Happy (late) Purim! For those of you who don't know what Purim is, I shall explain. Purim is a Jewish holiday which falls on the 14th day of Adar (on the Jewish calendar, which is lunar), and falls on the 24th of February this year. Purim revolves around the story of the Book of Esther, or the Megillah. People dress up in costumes and eat hamantaschen (triangle shaped cookies with fruit filling) and give each other baskets of treats called mishloach manot.
Here's the story of Purim:
Once, there was a king called Achashverosh who was rather fond of excess. One day, King Achashverosh held a seven day feast for the princes of the 127 provinces of his kingdom. On the seventh day, the king was pretty drunk and was showing off, so he called for his wife, Queen Vashti to be brought before him in her royal crown (the rabbis take this to mean in only her royal crown) to show off her beauty. The Queen refused to come, so, upon the advice of his royal advisers, the king banished her.
Then the king decided that he needed a new queen. He ordered that all the young women of his kingdom be presented before him so that the could choose a new queen (basically an old fashioned beauty pageant). One of these women was Esther, the niece of Mordechai. Esther was Jewish, as was Mordechai. The king took a liking to Esther and decided to make her he new queen. Before Esther married the king, Mordechai told Esther no to reveal that she was Jewish.
At this point, there's a whole side story in which Mordechai discovers an assassination plot against the king and reports it, saving the kings life, but that's not really important to the story.
Anyway. The king had an evil adviser named Haman (everyone boos whenever Haman's name is mentioned during the telling of the story). Haman was the most powerful of the king's advisers and everyone bowed down to him when he walked by. Everyone that is, except Mordechai. Mordechai said that he couldn't bow down to Haman because he was Jewish, and Jews could only bow down to their god.
Haman decided that this was absolutely unacceptable, and that as payback, he would have all the Jews killed. He talked to the king, got his permission to write a proclamation about it, and cast lots ("purim" in Hebrew) to pick the day of the executions.
Mordechai, understandably upset by this proclamation, sent a letter to Esther telling her that she had to save her people. Esther wasn't big on the idea because it involved her going to talk to the king without being summoned (a crime punishable by death). But in the end, she went. She invited the king and Haman to a feast. At the feast, she revealed to the king that she was Jewish and that Haman was going to have her people killed. The king was appalled, sentenced Haman to death, replaced him with Mordechai, and issued a new proclamation allowing the Jews to fight back against the people trying to kill them.
And they all lived happily ever after. The end.
Now then, the thing that bothers me about this story is King Achashverosh. When young children, or really any children, are taught about Purim, he is referred to as "the silly king" or "the foolish king". The thing is, if you take a look at what King Achashverosh actually does in the story, there's nothing silly or foolish about him at all.
Lets start at the beginning. The king sends for the queen to show her off (because he's showing off his other property) and he orders her to come, according to the rabbis, in only her crown. Hm. Nice guy. I understand that customs were different at that point of time, but no matter how you look at it, it's rather demeaning to be ordered to present yourself in a room full of drunk men wearing nothing at all.
And then, when she refuses to come, he decides to find a new queen because the queen must be obedient. Through this decision, he ruins Vashti's life. At that time, women were not considered to have any worth without their husbands (I'm not saying that this was a good thing, but that's how it was), so Vashti was left disgraced, with no way to provide for her self, and no hopes of finding a new husband.
I also find it interesting that no blame at all is put on Achashverosh for the decree to kill all of the Jews. Sure it was Haman's idea, but it's not like Achashverosh didn't know about it or was tricked into it. The text makes it clear that they had a nice discussion and Achashverosh agreed that it was a fine idea for all the Jews to be killed. He just left it up to Haman to iron out the details. Funny how this is always glossed over in the retelling of the story.
So yeah, King Achashverosh wasn't a particularly silly or foolish. He seemed to know exactly what he was doing and he made some terrible decisions. I also find the language choice somewhat worrisome. When I learned about what King Achashverosh actually did, I learned about in the context of, "this is not an okay way to treat women, King Achashverosh did the wrong thing". The issue is, a lot of Jewish kids wouldn't learn about it that way. I worry that kids will learn what King Achashverosh did and associate that with the fact that he was silly or foolish. The connection would then be that his actions were just silly, nothing to worry about. In my opinion, that's not an okay connection to make.
On that note, I'll leave you with a song by the Maccabeats about Purim. Enjoy!
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