Alter, Robert. The Hebrew Bible: A Translation with Commentary: Three-Volume Set - W. W. Norton & Company. Kindle Edition.
[MS: Complete with 28 Introductory essays and Notes, in addition to landmark translation word by word. The 2024 Price is quite reasonable at about $75. Copyright Material. Emphasis and editing are added.]
Alter in his Introduction to the Writings
"The language of Esther, by contrast, is unabashedly Late Biblical, as different from the Hebrew of Genesis or Samuel as is the prose of John Updike from the English of Milton’s essays."
Introduction to the Writings.
"Ketuvim is manifestly a miscellany."
"The ostensibly bland title for this last of the three major divisions of the Hebrew Bible is in fact a perfectly accurate rubric for what is incorporated in it. ... One might justifiably expand the translation of the Hebrew title to read “Miscellaneous Writings.”
....
"What is more broadly fascinating about the texts pulled together in Ketuvim is the efflorescence of literary genres they exhibit. The Hebrew writers of the Late Biblical period no longer felt constrained to tell a story in a particular traditional way, to embrace a well-established set of narrative conventions. Nor did they feel limited to a particular kind of writing or a particular range of subjects. The literature of the First Temple period essentially encompasses five genres: narrative, law, prophecy, psalms, and proverbs. The literature collected in The Writings includes a poetic argument on divine justice (Job), a meditation in prose poetry about the nature of human existence that is as close to philosophy as we find in the Bible (Qohelet), an assemblage of richly sensual love poems with no mention of God (the Song of Songs), a memoir (Nehemiah), and much more. "
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The Book of Esther, with its essentially secular outlook, may have been framed to justify the new carnivalesque holiday of Purim, but it conveys a strong impression that it was also written to serve as entertainment. [MS: Note that Alter has a full discussion of Purim's connection to Parshat Zachor, read the Shabbas before Purim on the war with Amalek, see his Notes on Exodus 17:8-16 and Deuteronomy 25:17 -19.]
....
What readers, then, whether their interests are literary or religious, should be grateful for in Ketuvim is its striking variety. ...
And they vividly remind us that the biblical world was far from monolithic, that it tolerated and perhaps even sometimes encouraged a bracing variety of value systems expressed through a wide spectrum of styles and literary modes. "
Purim and the Book of Esther in 2024 - some 3000 years after composition and inclusion in the Ketuvim
*Dr. Dara Horn - Author and cholar
Dara Horn's recent lecture about Purim in the post October 7th era of shocking global anit-semitism, Israel bashing and justification of genocide and barbarism against all Jews sees the Book of Esther as a call to action. (20:10) Jews historically do not bow to tyrants nor give into threats. They fight for Am Yisrael - just as Esther did. Like her, they embrace the call of ancient texts: Be Strong and Courageous! Carry forward in each era the Biblical Tradition: Am Yisrael Chai.
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“The fate of Haman has been throughout history the fate of individuals and nations: that those who try to destroy the Jewish people end by destroying themselves. Great empires sought to harm the Jewish people... Yet every one of them has disappeared, while our tiny, vulnerable people can still say: ‘Am Yisrael Chai.’”
"This 2008 Purim message from Rabbi Sacks was aimed at the community of Sderot, following an intensified wave of terror from Gaza. [MS: Note the date was 2008. On October 7th 2023 Sderot again was brutally attacked by Hamas.]
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No nation on earth has had to live through what Israel has had to live through, and it has done so with “koach u’gevurah”, unshakable courage.
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And what Israel has had to suffer is itself part of a larger pattern that goes back to Purim and the book of Esther, the evil wish “l’hashmid laharog ul’abed et kol hayehudim”, to kill, destroy, and exterminate every single Jew – the first warrant for genocide, the attempt to deny to the Jewish people the right to be.
....
Why is it that the people who first taught the world the sanctity of life, has had so often to walk through the valley of the shadow of death?"
/-/-/--/-/-/-/-
From Daniel Gordis: Israel from the Inside:
[MS: Recalling the war Hamas started on October 7th:
It is Day 167 of Jews held Hostage by Hamas and the IDF Soldiers fighting the war. On the Shabbas before Purim we read Parshat Zachor. Jews recall how generations before us have fought tyrants and prevented genocides. In Israel there will be joy and pride in this fight in our time.]
[MS: Copyright material. Any edits, format changes, or additions are supplied.]
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