and profound meaning.
If she has no age, no history and no present, no parents
and no children, then Esther is every woman, and she can
be every man's projection of his ideal woman. Like many
women, she is part of history, yet unseen in her entirety.
The story of Esther, like the whole story of Purim, is
one of change and reversal. Esther first appears as the
dutiful cousin of Mordechai, given to the court to compete
for the role of bride, while following her cousin's guidance
on marriage, obeying the rules of the king's court and his
eunuchs.
When the evil Haman convinces King Ahasuerus to agree that
all the Jews in the kingdom should be murdered, Mordechai
pleads with his cousin to intercede on the Jews' behalf.
This is the first time that Esther actually speaks, telling
Mordechai that all subjects, herself included, risk death
by approaching the king in his inner court without being
summoned.
But Mordechai responds, "Do not imagine you will be
able to escape in the king's palace any more than the rest
of the Jews. For if you persist in keeping silent at a time
like this, relief and deliverance will come to the Jews
from some other place, while you and your father's house
will perish; and who knows whether it was just for such
a time as this that you attained the royal position?"
(Esther 4:13-14).
It is at this point, says Professor Alice Shalvi, who has
lectured on Esther/Vashti and Feminist Activism at the Masorti
Women's Study Days, that Esther transforms herself from
passive obedience into a skilled strategist. Grasping and
playing upon the psychology of the king, Haman, and even
Mordechai, she masterminds the rescue of her fellow Jews
in the kingdom. She took what might have appeared to be
a personal crisis - her fear of confronting the king - and
turned it into a communal observance.
"Esther is a marvelous role model for women everywhere,"
says Shalvi. "Knowledge and perceptiveness, as well
as formal study and the acquisition of learning, can empower
women to bring about the betterment of their families, their
communities, and society as a whole."
According to Friedman, Esther "turns her inferior
position into one of victory for herself, and for all Jews."
She "uses her feminine wiles, not as a coquette, but
assertively and cleverly," Friedman says. "Mordechai,
like Vashti, fights and refuses to bow down - an admirable
act, but one that promotes Haman to institute the 'final
solution.'"
For generations, countless millions of little girls have
answered Esther's demand to fix her for generations. But
no one ever wanted to dress up as Queen Vashti, whom the
rabbis have portrayed as cruel, vain, and selfish.
Yet, a more contemporary, feminist reading of Vashti, such
as that presented by Shalvi, Lev, and Friedman, provides
a new appreciation for the rebellious queen.
They regard Vashti as a powerful queen and an independent,
self-possessed woman. While her husband and his courtiers
feast, she hosts her own luxurious party (for women only!).
When her drunken husband imperiously summons her to come
before his courtiers to "display her beauty" -
wearing, the legends tell us, nothing more than her crown
- she flatly refuses.
Her blatant disobedience is so threatening to the men of
the court, that they imagine that she could be the catalyst
for a general insurrection by all the women in ancient Persia.
In today's terms, one might simply say that they are fearful
that women would find in Vashti a role model for female
liberation.
The men, defensive of their status and superiority, react
severely. They advise the king to get rid of Vashti, and
she is unceremoniously executed.
From the narrative, it is apparent that men viewed the
women of the king's court as objects of entertainment, whose
role it was to serve and satisfy a man's needs in whatever
manner possible.
Interestingly, the text initially refers to her as Vashti,
the queen. Yet, when she refuses to appear before her husband,
she is called "Queen Vashti," to show us that
she has a mind of her own.
Vashti couldn't override the patriarchal structure, and
her rebellion leads to her death. But she leaves us with
the memory of a strong woman who rejects the belittling
role assigned to her.
Vashti is the grandchild of royalty, Lev says. She knew
that her sense of selfhood is bound in her dignity and chose
to risk death, rather than give up her self-respect. Lev
says the trope (tune) that is sung to the words "And
Vashti refused" is the longest trope in the entire
Book of Esther.
"Her refusal echoes throughout the generations as
a message to all of us to protect our selfhood, our sense
of who we are, as individuals and as a people," Lev
says.
There is even one rabbinic midrash (commentary) which contends
that the man who advises the king to do Vashti in is really
Haman, the same man who will later seek to annihilate the
Jews.
"His fear of women and his fear of the Jews are the
same," says Lev, "in the same way that hatred
of women and anti-Semitism, misogyny and hatred of humankind,
have been connected throughout the generations."
Traditional readings have always portrayed Vashti and Esther
as opposites, two women with very different approaches to
their role as queen. Vashti sought power, but ended up disempowered
and dead. Esther's power, we are taught, was internal, and
so she became empowered.
Esther is the enabler, and Vashti is a disabler. In a man's
world, it is Vashti who must be destroyed, and only an Esther,
who uses her feminine charms in a manipulative, non-threatening
way, can persevere.
But feminist interpretations reveal a more complex dialectic.
There is irony in that Ahasuerus's decision that no woman
is going to tell him what to do - Vashti - puts into motion
the chain of events that ends up by his doing exactly what
another woman - Esther - tells him to do.
Adds Lev, "Esther and Vashti are faced with the same
decision. They both must take a risk in order to maintain
their selfhoods. Vashti takes the risk by refusing to come
to the king. Esther takes the risk by coming to the king
unbidden. They are mirror images of each other."
Esther, and now Vashti, can be feminine heroines, the kinds
that help us to see beyond ourselves, Shalvi says. "They
are role models for activism, they set examples for achievements
that we can aspire to. They show us that we can often succeed,
despite limitations and obstacles."
Esther Cohen, 49, is entranced by Shalvi's lecture. Her
eyes fill with tears. Cohen came to Israel from Argentina
only five weeks ago. Her Hebrew is faltering and she is
still disoriented and a bit confused, she says.
"I never thought of it like this, until I heard Professor
Shalvi, just now. We left Argentina because it was the right
thing to do. We left for Israel, not for America, because
we knew in our hearts that now, at this time, this was the
right thing to do for ourselves and our people. My name,
too, is Esther. I never thought of that, but I feel stronger
now."
Says Lev:
"We must bring women - with all that we see and contribute,
with our unique view of the world, with our power and powerlessness
- back into our texts and our religious and communal lives.
That is our hope for creativity, change, and growth."
Reading about the struggles and accomplishments of brave,
creative, resourceful, and ingenious Jewish women can be
inspiring for both boys and girls and can contribute to
changes in Jewish gender roles, she says.
In the United States, in particular, the stories of Esther
and Vashti have served as the themes for Jewish women's
political activism. Last year, a mysterious group of Jewish
feminists called Jewish Women's Watching, identifiable only
by its e-mail address, picketed American Jewish institutions.
Wearing masks, they held signs and traditional noisemakers,
declaring that Esther "spoke on behalf of the entire
Jewish people," while only one woman had ever delivered
a "State of World Jewry Address" at the 92nd Street
Y, a Jewish institution on Manhattan's Upper East Side.
Furthermore, alleged a card they circulated, "Vashti's
not the only woman who had to strip to keep her job."
In Boston, the Jewish Women's Archive, a national organization
"whose mission is to uncover, chronicle, and transmit
the rich legacy of Jewish women," sponsors an annual
event dedicated to stories of women who courageously took
risks.
Among the women honored are a French Resistance fighter
in the 1940s, a civil rights worker in the 1960s, a key
supporter of Soviet refuseniks in the 1970s, a nuclear-disarmament
activist in the 1980s, and a woman who organized five local
and national aid drives for Bosnian civilians during the
siege of Sarajevo in the mid-1990s and crossed siege lines
to deliver the aid.
In addition to retraining the spotlight on Jewish women's
heroism, at Purim and throughout history, women are redefining
the meanings of the story.
The story of Purim foretells the Holocaust, Lev says.
"Esther was able to avert their Holocaust. But when
I was a child, as my mother, who survived Auschwitz, draped
the robes around my shoulders, as I dressed up as Queen
Esther, she would say to me, 'Such a beautiful Esther you
are, my daughter. But why was there no Esther to save us?'
Why wasn't there an Esther to avert the Holocaust? What
was different in our constellation today that couldn't avert
it?"
And maybe, suggests Lev, that is why Esther demanded that
her story be written down. "Not out of feminine ego
- but because she understood the possibility of genocide,
and because she knew that we, the Jewish people, would face
genocide again. Any maybe because she knew that wherever
there is a Holocaust, there will always be denial. As there
was then. As there is now."
Like others, Shalvi is troubled by the ending of the story
of Purim. The king cannot reverse his decree to murder the
Jews. All he can do is give the Jews the right to defend
themselves. And so they do, first with pure self-defense
and then with the mass killing of 75,000 Persians.
"This is clearly a story of exile," says Shalvi.
"It is the fantasy of the weak. It raises troubling
questions - is it good to be different? Is it good to be
a minority? If Jews become like others in taking revenge,
if we massacre instead of being massacred - what do we learn
about life in exile and life in our own sovereign land?"
If this is the fantasy of the weak, what shall we do when
we are no longer powerless? What spiritual and ethical dangers
do we face when we are powerful but pretend still to be
powerless? Shalvi wonders.
To her, the answers are deeply disturbing. She reveals
that on Purim eve eight years ago, she sat in the synagogue
and listened to the reading of Megillat Esther. Suddenly,
she noticed a figure dressed as the specter of death, in
black shrouds with a scythe.
"I thought that it was a tasteless costume,"
she says, "a very non-funny attempt at humor. I saw
this figure move along the walls, silently creeping, stopping
behind the reader. I was deeply troubled, but no one else
seemed to have noticed him."
The next morning, she woke up to hear the news that Baruch
Goldstein had murdered 29 Moslems prostrate in prayer in
the Cave of the Patriarchs in Hebron.
"I had never thought of myself as having premonitions,"
says Shalvi. "But a deeply religious Jew murdered innocents
in the name of Purim. I can never forget that horror."
In response, some progressive synagogues have decided to
forgo reading the final chapters of the Megilla.
Friedman notes that there were also several serious terrorist
attacks against Jews on Purim in the past few years.
"Purim has become a difficult holiday, not just a
holiday of rejoicing. It has become too close to home to
be comfortable. But it is our responsibility, our duty,
to grapple with that difficulty, not to avoid it. That is
the meaning of our interpretation throughout the generations."
Lev feels that seeking newer, deeper meanings and confronting
the troubling messages of Purim can also possibly bring
a new interpretation to the biblical injunction to "blot
out the memory of Amalek."
Many have noted that the name of God is never mentioned
in the entire Book of Esther. Concludes Lev, "The story
of Purim is not a story of the workings of God. It is a
story of the machinations of man. That is the fear, and
that is the hope.
