Sparkling Within: Beautiful Women in Tanach

The Gemara cites a baraita in which the Sages taught: There were four women of extraordinary beauty in the world: Sarah, and Abigail, Rahab, and Esther. And according to the one who said that Esther was greenish in color, lacking natural beauty, only that a cord of divine grace was strung around her, remove Esther from the list and insert Vashti in her place, for she was indeed beautiful.

Abram and Nahor took to themselves wives, the name of Abram’s wife being Sarai and that of Nahor’s wife Milcah, the daughter of Haran, the father of Milcah and Yiscah.

(1) יסכה - This was Sarah; she was also named Yiscah (from a root meaning “to see”, “to look”) because she could see (the future) by holy inspiration, and because everybody looked (gazed) at her beauty.

(11) As he was about to enter Egypt, he said to his wife Sarai, “Behold, now I know what a beautiful woman you are."

BEHOLD NOW I KNOW — The Midrashic explanation is: Until now he had not perceived her beauty owing to the extreme modesty of both of them; now, however, through this event, he became cognizant of it. Another explanation: Usually, because of the exertion of traveling a person becomes uncomely, but she had retained her beauty. Still, the real sense of the text is this: Behold, now the time has come when I am worried because of your beauty.

(30) Grace is false, Beauty is illusory; It is for her fear of Hashem that a woman is to be praised.

A woman of grace and beauty is not praised for those attributes, rather its all illusory, and the woman who fears G-d, that alone should be praised

AND THE LIFE OF SARAH WAS 127 YEARS (literally, 100 years, 20 years and 7 years) — The reason the word שנה is written at every term is to tell you that each term must be explained by itself as a complete number: at the age of one hundred she was as a woman of twenty as regards sin — for just as at the age of twenty one may regard her as having never sinned, since she had not then reached the age when she was subject to punishment, so, too, when she was one hundred years old she was sinless — and when she was twenty she was as beautiful as when she was seven.

[THE SOULS] THAT THEY HAD GOTTEN (literally, made) IN HARAN — The souls which he had brought beneath the sheltering wings of the Shechinah. Abraham converted the men and Sarah converted the women and Scripture accounts it unto them as if they had made them

R. Shimon b. Gamliel said: There were never such (joyous) festivals for Israel as the fifteenth of Av and Yom Kippur ("the fifteenth of Av":) on which (days) the daughters of Israel would go out in borrowed white garments [All of them borrowed, even the rich ones,] so as not to embarrass those who could not afford their own. All of the garments required immersion. And the daughters of Jerusalem went out and danced in the vineyards. And what did they say? "Young man, lift up your eyes and see what to choose for yourself (as a bride). Do not look for beauty; look for family." : "Favor is false, and beauty vain; a G d fearing woman — she is to be praised."

(3) The man’s name was Nabal, and his wife’s name was Abigail. The woman was intelligent and beautiful, but the man, a Calebite, was a hard man and an evildoer.

(7) He was foster father to Hadassah—that is, Esther—his uncle’s daughter, for she had neither father nor mother. The maiden was shapely and beautiful; and when her father and mother died, Mordecai adopted her as his own daughter.

(15) When the turn came for Esther daughter of Abihail—the uncle of Mordecai, who had adopted her as his own daughter—to go to the king, she did not ask for anything but what Hegai, the king’s eunuch, guardian of the women, advised. Yet Esther won the admiration of all who saw her.

Rabbi Neḥemya concurs and says: Hadassah was her real name. Why then was she called Esther? This was her non-Hebrew name, for owing to her beauty the nations of the world called her after Istahar, Venus. Ben Azzai says: Esther was neither tall nor short, but of average size like a myrtle tree, and therefore she was called Hadassah, the Hebrew name resembling that myrtle tree. Rabbi Yehoshua ben Korḥa said: Esther was called Hadassah because she was greenish, having a pale complexion like a myrtle, but a cord of Divine grace was strung around her, endowing her with a beautiful appearance.

OF THE MIRRORS OF THE LEGIONS — The Israelite women possessed mirrors of copper into which they used to look when they adorned themselves. Even these they did not hesitate to bring as a contribution towards the Mishkan. Moshe rejected them since they were made for the yetzer hara (temptation), but Hashem said to him, “Accept them; these are dearer to Me than all the other contributions because through them the women set up many legions in Egypt (had so many children)!” For when their husbands were tired through the crushing labor they used to bring them food and drink and induced them to eat. Then they would take the mirrors, and each gazed at herself in her mirror together with her husband, saying endearingly to him, “See, I am more beautiful than you!” Thus they awakened their husbands’ affection and subsequently became the mothers of many children, at it is said, (Song 8:5) “I awakened thy love under the apple-tree”, (referring to the fields where the men worked). This is what it refers to when it states, מראות הצבאת

(3) No one else shall come up with you, and no one else shall be seen anywhere on the mountain; neither shall the flocks and the herds graze at the foot of this mountain.”

AND NO MAN SHALL GO UP WITH THEE — Because the first tablets were given amidst great noises and alarms and a vast assembly the “evil eye” had power over them (they did not endure) — there is no finer quality than modesty (tznius).