Purim 2023
Vashti a Feminist Icon, Fasting before Purim
Just an amalgam of 2 thoughts this year:
I was in my dance class dancing to Purim music and this song “Vashti, Vashti” came on.
And it got me thinking about how Vashti has sort of become co-opted by women as an emblem of standing up against being objectified. “On the 7th day, when the king was merry with wine, he ordered…to bring Vashti the Queen before the king in the royal crown to show the peoples and the officials her beauty, because she was a beautiful woman. And Vashti the Queen refused to come at the king’s command” (Esther 1:10-12).
On the words “to bring Vashti the Queen before the king in the royal crown” the midrash1 comments: “ONLY the crown” i.e. naked.
Vashti gets killed for this. I got into a little internet scuffle on the topic recently, and I’ve been thinking about it ever since. Although I don’t necessarily hold up Vashti as a feminist icon and role model, I can’t say that I haven’t thought about being in that situation and I can’t say that I cannot imagine the helplessness of refusing and being killed for it. I can imagine it, I have imagined it every time I read it, and it does cause a squirmy, furious, powerless feeling of frustration.
So it’s interesting to me how so many women admire Vashti for taking a stand and salute her.
The conversation I had about Vashti made me realize how much I’ve “bought into” this co-opting of Vashti as a feminist role model. It seemed clear to me that having your queen to come out to display her body to your guests would require her consent in a relationship of equals. Obviously having the power to kill someone who doesn’t do what you want is a power imbalance in a relationship. In the olden days it wasn’t just women who were subject to this power imbalance; a whimsical king could (and did) abuse whomever he wanted to.
I read a post that brought up that Vashti was angry at the insult and hit back at Achashverosh by refusing his command. The OP suggested that the midrash says she was stricken by tzaraas, the classic punishment for lashon hara, because she chose a path of resentment and hurting him behind his back instead of confronting the person and trying to solve the issues.
I objected. How can she confront a drunk king who orders her to display herself? Should she have humiliated herself and then tried to “work it out” later? He has all the power. (Indeed he did, as he killed her.) I wrote: “Arguably she didn't hurt him, she just refused his summons, which might have been an appropriate boundary except when someone has life and death power over you.”
And the response: “I can’t imagine a greater way of hurting a king than embarrassing him in public.”
I admit I had not thought about the public humiliation of the king angle. I was so caught up in the power imbalance and the wrongness of the summons, that I forgot about how serious a violation is to not listen to the king. Even according to the Torah, contradicting the king or not listening is grounds for immediate beheading without a trial. It’s not something we relate to so much in this culture, such respect for leadership and for monarchy—but it seriously undermines the governmental efficacy to not listen to the king.
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My son asked me why we fast the day before Purim. It was one of those al regel achas questions, where I literally have about 30 seconds to give a comprehensible answer or else the moment is lost. Cue the Jeopardy song.
I told him that before Esther risked her life to go to the king without an appointment, she requested that everyone fast for THREE DAYS.2
He said that doesn’t explain why we do it now.
I said the fasting was a way for us to take the danger we were in seriously, to introspect and do teshuva and hope that we made changes so that we would be worthy of Hashem saving us. And that it’s not enough for us to celebrate that we were saved; we also commemorate the process that comes before being saved. Which is teshuva.
Midrash Lekach Tov on Esther 1:11:1 להביא את ושתי המלכה בכתר מלכות. שלא יהיה עליה אלא הכתר בלבד
Lesser known fact unless you are closely following the dates in the megilla: these 3 days are on Pesach! They fasted on Pesach!