By Tamara Cohen
Reprinted from Ritualwell.org,
Megillat Esther has been understood as a fantasy of Jewish power written in a time of Jewish powerlessness. But the megillah actually tells two parallel stories. The primary story is about how Jews in the Diaspora became victims to the whims of power, and then, in the “happy” conclusion, the victors. The secondary story, a story about women and men, follows a similar course, beginning with a wife who is banished when she refuses to obey her husband and concluding with a wife who is listened to and given a significant amount of power. In both stories edicts are issued that threaten the rights of an entire group – Jews and women. Both edicts are eventually subverted through the cunning and courage of Esther and Mordecai. Yet, only one of these subversions is celebrated in our communal observance of Purim.
Currently, the rituals and symbols associated with Purim do not evoke either Esther or Vashti. At least symbolically, the fact that the grager and its noise are the prominent symbols and sounds of Purim serve to put Haman, hatred, and sometimes valorization of violent retribution at the center of communal celebrations of Purim.
For no fewer than a hundred and eighty days he displayed the vast riches of his kingdom and the splendid glory of his majesty. At the end of this period, the king gave a banquet for seven days in the court of the king’s palace garden for all the people who lived in the fortress Shushan, high and low alike. [There were hangings of] white cotton and blue wool, caught up by cords of fine linen and purple wool to silver rods and alabaster columns; and there were couches of gold and silver on a pavement of marble, alabaster, mother-of-pearl, and mosaics. Royal wine was served in abundance, as befits a king, in golden beakers, beakers of varied design. And the rule for the drinking was, “No restrictions!” For the king had given orders to every palace steward to comply with each man’s wishes. In addition, Queen Vashti gave a banquet for women, in the royal palace of King Ahasuerus. On the seventh day, when the king was merry with wine, he ordered Mehuman, Bizzetha, Harbona, Bigtha, Abagtha, Zethar, and Carcas, the seven eunuchs in attendance on King Ahasuerus, to bring Queen Vashti before the king wearing a royal diadem, to display her beauty to the peoples and the officials; for she was a beautiful woman. But Queen Vashti refused to come at the king’s command conveyed by the eunuchs. The king was greatly incensed, and his fury burned within him.
Dispatches were sent to all the provinces of the king, to every province in its own script and to every nation in its own language, that every man should wield authority in his home and speak the language of his own people.
Vashti refused to appear, and now she may never appear again. While the book is silent about what became of Vashti, many midrashim interpret her punishment as execution.
What do you think the ancient rabbis say about Vashti? Why?
The verse states: “Also Vashti the queen made a feast for the women, in the royal house, which belonged to King Ahasuerus” (Esther 1:9). The Gemara questions why she held the feast in the royal house, a place of men, rather than in the women’s house, where it should have been. Rava said in response: The two of them had sinful intentions. Ahasuerus wished to fornicate with the women, and Vashti wished to fornicate with the men. This explains the folk saying that people say: He with pumpkins and his wife with zucchinis.
The Gemara comments: Vashti was punished in this humiliating way for it is with the measure that a man measures to others that he himself is measured. In other words, God punishes individuals in line with their transgressions, measure for measure. This teaches that the wicked Vashti would take the daughters of Israel, and strip them naked, and make them work on Shabbat. Therefore, it was decreed that she be brought before the king naked, on Shabbat. This is as it is written: “After these things, when the wrath of King Ahasuerus was appeased, he remembered Vashti, and what she had done, and what was decreed against her” (Esther 2:1). That is to say, just as she had done with the young Jewish women, so it was decreed upon her.
"Dispatches were sent to all the provinces of the king (Esther 1:22)": Rabbi Huna said: "Achashverosh, his decree was stupid. The custom of this world is a man seeks to eat lentils and his wife seeks to eat beans, is he able to bend her? Is not that she eats what pleases her?"
"But Queen Vashti refused (Esther 1:12)": She sent and said to him words that touched his heart. She said to him: If they see that I am fair, they will try to make use of me and kill you. But if they see that I am ugly, you will be denigrated through me". She was speaking subtly to him but he did not understand her subtlety.
Let's flip the story and look at Vashti as a feminist and role model.
In that debauched society, sanity was suspended and marital relationships compromised. Queen Vashti, so missed by the king after he had disposed of her, notwithstanding the fact that he had innumerable women at his beck and call, must have been a rare woman to have retained her sense of dignity and morality to the extent that she was prepared to endanger her life by refusing her lord and master’s bidding to show off her body to the assembled throng... She demonstrated that moral conscience was the ultimate arbiter of human behavior, and that human freedom was not to be surrendered under any circumstances, even the most extreme.
By Tamara Cohen
Reprinted from Ritualwell.org,
Beyond the Dichotomy
By placing Esther and Vashti on the same flag, we are also challenging ourselves to move beyond the dichotomy of bad queen/good queen (and good feminist/bad feminist) and embrace a wider spectrum of possibility for women’s leadership. For much of Jewish interpretive tradition, Vashti was the bad queen and Esther the good one. Then, in the early days of Jewish feminism, Vashti was resurrected and celebrated for her open defiance of the king and her powerful defense of her body and sexuality. Not surprisingly, as Vashti’s popularity grew, Esther fell out of favor. Feminists were not sure they could accept two different models of powerful women. For some, Esther suddenly became a negative symbol for all women who use their sexuality, enjoy their beauty, fear confrontation, and remain married to power. These interpretations of Esther minimized her courage in directly confronting both Ahasuerus and Haman, and in “coming out” as a Jew after years of hiding her identity. They also ignore Esther’s powerful role as an innovator of communal ritual action in her calling for a public fast...
Who are the Vashtis today? Think in terms of both exploitation and courage.
As we read about the rounding up of women for King Ahashverosh’s review, we hear echoes of people rounded up into servitude, whether Africans to labor in the New World or Korean “comfort women” to serve the sexual demands of Japanese soldiers in World War II. Women today, especially in the Global South, are often exploited due to unequal power relations, lack of access to resources and pervasive sexism. The story of Esther gives us the opportunity to reflect on the circumstances that propel women into sex work and…sexual exploitation in the Megillah and in our time.
The United States opposes prostitution and any related activities, including pimping, pandering, and/or maintaining brothels as contributing to the phenomenon of trafficking in persons. These activities are inherently harmful and dehumanizing. The United States Government’s position is that these activities should not be regulated as a legitimate form of work for any human being.
In the view of professional sex workers and some human-rights organizations, it is not prostitution itself that harms women but, rather, the refusal to treat prostitutes as legitimate workers, leading police to repress, extort, and assault them, and making it difficult for them to obtain health services. Sex workers in countries such as India and Thailand had begun to organize, gaining access to condoms, health services, literacy and vocational programs, and loans. In some cases, sex-worker unions had barred police from brothels.
Let's bring it closer to home:
How do we experience and enable sexism in the synagogue, Jewish community as a whole, and larger community?
Again:
- How do we experience and enable sexism in the synagogue, Jewish community as a whole, and larger community?
- And, what will we do about it?
Throw off your mask
Throw off your facade
I am with you to help you have the courage to be who you are
May you be like Esther and not be afraid to reveal who you are
May you be like Vashti and not be afraid to speak out
May you defeat all of your Hamans
There are three women in the book of Esther that we all know: Esther, the heroine; Haman’s wife, the evil Zeresh; and Vashti, the first queen, who refuses Ahasuerus’s order to present her beauty in public. But these are not the women I want to write about. Rather, the king has a multitude of other, anonymous victims, extras to the main plot. After he does away with Vashti, Ahasuerus needs a new queen, and so his servants collect all the beautiful maidens from the entire empire
[...]
The king’s only basis for deciding whether a young woman suits him is by sleeping with her. Every single one. Once he decides that she is not fit to be queen, she is not released, but now belongs to him forever. He gets to decide if he ever wants to see her, that is, sleep with her, again. The premise for Esther’s selection is not only the objectification of Vashti, but the sexual abuse and exploitation of every single maiden from India to Ethiopia.