(א) וַיְהִ֖י בִּימֵ֣י אֲחַשְׁוֵר֑וֹשׁ ה֣וּא אֲחַשְׁוֵר֗וֹשׁ הַמֹּלֵךְ֙ מֵהֹ֣דּוּ וְעַד־כּ֔וּשׁ שֶׁ֛בַע וְעֶשְׂרִ֥ים וּמֵאָ֖ה מְדִינָֽה׃
(1) It happened in the days of Ahasuerus—that Ahasuerus who reigned over a hundred and twenty-seven provinces from India to Nubia.
Opening Question: What makes a story meaningful?
The Five Megillot: An introduction in images
Song of Songs. By Unknown author - Rothschild Mahzor, Manuscript, Italy, 1492., Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=16260716
Ruth: Naomi entreating Ruth and Orpah to return to the land of Moab by William Blake, 1795
Scanned by H. Churchyard, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=583358
Lamentations (Eicha): Jeremiah Lamenting the Destruction of Jerusalem (Rembrandt) - 4gE-j88Uz3znNw — Google Arts & Culture, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=13410464
Ecclesiastes (Kohelet): King Solomon in Old Age by Gustave Doré (1866); Doré's English Bible, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=10730458
Esther: Early 3rd century CE Roman painting of Esther and Mordechai, Dura-Europos synagogue, Syria. Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=2358082
The Five Scrolls at a glance
- Is the order of the Scrolls consistent in editions of the Tanach? No!
- What are they about?
- Song of Songs: a collection of poems about love
- Ruth: the story of how Ruth the Moabite came to Judah and married Boaz
- Lamentations/Eicha: a collection of lamentations over the destruction of the First Temple
- Ecclesiastes/Kohelet: meditations on the effort to understand the purpose of life
- Esther: the story of how Esther becomes queen of Persia and how she and her cousin Mordecai overcome a plot to annihilate the Jews
- What is the time period described in the books?
- Ruth - in the period of the judges (before the Monarchy)
- Song of Songs - the youth of King Solomon
- Ecclesiastes/Kohelet - the old age of King Solomon
- Lamentations - 586 BCE (the destruction of the First Temple)
- Esther - sometime during the reign of Xerxes (486-465 BCE) of Persia
- The genres of the Five Scrolls
- Song of Songs: Poetry
- Ruth: Prose
- Lamentations: Poetry (5 distinct poems)
- Ecclesiastes: Poetry
- Esther: Prose
- When are they read in the Jewish calendar?
- Song of Songs: In many Ashkenazi and Sephardi congregations: during Passover
- Ruth: In many Ashkenazi and Sephardi congregations: during Shavuot
- Lamentations: Very very widely - on the night of Tish'a beAv (The Fast of Av)
- Ecclesiastes: In many Ashkenazi (not Sephardi) congregations - during Sukkot
- Esther: Universally during Purim (traditionally both at night and during the day)
- Musical chant for the Five Scrolls
- "Five Scrolls" trope ('trop') - Song of Songs, Ruth, Ecclesiastes
- Lamentations - a special, especially sad chant (chapter 3 has its own melody)
- Esther - a special, bright chant. Some phrases that are understood to refer to the Destruction of the Temple are read according to the trope of Lamentations
ברות ובשיר השירים באיכה ובמגלת אסתר צריך לומר על מקרא מגילה ...:
One of the 'minor tractates'. 6-8 c. CE.
In the case of Ruth, the Song of Songs, Lamentations and [the Scroll of] Esther, it is necessary to say the benediction, ‘Concerning the reading of the Megillah’ ...
Introduction to Esther
- Settings: Geographical and Historical Setting, Timeline
- How was the Book of Esther received?
- Where is God in the book? What sort of book is this?
Geographical and Historical Setting
The Achaemenid (Persian) Empire at its greatest territorial extent, under the rule of Darius I (522 BC–486 BC) By Cattette - This file has been extracted from another file, CC BY 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=113179532
Timeline
597 King Jehoiachin (Jeconiah) of Judah and leading citizens are exiled to Babylonia
586 Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon captures Jerusalem and destroys Temple
539 Cyrus the Great of Persia conquers Babylonia. Cyrus permits Jewish exiles to return to Jerusalem.
520-515 Second Temple built
486-465 Reign of Xerxes I of Persia. (Old Persian: Khshayārsha; Akkadian as Ḫi-ši-ʾ-ar-šá; Aramaic as ḥšyʾrš. (Wikipedia, Xerxes I). This is the אחשורוש / Achashverosh / Ahasuerus of the Book of Esther
465-424 Reign of Artaxerxes I of Persia (Old Persian: Artaxšaçāʰ) Hebrew אַרְתַּחְשַׁ֗שְׂתָּא Artahshasta (Ezra 4:7). Confusingly, this is the name for the Persian king in the Greek translation of Esther (the Septuagint)
mid-5th c. (or early 4th c.) BCE - Mission of Ezra the Scribe to Jerusalem
See The Jewish Study Bible, Oxford, Second Edition, p. 2225
Rock relief of an Achaemenid king, most likely Xerxes I, located in the National Museum of Iran (Wikipedia, Xerxes I) By Darafsh - Own work, CC BY 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=41965467
(ד) וַיְהִי֙ עַם־הָאָ֔רֶץ מְרַפִּ֖ים יְדֵ֣י עַם־יְהוּדָ֑ה (ומבלהים) [וּֽמְבַהֲלִ֥ים] אוֹתָ֖ם לִבְנֽוֹת׃ (ה) וְסֹכְרִ֧ים עֲלֵיהֶ֛ם יוֹעֲצִ֖ים לְהָפֵ֣ר עֲצָתָ֑ם כׇּל־יְמֵ֗י כּ֚וֹרֶשׁ מֶ֣לֶךְ פָּרַ֔ס וְעַד־מַלְכ֖וּת דָּרְיָ֥וֶשׁ מֶֽלֶךְ־פָּרָֽס׃ (ו) וּבְמַלְכוּת֙ אֲחַשְׁוֵר֔וֹשׁ בִּתְחִלַּ֖ת מַלְכוּת֑וֹ כָּתְב֣וּ שִׂטְנָ֔ה עַל־יֹשְׁבֵ֥י יְהוּדָ֖ה וִירוּשָׁלָֽ͏ִם׃ {ס} (ז) וּבִימֵ֣י אַרְתַּחְשַׁ֗שְׂתָּא כָּתַ֨ב בִּשְׁלָ֜ם מִתְרְדָ֤ת טָֽבְאֵל֙ וּשְׁאָ֣ר כְּנָוֺתָ֔ו עַל־אַרְתַּחְשַׁ֖שְׂתְּא מֶ֣לֶךְ פָּרָ֑ס וּכְתָב֙ הַֽנִּשְׁתְּוָ֔ן כָּת֥וּב אֲרָמִ֖ית וּמְתֻרְגָּ֥ם אֲרָמִֽית׃ {פ}
(4) Thereupon the people of the land undermined the resolve of the people of Judah, and made them afraid to build. (5) They bribed ministers in order to thwart their plans all the years of King Cyrus of Persia and until the reign of King Darius of Persia. (6) And in the reign of Ahasuerus, at the start of his reign, they drew up an accusation against the inhabitants of Judah and Jerusalem. (7) And in the time of Artaxerxes, Bishlam, Mithredath, Tabeel, and the rest of their colleagues wrote to King Artaxerxes of Persia, a letter written in Aramaic and translated...
Area of Settlement of the Jews (the Golah or Exile Community) of Babylonia
Babylonia in the time of Hammurabi. By MapMaster - Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=3578442
An important settlement of Judean exiles lived near Nippur (SE of Babylon in this map) during the time of Nebuchadnezzar (6th c. BCE) and later. Note that Susa (Shushan) is due east of Nippur.
How the Book of Esther was Received
DR: Shmuel (Samuel) lived ~165-254 CE. He was head of the yeshiva of Nehardea in Babylonia. He was one of the greatest Talmudic scholars of his time.
Rav Yehuda said that Shmuel said: The book of Esther does not render the hands ritually impure. Although the Sages issued a decree that sacred scrolls render hands ritually impure, the book of Esther was not accorded the sanctity of sacred scrolls. The Gemara asks: Is this to say that Shmuel maintains that the book of Esther was not stated with the inspiration of the Divine Spirit? But didn’t Shmuel himself say elsewhere that the book of Esther was stated with the inspiration of the Divine Spirit? The Gemara answers: It was stated with the Divine Spirit that it is to be read in public; however, it was not stated that it is to be written. Therefore, the text was not accorded the sanctity of sacred scrolls.
(מג) ויקבלו עליהם כולם לב אחד, כי לא ישכח היום הזה לעולם, ולחוג אותו בשלושה עשר לחודש שנים עשר הוא חודש אדר, והוא היום לפני ימי הפורים.
Source: Sefaria (Translation from Greek to Hebrew)
(Second Maccabees--Hellenistic Egypt (c.153 - c.133 BCE)
By public vote it was unanimously decreed never to let this day pass unobserved, but to celebrate the thirteenth day of the twelfth month, called Adar in Aramaic, the eve of Mordecai’s Day.
(Source of translation from Greek to English:
https://bible.usccb.org/bible/2maccabees/15)
Where is God in the Megillah?
What sort of book is it?
Carey A. Moore, Esther, Anchor Bible 7B, 1971
In the MT’s [=traditional Hebrew Masoretic Text's] present state many, if not most, of the distinctive religious features of biblical Judaism are missing. The most conspicuous of these is, of course, [ה׳ / God] himself. The king of Persia is mentioned 190 times in 167 verses, but God is not mentioned once.” p. xxxii
“[Shemaryahu] Talmon offers a convincing explanation for our problems: Esther is “a historicized wisdom tale…an enactment of standard ‘Wisdom’ motifs” pp. xxxiii-xxxiv
[“Wisdom in the Book of Esther,” VT 13 (1963), 419-55]
“…we [=Carey Moore] conclude that Esther is neither pure fact nor pure fiction: it is a historical novel. Such a characterization is hardly new, but as J. M. Myers has recently written of Esther with some justification, among scholars ‘perhaps the emphasis has fallen too much on the noun rather than the adjective.’” pp. lii-liii
Adele Berlin, Jewish Study Bible, Esther, Introduction
In Jewish tradition, the Book of Esther, called 'megillat 'ester,' 'the scroll of Esther,' is inextricably bound up with the holiday of Purim. The book provides the etiology (story of its origin) for Purim, authorizes its annual observance, and models how it is to be celebrated. (p. 1619)
The book does have a serious side, and an important function as a Diaspora story, a story written for (and perhaps by) Jews of the Diaspora. As such, it promotes Jewish identity, solidarity within the Jewish community, and a strong connection with Jewish (biblical) tradition. It is more centered on the Diaspora than most Jewish works of its time; it does not refer to the land of Israel (other than the mention of the exile of Jeconiah in 2.6) or to the Temple. (p. 1620)
The book was probably written about 400-300 BCE, toward the end of the Persian period or the beginning of the Hellenistic period. (p. 1621)
Harold Louis Ginsberg (1903-1990), Introduction to Esther in The Five Megilloth and Jonah, JPS 1969
...the Book of Esther may be described, if one stretches a point or two, as a mock-learned disquisition to be read as the opening of a carnival-like celebration. (p. 81)
Yehezkel Kaufmann (1889-1963, prof. at Hebrew University), quoted in Gavriel Hayyim Cohen, Introduction to Esther, Da'at Mikra: Chamesh Megillot, Jerusalem 1973, p. [18]
"The biblical narrators love to imprint their stories with the stamp of double causation: Natural causality, regular and perceptible, and a higher causality, hidden and imperceptible--the program of divine providence. Biblical heroes are human creatures motivated by human desires. Nevertheless, they carry out ֿGod's plan. The author of Esther brings to a pinnacle the idea of the hidden hand of God. The author is motivated by an aspiration... to craft an exclusively human story, a too-human story. For this reason, Esther strikes us as secular... Esther is a unique kind of 'novel' in Tanach, but it is a religious novel. ... The novel embodies the religious ideal that even in the ungodly sphere [of the court], God acts in the wings...even if His name is not mentioned at all." (Y. Kaufmann, History of the Religion of Israel: 89:445-447) [Transl. DR]
Our Text: Esther chapter 1
Introductory verses (1:1-9)
Chavruta Study: Esther 1:10-22
Questions to Consider:
- What sort of person is King Ahasuerus?
- What do you make of the king's decree in chapter 1?
- What do you think this introductory chapter is trying to communicate?
Summary and Next Class
Session 2. Esther 2-3
- Chapter 2 - Mordecai and Esther
- Chapter 3 - Haman
(ה) אִ֣ישׁ יְהוּדִ֔י הָיָ֖ה בְּשׁוּשַׁ֣ן הַבִּירָ֑ה וּשְׁמ֣וֹ מׇרְדֳּכַ֗י בֶּ֣ן יָאִ֧יר בֶּן־שִׁמְעִ֛י בֶּן־קִ֖ישׁ אִ֥ישׁ יְמִינִֽי׃
(5) In the fortress Shushan lived a Jew by the name of Mordecai, son of Jair son of Shimei son of Kish, a Benjaminite.