Purim Drash

This year I read The Malbim Esther from start to finish over the Shabboses leading up to Purim. I was really struck by the desire for power. Particularly the beginning section was fascinating as I've never really understood or knew what to do with what we're supposed to learn funciton Ahashverosh's dysfunctional marriage to Vashti ending in her execution.

The Malbim explains verse by verse just how much of a power-seeker Ahashverosh was... moving the capital to Shushan so as to avoid using previous' kings' laws as precedence, having a party where he treated everyone as near equals except himself etc.

As part of his rise to kingship he had married Vashti to gain power over certain lands. But at his big party, he wanted to show that he'd only married her for her beauty, or rather, because he wanted to, and that her power was meaningless. No wonder she refused to come. It had nothing to do with either physical vanity or even being asked to come naked. She was ordered by lower officials to do what she said, and she wouldn't buy into it.

The king didn't even want to have her executed, but his advisors made him realize it was necessary if he was to keep order in the kingdom.

Ahasheverosh is all about wanting power and stuff. And he's so entranced by Esther who refuses both of those things. When she is first brought to the palace, she refuses to ask for her allotted gift. Accepting a gift would mean she was agreeing to come to him rather than being forced.

Is his attraction to her because she has something she'll never give him? (In Peter Pan, Mrs. Darling is often described as having a kiss in the corner of her mouth that no one could ever get except Peter Pan. Is it like that? The one thing being denied him intrigues him?)

Either way, if you watch the workings of the palace, everyone is concerned about power from Ahashverosh on the top to little Charbonah on the bottom who observes Haman's plan to build a gallows and waits for just the right moment to tell the king in order to get his promotion.

Mordechai becomes powerful by the end of the story, when Esther puts him in charge of Haman's household, but neither he nor Esther ever seek power or honor for themselves.

It is with all of this in mind that I am entranced by the image of Esther when she enters the king's room, at a risk to her life, to invite the king and Haman to a series of banquets at which she will eventually beg for the Jews to be saved from Haman's plot.

Before I go into detail, a side note here... when Esther communicates with Mordechai about what to do, she says, "If I perish, I perish." I think in a certain way she really did die when she entered the king's chamber. That is the point at which she had to let go of her own personal needs for good. By approaching the king, she gives up a chance to withhold herself from him. And the reason she does it, which we'll see in a moment, is selfless. Her legacy has lived on for hundreds of years, but her own life is over at that point. There is nothing left for her personally.

In any case, the beginning of chapter 5 opens with "Esther was robed with majesty."

Those words evoke dignity, true honor, selflessness and divinity. This is a woman with a true purpose. I'm inspired and want to learn how to hold myself in that way, advocating for what I believe to be right without my ego holding me back.

To take it to another level... the megillah is a book that never mentions G-d's name. Instead G-d is referred to more subtly with each use of the word "Melekh" or "King." In fact, the megillah we read from last night -- (I organized the women's reading this year with with a couple of others who in the end said I did the most, by the way, and it went quite well) -- is a special kind that has the words spaced just right so that "Melekh" appears at the beginning of every column. It's stunningly beautiful just to look at. I know that the references to "Melekh" are meant to allude to Hashem, but I've never been able to figure out how, since Ahashverosh does not have qualities we normally attribute to Hashem.

Instead, it occurs to me that the image of Esther asking for help here, is an instruction towards prayer. She has thought carefully about what to say. She believes it to be right. She has dignity and self-respect while at the same time leaves her ego behind. Forget for a moment that she is walking towards the mortal and power-hungry king. She is also praying and the task before her is as large as if she were walking up to Hashem directly.

The whole world is a mask. There are times when I feel so isolated and alone, wanting to be closer to Hashem but so far away. I felt it this morning in shul when I went to hear the megillah reading. I tried out a new shul and I kept feeling that 1. I had few true friends here in Englewood. 2. On the women's side I wasn't dressed nicely enough to be "one of them" and didn't want to be. I missed my grubbier earthier friends and acquaintances out west. 3. The shul was beautiful and the leadership was nice (the rabbi made me feel secure that he was guarding the halakhah carefully), but I had to trade it for a women's section that was more separate from the men's than my regular shul. I sometimes think that my neshama has always really been on the men's side of the mechitzah, but my body forces me away, and I much prefer life otherwise as a woman because it feels so foundational and true for me. 4. I'm never really happy in a group of people anyway so who am I kidding? I don't think I'll ever have a community where I'm happy. I'm too judgmental and awkward. I don't even like physically staying still in one place as long as I have to in shul, so maybe that's not a place I can expect to feel inspiration. I belong more with children, with one other soul at a time, or alone in nature.

The shul is one path to Hashem. But the work in this world holds so many others. And anything can be a mask to uncover Hashem's oneness. I feel it most when I'm at work. I don't know if it's because I get a high from being busy or if teaching is sacred. I suppose it can be both. In the business world, work is sacred when things are done ethically and halakhically.

I like to think of Esther now as having the power to unmask. Not only does she unmask Haman's plot, but she knows how to gently unmask Hashem and bring Hashem's power into this world. This is a way we can all approach the world.