Royalty Becomes Her: The Scroll of Esther as Post-Feminist Manifesto
Contasting Esther with Vashti reveals two models of feminism and sheds new light on the the role of women today.
Translated by Shelley Karzen
Of the many modern-day lenses through which the Scroll of Esther can be read, one lends itself so naturally to the task that it simply begs to be taken up: the lens of feminism.
The Word of the Queen
The obvious details linking the Scroll of Esther to feminism are twofold: a) that it is one of the only two books in the Tanakh (Hebrew Bible) which bear the name of a woman (the other being the Scroll of Ruth); and b) that the woman in question effects the desired turnabout from tragedy to joy in the scroll. But what makes the connection far stronger are several expressions appearing in the introductory chapters, regarding the rebellion of Vashti. These are so reminiscent of the claims heralded by the feminist revolution in recent generations, they literally seem to have been written today.
The opening of the Scroll introduces us to the court of Ahasuerus, monarch of the Persian Empire. His court is the epitome of extravagance. He leads a life of excessive power and boastfulness, and to crown it convenes a lavish feast in his palace designed to show off “the riches of his glorious kingdom and the honor of his excellent majesty.”1 On the seventh day of the special feast held for the residents of the capital city, Shushan, when his heart is merry from wine, Ahasuerus commands his chamberlains “to bring Vashti the queen before the king with the crown royal, to show the peoples and the princes her beauty, for she was fair to look on.”2 The Scroll does not explicitly say so, but our Sages read between the lines: “in the royal crown” means donning nothing but that article of clothing…3
Vashti refuses, and her refusal is the first dramatic event in our story, the first deviation from the prevailing order of things. It’s also the point at which the scroll begins to touch upon our topic—women’s struggle for recognition and independence. We are witnessing here the revolt of an opinionated woman holding liberal views against the male establishment. Vashti, we could say, is the women’s liberation movement first whistleblower (or maybe gragger-rattler?) to reveal that something is rotten in the state of Persia, and her refusal is the trigger that propels the scroll forward.
As is typical for a power-hungry king, Vashti’s refusal enrages Ahasuerus. He consults his seven wise men, the ministers of Persia and Media, as to how to respond to the queen’s rebellious act. The last of the ministers, a certain Memucan, proposes a solution, but not before he volunteers a sociological analysis of the implications of the revolt:4
Not only the king has queen Vashti wronged, but all the princes and all the peoples who are in all the provinces of king Ahasuerus. For the word of the queen will spread unto all women to make their husbands contemptible in their eyes, when it will be said: The king Ahasuerus commanded Vashti the queen to be brought in before him, but she came not. And this day the princesses of Persia and Media who have heard the word of the queen will say the like unto all the king’s princes, and enough contempt and wrath will arise.
Memucan, who emerges as an ideologue of the patriarchy, shrewdly recognizes that, to borrow a modern phrase, “the personal is the political”: “Not only the king has queen Vashti wronged, but all the princes and all the peoples… For the word of the queen will spread unto all women… will say the like unto all the king’s princes,” etc. If the revolt will not be dealt with swiftly and severely, Memucan advises, it will generate a feminist revolution throughout the kingdom, which will endanger the entire patriarchal regime.
The twice-appearing expression “the word of the queen” is also noteworthy here. In a book in which a prominent recurring phrase is “the word of the king,” it serves as an additional code word for the revolution Vashti is threatening to spark.
The final sentences of this passage also seem to have been written especially for the feminists of our time to critique:5
And when the decree the king shall make be published throughout all his kingdom, great though it be, all the wives will give to their husbands honor, both to great and small… and he sent letters into all the king’s provinces, into every province according to the writing thereof, and to every people after their language, that every man should be the ruler in his own house, and speak according to the language of his people.
The first italicized phrase clarifies that all women must honor their husbands regardless of their status, i.e., including cases in which the husband’s status is lower than the wife’s (as was the case with Ahasuerus, himself, who, the Talmud tells us, was a commoner who married the granddaughter of King Nebuchadnezzar6). This directly relates to the feminist assertion that it is not acceptable that a woman with knowledge and talent should be automatically discriminated against in relation to a man who has less talent. Instead, equal opportunity should prevail. The second italicized phrase is reminiscent of the feminist assertion that patriarchal society controls women by means of the language it uses, its “male discourse,” which stifles and silences women’s independent thinking and unique expression.
Ahasuerus’s palace emerges as a microcosm of patriarchy, of a “man’s world” in which woman is no more than an ornament, and which preserves its control by repressing any hint of revolt from the female ranks.
A Trojan Horse Named Esther
Ahasuerus’ anger subsides with time, but Vashti cannot be brought back. When the king’s officials go out to find him a new wife, they are careful not to repeat the mistakes of the past. This time, they look for a woman with personality traits opposite to those of Vashti’s: a submissive and obedient woman who will serve as model loyal wife throughout the kingdom. Interestingly, of all the women they gather, the one who finds the most favor in their eyes and is chosen to become the king’s new wife is a Jewess called Hadassah, also known by her Persian name, Esther.
The Esther who arrives at the royal palace initially seems to meet exactly the expectations of the Ahasuerus’ patriarchal officials: she is an obedient woman without a sign of brazenness or rebelliousness, and she cooperates with her captors. Above all, Esther is a quiet woman: she makes no requests, does not insist on speaking her native language against the law, and in fact, doesn’t seem to speak at all. The first active verb ascribed to her after three passive descriptive terms (“and she was taken... and she was found to be good… and she found favor”7) concerns abstaining from speech: “And Esther did not reveal her nation and her birthplace.”8 This kind of woman, the officials are confident, poses no threat to the patriarchal regime.
How is it that of all the multitudes of women throughout the kingdom of Ahasuerus, the woman most suited for the patriarchal palace of Ahasuerus is a Jew? The answer is simple: it lies in Esther’s Jewish education. Esther was brought up on verses such as “The honor of the daughter of a king is completely internal”9 and “Her husband’s heart safely trusts in her,”10 and on the adages of the Sages “Who is a worthy woman? She who performs the will of her husband”11 and “It is a man’s way to conquer, it is not a woman’s way to conquer.”12 Even though Ahasuerus is not really her husband and took her against her will, her lack of opposition stems from the ideals of humility and lowliness she was raised on, as well as on her faith in the Almighty, the belief that we should accept every measure that He measures out to us in life with gratitude.
As we know, however, Ahasuerus, Memucan and the rest of the palace officials are in for a big surprise. The quiet and obedient Jewess turns out to be nothing less than a Trojan horse, smuggling into their patriarchal sanctuary a feminine force that would subvert the order of the palace, bring about the downfall of the Chief Minister and preempt his devious plans. But the men were not the only ones in for a surprise. Esther herself must discover that within her lie powers of both faith and daring she never knew existed. At the moment of truth, when Mordecai informs her what is happening and tells her, “for if you remain silent at this time,”13 a deep change overtakes Esther. She ends her silence, takes her life in her hands and makes her voice heard.
In other words, Esther turns out to be more dangerous to the patriarchal palace than her predecessor Vashti. We may even say that Esther is a sort of improved reincarnation of Vashti, one who succeeds in accomplishing what Vashti had tried and failed: to refuse to see the king’s decrees as fate, stand up to them and turn them around. The Jewish femininity personified by Esther, it turns out, cannot be summed up by the verses and adages about the submissiveness of the woman. As her very name hints, there is much more to Esther than meets the eye, and when her concealed aspects are revealed, they have the power to revolutionize the world.
Feminism of Chaos, Feminism of Rectification
The idea that Esther is a rectified version of Vashti is suggested by the Sages’ commentaries. They interpret a verse in Isaiah as alluding to four of the Scroll’s protagonists—Haman, Mordecai, Vashti and Esther—as follows:14
“Instead of the thorn shall come up the cypress, and instead of the nettle shall come up the myrtle” (Isaiah 55:13):
“Instead of the thorn”—instead of the wicked Haman, who turned himself into an idol… “shall come up the cypress [brosh]”—this is Mordecai, who is called the head [rosh] of all the spices…
“And instead of the nettle [sirpad]”—instead of the wicked Vashti, the daughter of the son of wicked Nebuchadnezzar, who burned the lining of [saraf refidat] the House of God… “shall come up the myrtle [hadas]”—this is the righteous Esther, who was called Hadassah…15
Read simply, this Midrash describes the two major role replacements that took place in the palace of Ahasuerus in the Scroll: wicked Queen Vashti was deposed and righteous Queen Esther sat on her throne; sometime later, the wicked Haman was hung and the righteous Mordecai took his position.
However, we can propose a deeper explanation for this Midrash: Our Sages are here contrasting not only Haman with Mordecai and Vashti with Esther, but also two sets of models of femininity and masculinity—a negative version personified by Vashti and Haman, and positive version personified by Esther and Mordecai. The Midrash is thus offering us a view of the Scroll as a testimony, and possibly an outline, of the process by which negative masculinity and femininity can be replaced with more rectified models of them. In the verse and in the Midrash, the rectification of masculinity precedes the rectification of femininity, but in the Scroll itself, the order is the opposite. In fact, it is the rectified feminine figure (Esther) who brings about the rectification of masculinity (the replacement of Haman with Mordecai).
Let us focus on the rectification of femininity. In what respect can we refer to Vashti as the personification of negative femininity and to Esther as the personification of positive femininity?
When we read the Scroll of Esther we feel a natural empathy for Vashti. What is more understandable than refusal to comply with a degrading and humiliating edict to display your beauty before a pack of drunken men? For this reason, it is at first difficult for us to identify with the idea that Vashti represents a negative form of femininity. We must, however, take note of two key factors. The first is that Vashti’s feminist rebellion failed. She herself was deposed and possibly executed, and the patriarchal edicts that she protested were only exacerbated. In other words, Vashti represents a type of feminism that not only fails to achieve its goals but is counterproductive. It threatens the masculine hegemony in a manner that only strengthens its negative aspects. In Kabbalistic terms, this is a feminism of tohu (chaos), one that leads to a “breaking of the vessels” and comes to no fruition.
This understanding of Vashti can help us understand the Sages’ portrait of her as decadent and wicked, just like Ahasuerus and Memucan. The Sages tell us that she abused her Jewish maidservants, and that her women’s feast was geared for debauchery just like that of her husband.16 According to them, Vashti’s refusal to come to Ahasuerus’s feast had nothing to do with distaste for appearing in the nude. On the contrary, it would have been an opportunity for her to demonstrate her beauty. But just at the crucial moment, she was afflicted with leprosy, or, according to another version, grew a tail17 (obviously, both these images merit deeper understanding). According to this depiction, Vashti is a negative model of femininity regardless of the measure of success of her rebellion.
If Vashti personifies the feminism of chaos, then Esther must personify a feminism of tikkun or rectification: feminism that expresses a more refined, sophisticated femininity and that succeeds in engendering lasting change. What are the characteristics of this feminism?
Antisemitism and Misogyny
Before answering this question, let us turn our attention to Memucan, the mysterious minister who initiated the dismissal of Vashti.
The Scroll does not mention Memucan after the introductory story, but our Sages reveal an amazing fact about him: Memucan, they claim, is none other than the wicked Haman!18 That’s right: Before king Ahasuerus “promoted Haman the son of Hammedatha the Agagite and advanced him and set his seat above all the ministers that were with him,”19 Haman was the junior minister Memucan, the least of the seven ministers of Persia and Media. The synthesis of these two characters solves an age-old riddle in the Scroll: Why Ahasuerus suddenly promotes Haman for no apparent reason? It turns out the king was rewarding his minister on his good advice to replace Vashti with Esther.
The identification of Memucan with Haman sheds new light on several things. First, we learn that long before Haman brought about his own downfall by erecting a 50 cubits high gallows for Mordecai, he sealed his fate by being the catalyst for Esther’s introduction into the royal palace. The woman who was supposed to be the insurance policy safeguarding his male hegemony, turned out to bring about his downfall.
Second and more interesting, identifying Haman with Memucan evokes an affinity between the antisemitism of the former and the misogyny of the latter. On the surface, Haman’s antisemitism, directed at Mordecai, and Memucan’s misogyny, directed at Vashti, are two separate topics in the Scroll. But when we dig a little deeper, we see a clear parallel between the two episodes: Just as Vashti rebels against the king by refusing to come to his feast, so Mordecai rebels against Haman by refusing to bow down to him. Just as Ahasuerus’ response is “his anger burned within him,”20 so “Haman was filled with anger.”21 And just as the response to Vashti’s uprising was a royal edict directing the men in all the countries to rule at home unreservedly, so the response to Mordecai’s uprising was a royal edict directing the nations in all the states to kill the Jews unreservedly.22
When our Sages combined the personae of Haman and Memucan, they were tracing these similarities back to their common origin. Both hatreds, they show, stem from the same source—a dark, hate-mongering nation known as Amalek.
It fits. Amalek, we remember, “goes after the stragglers”:23 he strikes the physically weak, those who are walking behind everyone else and who are, in this world, the most vulnerable. Women, like Jews, are the “weak sex,” the one easy to subjugate. Jews, like women, are the “least of all the nations,” the ones it is easy to persuade the king to wipe out.
Perhaps this is why the nation of Israel is in many places considered feminine in comparison to other nations. In our sources, this idea appears in the expression that Knesset Israel, the Congregation of Israel, is like “a she-lamb standing between seventy wolves.”24 It is also expressed in the Talmudic characterization that Israel uses a lunar calendar (the moon symbolizes femininity) while most nations use a solar calendar (symbol of masculinity),25 and more. In non-Jewish sources, we have Christian typology defining Judaism as “Israel of the flesh,” a feminine archetype, and Christianity as “Israel of the spirit,” a masculine archetype. Typifying Judaism as feminine engendered a known Medieval folk tale that Jewish men have a menstrual cycle (a type of “blood libel” if you will). We can say that throughout history, Israel served in many ways as the battered wife of the West: an essential part of Christian doctrine claimed that Judaism must continue to exist as a humiliated nation to prove that they are no longer God’s chosen people.
Our Sages went to great lengths to make Vashti a promiscuous evildoer. Now, as if to counter-act it, they elicit within us a renewed empathy toward her, as a fellow victim of Haman’s persecution. This strengthens the idea that Vashti’s rebellion need not be altogether done away with, but rather rectified.
The Passing of the Scepter
Let us return to our story: what is the difference between the tohu or negative feminism of Vashti and the tikkun or positive feminism of Esther? How does the latter succeed where the former failed?
The answer is this: Esther’s rebellion against the masculine system in which she operates is done a measured way that does not break its vessels. On the one hand, she definitely rebels: she appears before the king “against the law,”26 against the rules of the royal game. But on the other hand, she does so without completely breaking those rules. She conveys to the masculine system that she does not intend to uproot its foundations and overthrow it. Instead, she intends to work within its framework. In this manner, she successfully infiltrates the male hegemony and changes it from within. Her approach is encapsulated in the beautiful verse, “and Esther robed herself in royalty.”27 The robe of royalty has two meanings: it is both the masculine royalty by whose laws Esther plays, and her own inner royalty which for the first time begins to emerge.
The thin rope which Esther treads is expressed by her willingness to do exactly what was decreed after Vashti’s rebellion: to give honor to her husband and to speak his language, the language of the male establishment. Time and again she says, “If I have found favor in the eyes of the king, and if it seems good to the king.” Twice she invites him to a banquet—Ahasuerus’ chief hobby. But this conduct, which on the surface may appear insufferably ingratiating and compliant, allows Esther to reveal what she had always concealed: her nation and origin: “For we were sold, my nation and I.” Esther’s willingness to speak the language of the royal palace empowers her to make her voice heard and reveal her mother tongue.
More than anything else, Esther’s wise tactics are symbolically illustrated by her touching the head of Ahasuerus’s scepter the first time she enters his courtyard. The scepter is, of course, the distinct symbol of the masculine monarchy. When Esther touches its head, she simultaneously affirms the establishment that surrounds her, while taking the first step to undermine it. Her prostrating herself before the king’s feet is precisely what allows her to tread around them.
Hassidic commentaries28 expound upon the precise differences between the first time Ahasuerus extends his scepter to Esther, when she comes to invite him to the feast,29 and the second time he does so, when she comes to request the removal of Haman’s decree.30 While the first time it is written, “and she touched the head of the scepter,” the second time it is only written “And the king extended the golden scepter to Esther,” without mention of her touching it. We learn from this that the second time, the extension of the scepter describes its passing into her hands—the transfer of the rod of kingdom from Ahasuerus to Esther. In the first time the authority is in the hands of the male king and the woman only touches its head. But in the second time—which is a direct result of the first—the scepter passes from the man to the woman.31
Indeed, the entire Scroll can be read as the story of the transfer of the royal authority from king Ahasuerus to queen Esther. This idea is expressed in a beautiful custom, to write the scroll so that every column begins with the word ha-melech, “the king” (this can be easily accomplished since the word occurs dozens of times), except for the final column, which is set to open with the word ha-malka, “the queen.”
At its beginning, Esther’s feminism seems like the opposite of negative feminism. In other words, it seems decidedly un-feminist. But it gradually metamorphoses and is revealed to be an incomparably sophisticated version of feminism, made all the more radical by virtue of its moderation.
Two Closures
The Scroll of Esther can be seen as built on two concentric circles, drawn by the two decrees of Haman-Memucan in its opening chapters: the misogynist decree that husbands will rule over their wives, and the antisemitic decree calling for the annihilation of the Jews.
The Scroll says, “A decree written in the name of the king and sealed with the ring of the king cannot be repealed.”32 In Hebrew, the word “ring” (taba’at) comes from the same root as “nature” (teva): The king’s decrees seem to be etched into nature itself. Both patriarchy and antisemitism present themselves as the natural order of things. But it turns out the king can issue counter-decrees: the Jews are given permission “to gather and defend their lives,”33 and an unbelievable reversal of fortunes takes place: “and it was overturned, and the Jews ruled over their enemies.”34
But what about the first decree, regarding women’s subjugation to their husbands? When the Scroll ends, it appears that only the second circle receives closure, while the first remains open.
But in truth, the first circle closes also, though in a more subtle, implicit way. By becoming queen, infiltrating the palace, affecting the king’s will, subverting Haman’s plan and finally replacing him with Mordecai, Esther has effectively achieved what Vashti unsuccessfully set out to do in the beginning: subvert and transform the seemingly unshakable patriarchal regime. The reason this circle doesn’t close with a symmetrical counter-decree is that it doesn’t have to: unlike antisemitism which needs to be unequivocally fought and eradicated, the patriarchy shouldn’t be overthrown, simply put in check and balanced. Wives need not cease from giving honor to their husbands; the husbands just have to give them honor back.
The twin circles of the Scroll of Esther are a reminder that the struggle of Jews for redemption and the struggle of women for redemption are intertwined. Both are rooted in Amalek, the subjugator of the weak. The commandment Purim comes to remind us of, to erase the memory of Amalek, wouldn’t be fulfilled until both redemptions are achieved.
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Esther 1:4.
Ibid 11.
BT Megillah 12b.
Esther 16:18.
Ibid 20:22.
BT Megillah 10b.
Esther 2:8-9. Grammatically, “and she found favor” is not a passive verb, but its meaning is passive.
Ibid 10.
Psalms 45:14.
Proverbs 31:11.
Tana Devei Eliyahu Raba 9.
BT Yevamot 65:2.
Esther 4:14.
BT Megillah 10b.
The comparison of Esther to Vashti doesn't go without saying. In the short recital we say upon completing the reading of the Scroll, the phrase “blessed be Esther” is contrasted with “cursed be Zeresh.”
BT Megillah 12a-b.
Ibid, ibid. If Vashti represents a type of feminist uprising, then both explanations—the more common, according to which she did not want to appear in the nude, and the explanation of our Sages according to which she actually did but the leprosy prevented her from doing so—represent two approaches to modesty common to feminism: the first that opposes to objectification of a woman’s body, and the second which has no objection in principle, and even supports it as part of women’s liberation, opposing it only if it is accomplished with coercion.
BT Megillah 12b.
Esther 3:1.
Ibid. 1:12.
Ibid 3:5.
In both instances, the expression “every state according to its writings and every nation according to its language” repeats itself.
Deuteronomy 25:18.
Esther Raba 10:11.
BT Sukkah 29:1.
Esther 4:16.
Ibid. 5:1.
Rabbi Shneur Zalman of Ladi, Torah Or, 93:4, beginning with vayoshet hamelech.
Esther 5:2.
Ibid 8:4.
Thus, the second time it is also written “and Esther rose and stood before the king”: the extension of the scepter makes her upright and she stands.
Esther 8:8.
Ibid. 11.
Ibid. 9:1.