Was Vashti a Hero?

Happy Purim, everyone!

Below is the content from a sourcesheet I did (all in English) that pulls together some of the recent writing about Vashti, Esther, and their feminist credentials or lack of such. Enjoy!

P.S. If you know how to upload a Word document, please let me know in the comments.


Was Vashti A Hero?
And Other Gender Issues In Megillat Esther
By Rabbi Uri Cohen


Megillat Esther 1:9-12 (new JPS translation)

(9) In addition, Queen Vashti gave a banquet for women, in the royal palace of King Ahasuerus. (10) On the seventh day, when the king was merry with wine, he ordered Mehuman, Bizzetha, Harbona, Bigtha, Abagtha, Zethar, and Carcas, the seven eunuchs in attendance on King Ahasuerus, (11) 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. (12) 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.


Norma Rosen, "Midrash, Bible, and Women's Voices," Judaism, Fall 1996 (45:4), p. 440. From her book Biblical Women Unbound: Counter-Tales (JPS, 1996).

First, what to do with Vashti? She seems a heroine of defiance, but the text doesn't recognize her. It's the genius of the midrashic rabbis that adds the essential note missing from Vashti's part of the story. When the King sent for her to appear before his carousing guests, says a midrash in Pirke de Rabbi Eliezer, she was to come naked. Every Purim I have to check the text to remind myself that this searing detail is not in the Bible story. But the midrashic version, once imagined, will not go away. It has seized the text, and made itself a legitimate part of it. The rabbis did not say that Vashti was a hero, but they heightened our sense of what was at stake for her. She was not arrogant and willful, she was self-respecting and full of courage. She upholds the sacredness of human, therefore divine, aspect in a court so debauched that any woman who enters will certainly be dehumanized.


Prof. Eliezer Segal, "Vashti: A Feminist Heroine?" http://www.acs.ucalgary.ca/~elsegal/Shokel/910301_Vashti.html

In its own way the midrashic tradition tried to "liberate" Vashti, portraying her as a wily politician, not merely a passive royal ornament. As the scion of a once-mighty royal dynasty, she would flaunt her pedigree in Ahashverosh's face. She was also adept at subtle political manoeuvering. For example the fact that she held a separate feast for the ladies of the imperial nobility, rather than participating in the general festivities, was interpreted as a wise strategic move: In case a coup should be attempted during Ahashverosh's celebration, she would have under her control a prestigious group of hostages to use as a bargaining card. We see, by the way, that the use of "human shields" as practiced by Saddam Hussein is not a recent innovation in that region of the world.


Wendy Amsellem, "The Mirror has Two Faces: An Exploration of Esther and Vashti," JOFA Journal, Winter 2003, p. 7. http://www.jofa.org/pdf/JofaWinter2003.pdf

Of course, we do not actually know why Vashti refused to appear before the King. It could have been out of modesty as the midrash in Esther Rabbah suggests. Or as Talmud Bavli Megillah describes, she may simply have been unhappy with her appearance that day (a sudden case of leprosy according to Rabbi Yossi bar Chanina or the surprise sprouting of a tail according to a beraita). Perhaps she was being capricious. Perhaps she was a proto-feminist fighting for a sense of independent integrity.


Rabbi Jeffrey M. Cohen, "Vashti -- An Unsung Heroine," The Jewish Bible Quarterly, April-June 1996, pp. 103-106.

In that debauched society, sanity was suspended and marital relationships compromised. Queen Vashti, so missed by the king after he had disposed of her, notwithstanding the fact that he had innumerable women at his beck and call, must have been a rare woman to have retained her sense of dignity and morality to the extent that she was prepared to endanger her life by refusing her lord and master's bidding to show off her body to the assembled throng... She demonstrated that moral conscience was the ultimate arbiter of human behavior, and that human freedom was not to be surrendered under any circumstances, even the most extreme.


Rabbi Arthur Waskow, "Purim: Vashti as Feminist Hero," http://www.shalomctr.org/index.cfm/action/read/section/purim/article/seas09.html

My own reading of the Megillah is that it is made up of two intertwined jokes -- very powerful, and in one case bloody, but jokes nevertheless. The second one is the one we all have learned -- what Haman wants to do to the Jews is what happens to him, and he brings it on his own head. That's the bloody joke. The FIRST one (it starts earlier in the story) is that Ahasuerus's decision that no woman is going to tell him what to do puts into motion the train of affairs that ends by his doing EXACTLY what Esther tells him to do. Structurally, this is the same joke as the first one. There is even one Rabbinic midrash (from a solitary forward-looking man) that the Memucan who advises the king to do Vashti in is --- woddayaknow??!! -- really HAMAN!! And indeed the text hints strongly -- see the similarity between the "people scattered throughout the country who obey their own laws" as the Jews and applying this to Memucan's fear of women in the same way -- that anti-Semitism and anti-feminism are deeply intertwined.


[Anonymous], "Women Heroines: Esther & Purim," http://209.58.241.78/vjholidays/purim/feminist.htm

One could be bothered by Esther's sexual manipulation of Ahasuerus -- why didn't she just speak her mind? Why all the feminine plotting? Esther certainly rejected Ahasuerus's objectification of her. But she realized his nature. With so much depending on her, she had no interest in consciousness-raising. By working within the external limitations of the situation, Esther effected a powerful change which even had geopolitical ramifications (Mordechai's appointment as Prime Minister, Darius's decree). Vashti, by concerning herself with her own status, was rendered ineffectual, and didn't even succeed at saving her own life, let alone anyone else's. In Vashti and Esther, we see two women with very different approaches to their role as queen. Vashti sought power, but ended up disempowered. Esther's power was internal. She maintained her self in the face of all corrupting forces, and was so empowered as to became an eternal heroine of the Jewish people.


Mary Gendler, "The Restoration of Vashti", in Elizabeth Koltun, The Jewish Woman: New Perspectives (New York: Schocken, 1976), p. 245.

In this sense, Ahasuerus can be seen not only as an Ultimate Authority who holds vast power over everyone, but more generally as male, patriarchal authority in relation to females. As such, Vashti and Esther serve as models of how to deal with such authority. And the message comes through loud and clear: women who are bold, direct, aggressive and disobedient are not acceptable; the praiseworthy women are those who are unassuming, quietly persistent, and who gain their power through the love they inspire in men. These women live almost vicariously, subordinating their needs and desires to those of others. We have only to look at the stereotyped Jewish Mother to attest to the still-pervasive influence of the Esther-behavior-model.


Gail Twersky Reimer, "Eschewing Esther/Embracing Esther: The Changing Representation of Biblical Heroines," in Joyce Antler, ed. Talking Back: Images of Jewish Women in American Popular Culture (Brandeis University Press, 1997), p. 214, 219.

While presenting an alternative vision of womanhood, efforts at Vashti's restoration, such as Gendler's and [Rachel] Brownstein's, tend to both maintain the disturbing binary opposition between women that characterizes centuries of interpretive retellings of Bible stories and reify the stereotyped vision of Jewish womanhood...

[In the libretto Biblical Women by Elizabeth Swados,] Vashti and Esther each represent a different stage of feminist politics. In Vashti we recognize the all-consuming anger and indignation that a later generation of feminist heroines, like Esther, moves beyond as they struggle to identify the sources for their own power and then exercise it.


Rivkah Lubitch, "A Feminist's Look at Esther," Judaism, Fall 1993, pp. 438, 446.

Esther of the beginning of the Megillah (Esther 1) plays the typical feminine role. Yet, at a certain point in the story, as we shall see, she "snaps" out of the dream world she has been in, and assumes a role which is good enough for any feminist (Esther 2). Esther 1 is passive, obedient, dependent and silent. Esther 2 is active, assertive, tactful, independent, and holds political power in the real world...

Midrash often takes the liberty of portraying personalities in quite a different manner than is found in Scripture... In our case, two Esthers exist in the Megillah, and either choice by the midrash would have been valid. In view of the image of Esther portrayed at the beginning of the Megillah, we would easily have accepted a midrash explaining away her new image and attributing all initiative to Mordekhai... But no!... The Megillah portrayed her as an outstanding political figure and communal savior. The rabbis went even further and attributed to her the characteristics which were important in their eyes. They portrayed her as an halakhic authority.


Wendy Amsellem, "The Mirror has Two Faces: An Exploration of Esther and Vashti," JOFA Journal, Winter 2003, p. 7. http://www.jofa.org/pdf/JofaWinter2003.pdf

In this moment of fate, Esther looks into her mirror and discovers that she does not look quite so different from Vashti after all. She takes matters into her own hands and stands up to both sources of authority. Esther assumes control of Mordechai’s plan, changing and amending as she sees fit. Like Vashti, she will appear before the king only when she decides that the time is right - in this case after three days of fasting. Instead of following Mordechai’s suggestion and simply making her petition, she will throw a series of parties as Vashti did. In order to succeed, Esther realizes that she must take on aspects of the repudiated former queen... As Esther marshals her strength to save her nation, she must revisit the experiences of her shunned predecessor and learn from them. Esther is more calculated, more subtle, (more divinely inspired) and ultimately far more successful than Vashti. Yet, in order to triumph, Esther must confront the image of Vashti and incorporate (or perhaps discover) the attributes of Vashti in herself.


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Dr. Gavriel Haim Cohen, "Feminist Aspects of Megillat Esther," http://www.jajz-ed.org.il/festivls/purim/pureng3.html

The Megillah's author gives expression to his reservations about the manner in which the King chooses a wife and words the young lads' conversation in a style and register reminiscent of the tithe collections in the Egypt of Joseph's days:

Genesis, Ch XLI, 34-37: "Let Pharaoh ... appoint officers in the land... and take up ... in the seven years of plenty ... against the seven years of famine ... And the thing was good in the eyes of Pharaoh..."

Esther, Ch II, 3-4: "Let fair young virgins be sought ... and let the king appoint officers in all the provinces ... to gather together all the fair young virgins to Shushan ...And the thing was good in the eyes of the king..."

Women are treated as a negotiable commodity - preferably esthetic, like food. The Megillah repeatedly brings to the fore, through the literary conventions at its disposal, to what extent there is a lack of personal and emotional relationship towards women and how much it is an external, functional one. The text emphasizes that every candidate is required to spend half a year at a beauty parlor before being summoned to the King, and the extensive treatments are even described in detail:

Ch II, 12: "... for so were fulfilled the days of their annointing: six months with oil of myrrh and six months with sweet fragrances..."

The choice of phrasing recalls a parallel in the Book of Genesis: Genesis L, 3:
"... for so are fulfilled the days of those who are embalmed..."

The description in Genesis, however, refers to the preparation of Jacob's dead body - while that of the Megillah is of a live woman. The parallel in language intimates that the entire frame of reference to a woman was in terms of her body, without any consideration for her mind and soul.