Detail of "Rudaba's Maids Return to the Palace", Folio 71v from the Shahnama (Book of Kings) of Shah Tahmaspca. 1525, Abu'l Qasim Firdausi. No, it’s not the Book of Esther, but too much art of the Book of Esther portrays everyone as Eurocentrically white and looks like it happened in Germany or France. I thought Iranian art would be a better illustration for a story that takes place at Persian court. This kind of looks like it could be a detail from the story, no?
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It’s (just about) Purim (Purim sameach to all who celebrate!!🎉) the holiday in which Jews read the Book of Esther and celebrate, yet again, evading our destruction (aka one of the “they tried to kill us, they didn’t succeed, let’s eat.” holidays). In its honor, I thought it might be interesting to jump out of where we are in Exodus and have a look at a cross-Biblical parallel that I’ve been thinking about this year. It requires us going alllll the way back to the beginning of Genesis, but hopefully you’ll find this interesting as well.
“And God created the human in God’s image, in the image of God, God created [the human]; male and female God created them.”
That is to say, we have a creation story in which two humans are created equally, and it happens before the created-from-the-rib story in Genesis 2. So then the Alphabet of Ben Sirah gives us this text:
When God created the first man Adam alone, God said, “It is not good for Adam to be alone.” [So] God created a woman for him, from the earth like him, and called her Lilith. They [Adam and Lilith] promptly began to argue with each other: She said, “I will not lie below,” and he said, “I will not lie below, but above, since you are fit for being below and I for being above.” She said to him, “The two of us are equal, since we are both from the earth.” And they would not listen to each other. Since Lilith saw [how it was], she uttered God's ineffable name and flew away into the air. Adam stood in prayer before his Maker and said, “Master of the Universe, the woman you gave me fled from me!” The Holy Blessed one immediately dispatched the three angels Sanoy, Sansenoy, and Samangelof after her, to bring her back. God said, “If she wants to return, well and good. And if not, she must accept that a hundred of her children will die every day.” The angels pursued her and overtook her in the sea, in raging waters, (the same waters in which the Egyptians would one day drown), and told her God's orders. And yet she did not want to return. They told her they would drown her in the sea, and she replied. “Leave me alone! I was only created in order to sicken babies: if they are boys, from birth to day eight I will have power over them; if they are girls, from birth to day twenty.” When they heard her reply, they pleaded with her to come back. She swore to them in the name of the living God that whenever she would see them or their names or their images on an amulet, she would not overpower that baby, and she accepted that a hundred of her children would die every day. Therefore, a hundred of the demons die every day, and therefore, we write the names [of the three angels] on amulets of young children. When Lilith sees them, she remembers her oath and the child is [protected and] healed.
Then we go to the Book of Esther:
It happened in the days of Ahasuerus—that Ahasuerus who reigned over a hundred and twenty-seven provinces from India to Nubia..in the third year of his reign, he gave a banquet for all the officials and courtiers—the administration of Persia and Media, the nobles and the governors of the provinces in his service. 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.
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!” 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 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.
“What,” [he asked,] “shall be done, according to law, to Queen Vashti for failing to obey the command of King Ahasuerus conveyed by the eunuchs?”
Thereupon Memucan declared in the presence of the king and the ministers: “Queen Vashti has committed an offense not only against Your Majesty but also against all the officials and against all the peoples in all the provinces of King Ahasuerus. For the queen’s behavior will make all wives despise their husbands, as they reflect that King Ahasuerus himself ordered Queen Vashti to be brought before him, but she would not come. This very day the ladies of Persia and Media, who have heard of the queen’s behavior, will cite it to all Your Majesty’s officials, and there will be no end of scorn and provocation! If it please Your Majesty, let a royal edict be issued by you, and let it be written into the laws of Persia and Media, so that it cannot be abrogated, that Vashti shall never enter the presence of King Ahasuerus. And let Your Majesty bestow her royal state upon another who is more worthy than she. Then will the judgment executed by Your Majesty resound throughout your realm, vast though it is; and all wives will treat their husbands with respect, high and low alike.”
The proposal was approved by the king and the ministers, and the king did as Memucan proposed. (Esther 1:1-21, abridged)
Hmm.
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Back to the Eden story. In Genesis 2, Adam gets “another” partner, fashioned from his rib, we’ll call her Eve (she’s actually named Chava, lifeforce), even though that name doesn’t come until later—at this point she’s just woman, an extension of man (or isha, an extension of ish, in the Hebrew.) Then she’s bored, wandering around the garden, and she gets into a chat.
The woman replied to the serpent, “We may eat of the fruit of the other trees of the garden. It is only about fruit of the tree in the middle of the garden that God said: ‘You shall not eat of it or touch it, lest you die.’” And the serpent said to the woman, “You are not going to die, but God knows that as soon as you eat of it your eyes will be opened and you will be like divine beings who know good and bad.” When the woman saw that the tree was good for eating and a delight to the eyes, and that the tree was desirable as a source of wisdom, she took of its fruit and ate. She also gave some to her husband, and he ate. (Genesis 3:2-6)
Back to the Book of Esther. Ahasverus decides to go get another wife, so he holds a beauty context! For all the virgins in the land! That he “tries out” before picking a wife! (Can we talk about sex trafficking? MAYBE!) Anyway, then he picks Esther the Jew who is advised to hide her Jewishness because, you know, social stigma, Haman the wicked adviser, pays Ahasverus some money for the privilege of genociding them after he is butthurt when Esther’s uncle Mordechai refuses to bow down to him (because we only bow down to God, yo) and after some prodding to take a risk to leverage her privilege, we see these scenes:
On the third day, Esther put on royal apparel and stood in the inner court of the king’s palace, facing the king’s palace, while the king was sitting on his royal throne in the throne room facing the entrance of the palace. As soon as the king saw Queen Esther standing in the court, she won his favor. The king extended to Esther the golden scepter which he had in his hand, and Esther approached and touched the tip of the scepter.
“What troubles you, Queen Esther?” the king asked her. “And what is your request? Even to half the kingdom, it shall be granted you.”
“If it please Your Majesty,” Esther replied, “let Your Majesty and Haman come today to the feast that I have prepared for him.”
At the wine feast, the king asked Esther, “What is your wish? It shall be granted you. And what is your request? Even to half the kingdom, it shall be fulfilled.”
“My wish,” replied Esther, “my request—if Your Majesty will do me the favor, if it please Your Majesty to grant my wish and accede to my request—let Your Majesty and Haman come to the feast which I will prepare for them; and tomorrow I will do Your Majesty’s bidding.”
On the second day, the king again asked Esther at the wine feast, “What is your wish, Queen Esther? It shall be granted you. And what is your request? Even to half the kingdom, it shall be fulfilled.”
Queen Esther replied: “If Your Majesty will do me the favor, and if it pleases Your Majesty, let my life be granted me as my wish, and my people as my request. For we have been sold, my people and I, to be destroyed, massacred, and exterminated. Had we only been sold as bondmen and bondwomen, I would have kept silent; for aEmendation yields “a trifle” (ḥiṣṣar), lit. “little finger.”the adversary-a is not worthy of the king’s trouble.”
Thereupon King Ahasuerus demanded of Queen Esther, “Who is he and where is he who dared to do this?”
“The adversary and enemy,” replied Esther, “is this evil Haman!” And Haman cringed in terror before the king and the queen. (Book of Esther, Chapters 5 and 7, abridged)
These stories, all together, I think, illuminate how patriarchal stories make sure to show us the cost of saying no—to put us on notice, if you will. And it’s perhaps unsurprising that both Vashti and Lilith have been reclaimed by feminists exactly because they are models of uncompromising womenwho would rather deal with consequences than an assault to their dignity and selfhood.
Who say: If this space isn’t safe for all of me, I’ll be elsewhere.
Who say: No is a complete sentence.
Who know that change happens sometimes through noncompliance.
And, of course, we also have Esther and Eve. On the one hand, their stories are of service to patriarchal texts by showing women who aren’t saying no per se, even though Eve has been vilified for “disobeying.” She took a risk. So did Esther! She came to court without an invitation!
It’s all in interpretation.
But a feminist reading can embrace these women as changemakers who used, simply, different tools to work with and around their situation.
Inviting in. Diplomacy.
Knowing when to bring the other person along, and how.
Snacks! (Always key.)
We can celebrate them no less as skillful women who got done what needed to be done.
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I find the default of men being in charge of interest in both stories. If man and woman were created at the same time why even focus on the fight for superiority? A King and Queen and yet one is still subservient to the other? OY!
I wonder just how insecure and inadequate the men were who wrote these passages. They are codifying the subservience of women and I will say I am not at all impressed. This is one of many reasons I chose to retire from the Catholic faith. Can't we all just be people?
No, when a woman (Lilith, Vashti, or Esther) simply asserts her own rights to exist she must do it within how men perceive her rights and is punished if the men disagree. Frankly, this just makes me angry. I do not want to dominate the other in either direction. Can't we just be partners, equals, friends, colleagues?
As I often do here, I reflect on my own experiences and this is such a hot button for me and I know how privileged I am. But I am also a person who goes by a name most frequently associated with maleness (Berni). I cannot tell you how many times during my career as an Environment, Health and Safety Manager I had people ask to talk to Mr. Berni Wasser... a person who does not exist in my family. But they were sure they had spoken to him in the past... no, they spoke with me, Berni, short for Bernadine. Really? That didn't seem likely. What the actual heck? Then the commentary turned to how tough, scary, or aggressive I was in obtaining my goals... goals, like those of Esther, that were about helping the people within the business live and work in a safe, secure, sustainable environment. Goals that were about everyone else, not me, but still perceived that way because "Oh no! Woman on deck!".
That is not to say that every male presenting person did this and that female presenting people never did. My experience has been a mix (I had a female presenting boss who bleached her hair and wore contact lenses to be taken less seriously).
But if we want to see our families and communities happier, healthier, and better able to do the work needed to accomplish that, we really need to stop supporting winner take all perspectives and get out of our own ways.
Thank you for the time and space to rant a little. I appreciate you all.
I see a parallel in the earlier story (in Memucan’s words) a parallel with what’s going on today with all this anti-Trans legislation. It’s dripping with ‘how dare they’ and ‘we must punish them else they’re go further.’
[First - Purim sameach! Second - every time I read the Lilith/Adam argument I just want to say, "Kids, there's more than one position. Also, there's taking turns. What's the hurry here?" {Yes, there's a lot more involved there, but the humor in it just screams at me. As we say around here, it's all fun and games until someone gives birth to demons.}]
Lilith and Chava: Death and Life. No and yes. Both aspects of dignity and value - the former withdraws to preserve the recognition of her inherent value; the latter shares knowledge that awakens Adam (and everyone) and creates more beings of inherent worth (us).
Notably, both of these female figures in these aspects instantiate powers of the Infinite Divine: Life and Death, Yes and No, Creation and Destruction, Limit and Permission, Perhaps these are expressions the feminine aspects of G-d (from our point of view in creation, as the Ein Sof is not male, female, neuter and yet can be metaphorically described in all these ways... sort of as Joseph who wore a colorful 'princess dress' is also a figure of this concept-defying fluidity; but that was a different discussion).
Back to this discussion. Notice the pattern: Lilith must first say "No" to the male's selfish desire to dominate before Chava can arrive to open Adam's eyes and he can accurately see Chava as Chava - lifeforce, life-giver, creator, light bringer - and they can begin to live as humans, striving and repairing and learning. Together. Lilith's "No" opens a space for Chava's "Yes." They work together.
Queen Vashti and Queen Esther: Vashti, preserving her own dignity and value, says "No." And that ability to say No terrifies the males who disasterize her No into the possibility that all of civilization will be upended... when it would only reorder an unjust system and introduce justice as a ruling principle, not a king's random edicts or "right" based on traditions, bad habit, unexamined prejudice.
Vashti's "No" opens the space for Esther's "Yes," Esther embodies life and justice, truth and light and - indeed - Vashti's "No" upends an unjust system in a way the king's advisors could not imagine or plan against. Their very planning allowed Esther's entrance and allowed her access to the king - to open his eyes as his partner, the missing part in his judgment that allowed someone and something like Haman to fester in and corrupt the court and the king's judgment.
Vashti and Esther work together to subvert injustice and introduce justice and life into a merry situation on the tracks to deliver the usual impending doom and grinding hatreds.
In parallel, Lilith won't repent of being created with dignity and value, so says "No" and becomes a force of "No" -- which is the first step in any possibility of change. Vashti does similarly. Chava opens the possibility of life and active change for the better (we can know and choose good OR evil by her gift as co-creators with G-d) - her "Yes" which couldn't have occurred without Lilith's "No." Esther steps into Vashti's space and completes the work by swaying the king in the direction of good and improvement and life.
Days where justice and truth reign are bad days for Haman. Haman gets away with his hatreds and mercilessness - and lack of humility - when the ruling system does not take all and the value of all into account in spite of apparent differences.
(Thank you, Rabbi for opening my eyes to this and other parallels. Such makes Torah live.)
I guess one parallel is that both of these stories revolve around Women. There is no story of Adam and Eve in the Garden without the actions of Eve. And, of course, the Book of Esther is, well, about Esther. Esther is the hero of her own story, but what about Eve?
Throughout history Eve has always been portrayed as the ‘villain’ of the story. Weak willed Eve whose gullibility and lack of faith brings about the downfall of mankind. That is how the story is usually told. But is there another way of looking at the story? One thing jumps out at me “The woman saw that…the tree was desirable for gaining wisdom.” Isn’t Eve then like Prometheus? Stealing wisdom from God to bestow on mankind? Instead of remaining docilly in the Garden like pet hamsters didn’t Eve bravely lead us out into the world? I know, it is a world of many sorrows, but it is also a world of many triumphs and glories. Do we really want to “…get ourselves back to the garden?”
I’m not going. I’m staying here with Eve. Thanks Eve.
One thing that strikes me is how much one woman has to shoulder the burden of an entire people's survival in both narratives. Esther pleads her case to the king thusly: "For we have been sold, my people and I, to be destroyed, massacred, and exterminated." Earlier, Lilith has a pact about sparing the future children born from Adam: "She swore to them in the name of the living God that whenever she would see them or their names or their images on an amulet, she would not overpower that baby, and she accepted that a hundred of her children would die every day."
The same demand isn't put on Adam's or Mordecai's shoulders. Granted, Lilith is portrayed as more of a perpetrator than a victim compared to Esther, but I find it interesting that both roles, of a sentimental nature, are thrust onto the women of the story, whereas the male-presenting figures (with the exception of wicked Haman) are cast as more rational and sitting in judgment. Besides being stories about how the Israelites came to be and were preserved, I think there's also this subtle angle of delegating sentiment and desire to women and reason and lawgiving to men.
Okay, bear with me because I've been trying to put my vague feelings into words, and I'm not sure if I'm getting it 100%--please feel free to ask for clarification, it might help me figure out what i'm trying to say lol
One of the things that sticks out to me here, is that with these pairings, Lilith-Eve and Vashti-Esther, Eve is placed into the hero role, the "good woman" of the two. Which isn't what I'm used to--coming from a Catholic background, the one time I remember Eve being compared to another woman, it was Eve to Mary, with Eve the lesser of the two, criticized for her lack of obedience in contrast with Mary's clear "yes". (Not here to discuss the Christian bible, so I'll leave that alone there, except to say that me and my mom both came out of that particular homily feeling very defensive of Eve). Eve is the one who disobeyed first, the one who got us kicked out of Eden, and reading this in conversation with Esther and the midrash about Lilith, she's also the hero. It makes me think of the interpretation that Miriam R mentioned in the comments, that leaving the garden was inevitable/part of growing up for humanity. Eve taking the apple wasn't just an act of disobedience, it was her taking the first step towards being an adult. Basically, I think pairing Eve and Esther complicates the "good woman-bad woman" dichotomy/comparison that comes up in theology and literature so often, by adding complexity to the image of a "good woman"
As I was reading this, I got DNA by Girls in Trouble stuck in my head, specifically the line "older and younger and hunter and thief, which one is you, and which one is me," so I went back and listened to that song and read some of the comments from that thursday post about it, which helped me figure out why I was thinking about it. I really liked the ambiguity of the song, and that line in general, with regard to which of the sisters, leah or rachel, it was about at any given moment--it left room for them both to play both roles, and, for me, turned the story from two girls/women fighting over a man, to two women struggling to live in a patriarchal society. And I want to apply that ambiguity here, to completely take out the "good woman-bad woman" dichotomy that was complicated in that last paragraph. Eve and Esther, Lilith and Vashti, are not separated by their actions/who they are as people, they're separated by the world's reaction to them. Esther may use more subtle methods than Vashti, but she is still going against the king, or at least asking him to go against what he's already chosen to do; Eve asserts her own autonomy by eating from the fruit of the tree, as Lilith did by leaving Eden rather than submit to Adam. And taking that dichotomy, I think, allows us to imaging a kinship between the pairs of women--Richard Van Ingram's analysis of Lilith and Vashti's "no" leaving room for Eve and Esther's "yes" resonated with me, and has me imagining the women in conversation with each other, though at least in these excerpts, Eve & Lilith and Vashta & Esther don't meet. Esther being grateful for Vashta's "no," because it opened the way for her, Lilith being glad to see Eve eating the fruit and leaving Eden her own person, etc. And again coming back to the song, I think of the last lines:
"Both of us are braided through with candles blood and bread
both of us were born with all these visions in our head
you would always promise me that one day we'd be free
late at night i'm leaving and i'm taking you with me."
I've always linked Esther and Jezebel in my mind - two women married in a foreign land and don't subscribe to the majority culture religion and how one is a heroine and one is a villain. I have a lot of unformed thoughts on this still.
I've been reading a bunch about why Jews dress up on Purim but not Halloween, and there's a lot about how it's OK to masquerade because God was masquerading throughout the Megilla - He's never mentioned, but clearly He saved us.
But, like, actually....Esther saved us. How do we reconcile the idea of God orchestrating the miracle of Purim without taking it away from Esther? If it's all Esther, where TF was God?
I find the default of men being in charge of interest in both stories. If man and woman were created at the same time why even focus on the fight for superiority? A King and Queen and yet one is still subservient to the other? OY!
I wonder just how insecure and inadequate the men were who wrote these passages. They are codifying the subservience of women and I will say I am not at all impressed. This is one of many reasons I chose to retire from the Catholic faith. Can't we all just be people?
No, when a woman (Lilith, Vashti, or Esther) simply asserts her own rights to exist she must do it within how men perceive her rights and is punished if the men disagree. Frankly, this just makes me angry. I do not want to dominate the other in either direction. Can't we just be partners, equals, friends, colleagues?
As I often do here, I reflect on my own experiences and this is such a hot button for me and I know how privileged I am. But I am also a person who goes by a name most frequently associated with maleness (Berni). I cannot tell you how many times during my career as an Environment, Health and Safety Manager I had people ask to talk to Mr. Berni Wasser... a person who does not exist in my family. But they were sure they had spoken to him in the past... no, they spoke with me, Berni, short for Bernadine. Really? That didn't seem likely. What the actual heck? Then the commentary turned to how tough, scary, or aggressive I was in obtaining my goals... goals, like those of Esther, that were about helping the people within the business live and work in a safe, secure, sustainable environment. Goals that were about everyone else, not me, but still perceived that way because "Oh no! Woman on deck!".
That is not to say that every male presenting person did this and that female presenting people never did. My experience has been a mix (I had a female presenting boss who bleached her hair and wore contact lenses to be taken less seriously).
But if we want to see our families and communities happier, healthier, and better able to do the work needed to accomplish that, we really need to stop supporting winner take all perspectives and get out of our own ways.
Thank you for the time and space to rant a little. I appreciate you all.
I see a parallel in the earlier story (in Memucan’s words) a parallel with what’s going on today with all this anti-Trans legislation. It’s dripping with ‘how dare they’ and ‘we must punish them else they’re go further.’
[First - Purim sameach! Second - every time I read the Lilith/Adam argument I just want to say, "Kids, there's more than one position. Also, there's taking turns. What's the hurry here?" {Yes, there's a lot more involved there, but the humor in it just screams at me. As we say around here, it's all fun and games until someone gives birth to demons.}]
Lilith and Chava: Death and Life. No and yes. Both aspects of dignity and value - the former withdraws to preserve the recognition of her inherent value; the latter shares knowledge that awakens Adam (and everyone) and creates more beings of inherent worth (us).
Notably, both of these female figures in these aspects instantiate powers of the Infinite Divine: Life and Death, Yes and No, Creation and Destruction, Limit and Permission, Perhaps these are expressions the feminine aspects of G-d (from our point of view in creation, as the Ein Sof is not male, female, neuter and yet can be metaphorically described in all these ways... sort of as Joseph who wore a colorful 'princess dress' is also a figure of this concept-defying fluidity; but that was a different discussion).
Back to this discussion. Notice the pattern: Lilith must first say "No" to the male's selfish desire to dominate before Chava can arrive to open Adam's eyes and he can accurately see Chava as Chava - lifeforce, life-giver, creator, light bringer - and they can begin to live as humans, striving and repairing and learning. Together. Lilith's "No" opens a space for Chava's "Yes." They work together.
Queen Vashti and Queen Esther: Vashti, preserving her own dignity and value, says "No." And that ability to say No terrifies the males who disasterize her No into the possibility that all of civilization will be upended... when it would only reorder an unjust system and introduce justice as a ruling principle, not a king's random edicts or "right" based on traditions, bad habit, unexamined prejudice.
Vashti's "No" opens the space for Esther's "Yes," Esther embodies life and justice, truth and light and - indeed - Vashti's "No" upends an unjust system in a way the king's advisors could not imagine or plan against. Their very planning allowed Esther's entrance and allowed her access to the king - to open his eyes as his partner, the missing part in his judgment that allowed someone and something like Haman to fester in and corrupt the court and the king's judgment.
Vashti and Esther work together to subvert injustice and introduce justice and life into a merry situation on the tracks to deliver the usual impending doom and grinding hatreds.
In parallel, Lilith won't repent of being created with dignity and value, so says "No" and becomes a force of "No" -- which is the first step in any possibility of change. Vashti does similarly. Chava opens the possibility of life and active change for the better (we can know and choose good OR evil by her gift as co-creators with G-d) - her "Yes" which couldn't have occurred without Lilith's "No." Esther steps into Vashti's space and completes the work by swaying the king in the direction of good and improvement and life.
Days where justice and truth reign are bad days for Haman. Haman gets away with his hatreds and mercilessness - and lack of humility - when the ruling system does not take all and the value of all into account in spite of apparent differences.
(Thank you, Rabbi for opening my eyes to this and other parallels. Such makes Torah live.)
I guess one parallel is that both of these stories revolve around Women. There is no story of Adam and Eve in the Garden without the actions of Eve. And, of course, the Book of Esther is, well, about Esther. Esther is the hero of her own story, but what about Eve?
Throughout history Eve has always been portrayed as the ‘villain’ of the story. Weak willed Eve whose gullibility and lack of faith brings about the downfall of mankind. That is how the story is usually told. But is there another way of looking at the story? One thing jumps out at me “The woman saw that…the tree was desirable for gaining wisdom.” Isn’t Eve then like Prometheus? Stealing wisdom from God to bestow on mankind? Instead of remaining docilly in the Garden like pet hamsters didn’t Eve bravely lead us out into the world? I know, it is a world of many sorrows, but it is also a world of many triumphs and glories. Do we really want to “…get ourselves back to the garden?”
I’m not going. I’m staying here with Eve. Thanks Eve.
One thing that strikes me is how much one woman has to shoulder the burden of an entire people's survival in both narratives. Esther pleads her case to the king thusly: "For we have been sold, my people and I, to be destroyed, massacred, and exterminated." Earlier, Lilith has a pact about sparing the future children born from Adam: "She swore to them in the name of the living God that whenever she would see them or their names or their images on an amulet, she would not overpower that baby, and she accepted that a hundred of her children would die every day."
The same demand isn't put on Adam's or Mordecai's shoulders. Granted, Lilith is portrayed as more of a perpetrator than a victim compared to Esther, but I find it interesting that both roles, of a sentimental nature, are thrust onto the women of the story, whereas the male-presenting figures (with the exception of wicked Haman) are cast as more rational and sitting in judgment. Besides being stories about how the Israelites came to be and were preserved, I think there's also this subtle angle of delegating sentiment and desire to women and reason and lawgiving to men.
Okay, bear with me because I've been trying to put my vague feelings into words, and I'm not sure if I'm getting it 100%--please feel free to ask for clarification, it might help me figure out what i'm trying to say lol
One of the things that sticks out to me here, is that with these pairings, Lilith-Eve and Vashti-Esther, Eve is placed into the hero role, the "good woman" of the two. Which isn't what I'm used to--coming from a Catholic background, the one time I remember Eve being compared to another woman, it was Eve to Mary, with Eve the lesser of the two, criticized for her lack of obedience in contrast with Mary's clear "yes". (Not here to discuss the Christian bible, so I'll leave that alone there, except to say that me and my mom both came out of that particular homily feeling very defensive of Eve). Eve is the one who disobeyed first, the one who got us kicked out of Eden, and reading this in conversation with Esther and the midrash about Lilith, she's also the hero. It makes me think of the interpretation that Miriam R mentioned in the comments, that leaving the garden was inevitable/part of growing up for humanity. Eve taking the apple wasn't just an act of disobedience, it was her taking the first step towards being an adult. Basically, I think pairing Eve and Esther complicates the "good woman-bad woman" dichotomy/comparison that comes up in theology and literature so often, by adding complexity to the image of a "good woman"
As I was reading this, I got DNA by Girls in Trouble stuck in my head, specifically the line "older and younger and hunter and thief, which one is you, and which one is me," so I went back and listened to that song and read some of the comments from that thursday post about it, which helped me figure out why I was thinking about it. I really liked the ambiguity of the song, and that line in general, with regard to which of the sisters, leah or rachel, it was about at any given moment--it left room for them both to play both roles, and, for me, turned the story from two girls/women fighting over a man, to two women struggling to live in a patriarchal society. And I want to apply that ambiguity here, to completely take out the "good woman-bad woman" dichotomy that was complicated in that last paragraph. Eve and Esther, Lilith and Vashti, are not separated by their actions/who they are as people, they're separated by the world's reaction to them. Esther may use more subtle methods than Vashti, but she is still going against the king, or at least asking him to go against what he's already chosen to do; Eve asserts her own autonomy by eating from the fruit of the tree, as Lilith did by leaving Eden rather than submit to Adam. And taking that dichotomy, I think, allows us to imaging a kinship between the pairs of women--Richard Van Ingram's analysis of Lilith and Vashti's "no" leaving room for Eve and Esther's "yes" resonated with me, and has me imagining the women in conversation with each other, though at least in these excerpts, Eve & Lilith and Vashta & Esther don't meet. Esther being grateful for Vashta's "no," because it opened the way for her, Lilith being glad to see Eve eating the fruit and leaving Eden her own person, etc. And again coming back to the song, I think of the last lines:
"Both of us are braided through with candles blood and bread
both of us were born with all these visions in our head
you would always promise me that one day we'd be free
late at night i'm leaving and i'm taking you with me."
I've always linked Esther and Jezebel in my mind - two women married in a foreign land and don't subscribe to the majority culture religion and how one is a heroine and one is a villain. I have a lot of unformed thoughts on this still.
I've been reading a bunch about why Jews dress up on Purim but not Halloween, and there's a lot about how it's OK to masquerade because God was masquerading throughout the Megilla - He's never mentioned, but clearly He saved us.
But, like, actually....Esther saved us. How do we reconcile the idea of God orchestrating the miracle of Purim without taking it away from Esther? If it's all Esther, where TF was God?