Zissi Skarzhinskaya
As is well known, the Scroll of Esther contains no mention of the Almighty. Yet the Almighty’s presence can be glimpsed through all the “chance” events that determined the fate of the Jewish people. Similarly, behind the scenes in the palace, Queen Esther makes all the preparations to save the people, but no one knows about it (except Mordechai).
This is roughly how Purim goes for many women: mishloach manot are wrapped and ready, the Purim costumes have been sewn (or obtained some other way), ironed, and hung on hangers, and the Purim meal has been prepared (or dishes have been prepared to take along when visiting others). Everything is ready for a wonderful celebration, but on Purim itself the women seem to remain in the background—watching and rejoicing for others. Purim has deep sources of joy, yet mitzvot that express joy outwardly have also been established and must be fulfilled.
On Purim there are no special customs of rejoicing for women. Men find joy in wine and meat (Pesachim, 109a), while we are entitled to new clothing only on Pesach. Perhaps that is why we sometimes find it hard to feel joy on Purim?
And we also worry. Will we make it to the Megillah reading in time? What if a child makes it difficult for people in the synagogue to hear the scroll being read? Will we manage to deliver all the mishloach manot? What if the children smear themselves with chocolate and ruin their new Purim costumes before we even get to our hosts’ home? And for Jerusalem residents, Purim falls on Friday, so they also need to have everything ready for Shabbat in time…
As our Sages say, there has been no complete joy in this world (Midrash Tehillim, 98) since the Temple was destroyed. For this reason, it is customary to leave a place for one dish empty at the most joyous meal—to feel that something is missing. Women are wonderfully adept at sensing this. Rabbi Nachman says (Likkutei Moharan, 1:203): “From what women recount, one can learn the state of the Shechinah. And this is what is written about Mordechai: ‘And every day Mordechai walked in front of the courtyard of the women’s house, to learn of Esther’s well-being and what was happening to her.’ Esther is the Shechinah. And Mordechai learned what was happening with the Shechinah from the courtyard of the women’s house—from their accounts.” When women tell one another about their troubles, it closely resembles the sorrow of the Shechinah. One asks for a husband—but the Shechinah wants the same thing (“to unite the wife of youth with her beloved in love”). Another asks for children, but the Shechinah, too, wants all her children, the people of Israel, to return home. A third asks for a home, but the Shechinah, too, wants her own home, the Temple.
In Adar, we should increase our joy. But what can we do to feel joyful?
First, put thoughts of Passover aside. Many women become terribly tense on Purim because uncontrolled carriers of chametz are running around the house, scattering that chametz everywhere and trampling it into the floor. Yes, it is hard to watch, especially for those righteous and valiant wives who have already finished checking and cleaning all the cupboards by the first of Adar. But stay strong! Let’s smile and live in the present: today is Purim, they are rejoicing, and we will rejoice too.
Second, when our sages gave us mitzvot for rejoicing on Purim, women did not get all that many. We need to improvise. Let’s try to find our own reasons to rejoice. It is written of Haman that he left Esther’s feast “joyful and in good spirits” (Esther, 5:9), and the author of “Kedushat Levi,” Rabbi Levi Yitzchak of Berditchev, asks: how can the wicked Haman feel joy (simcha), when it comes from such an exalted source? He answers that sparks of holiness reached Haman because he ate delicacies from Esther’s table and received some holiness (kedushah) from them. If even someone as wicked as Haman could gain a feeling of simcha from food, let’s try too.
Elsewhere in the Scroll of Esther, it is written that after preparing a tree for Mordechai, Haman would be able to come to the king’s feast in good spirits (Esther, 5:14). The Kotzker Rebbe says: from this we should learn that we must always appear before a king (and all the more so before the King of kings) joyful and in good spirits, showing that in the king’s presence, a person is not preoccupied with his own troubles. But the sages draw our attention to the verse: “And the king said to Esther as they were drinking wine: What is your wish? It shall be granted. And what is your request? Even half the kingdom (you may ask for), and it shall be fulfilled” (Esther, 5:6). The King of the world, the Almighty, says to Esther, meaning the Jewish people, during the feast, meaning the Purim meal: “What do you want?” “What are you asking for?”
The Purim meal is a time of the Creator’s favor, when we can make any request.
We know that we should increase our joy throughout the month. We can increase it by reducing what makes us unhappy. And to help us do this, we have… other characters from the Scroll of Esther.
The first to appear is Queen Vashti.
Vashti was the daughter of the Babylonian king Belshazzar, while her husband, Achashverosh, was the king of Persia.
Vashti holds a feast for the women (Esther, 1:9) in the royal palace. In the Gemara (Megillah, 12a), the sages wonder why she held it in the royal palace rather than in the “women’s house,” where it would have been more modest, since men did not enter there. Rava explains that both Achashverosh and Vashti wanted to sin. In other words, they had agreed that she would come out to display her beauty before the men, and then indecent behavior would follow.
A person draws the members of his household along with him, which is why it says “also”: “Queen Vashti also made a feast for the women in King Achashverosh’s royal palace.” Achashverosh set the example, and Vashti followed him. The Talmud quotes a saying: “He goes for large zucchini, she goes for small zucchini”—in other words, he sinned on a grand scale, and she tried to keep up.
Vashti carried out everything Achashverosh planned, and she herself was far from righteous: she hated the Jews fiercely and tormented her Jewish maidservants, especially on Shabbat. The king and queen had a wonderful relationship, a complete idyll, apart from two things. At home, Vashti spoke Babylonian rather than Persian. She also constantly reminded him that he had once been a stablehand and had made his way to the throne only through vast sums of money (and later through wars). She constantly pressed his sore spot: his kavod (respect). But as long as this stayed between them and he was sober, all was quiet. Now, however, at the feast, surrounded by his ministers, Achashverosh could not bear it and became furious—an insult from his wife, delivered through a servant!
Here we can plainly see two lessons at once: first, do not become angry.
Achashverosh was drunk, so he became angry easily. This, of course, happened by the will of Heaven and for the benefit of the Jewish people. In our own lives, circumstances that can make us lose our temper also come about by the will of Heaven and for our benefit. Remembering this, let’s try not to become angry during Adar, especially on Purim. Fewer outbursts of anger at home will, in themselves, bring greater joy. And on Purim, we simply must not become angry—joy will leave our home.
And the second lesson: do not wound your husband’s self-respect.
At the time of the Purim events, our sages tell us, everyone was so astonished by the king’s letter about wives that they wondered whether he had lost his mind (Megillah, 12; “Esther Rabbah,” 4:12). Why did the king need to write: “To all the royal provinces, to each province in its own script and to each people in its own language, that every man should be master in his own house and speak the language of his own people” (Esther, 1:22)? Did they not know this without him? At the time, it was as clear as day. As it is written in the Gemara (Beitzah, 32b): “For these three, life is not life… for one whose wife rules over him.” Rambam and the author of “Menorat HaMaor,” along with other sages, advise wives on how much respect they should show their husbands. The hierarchy in the home is established in the same way: the “Shulchan Aruch” (“Yoreh De’ah,” 240:14) writes that if a mother tells her son to do something that conflicts with his father’s instruction, the son must do what his father told him, since his mother is also obligated to obey his father.
Your husband does not need to be Achashverosh to feel like a king—it is enough for his wife to crown him. And he will crown you in return. Peace in the home also increases our joy.
We also learn another lesson from Vashti. Since it is written that Vashti made a “feast for the women,” our sages infer from this (“Esther Rabbah,” 3:10) that she served them sweets. Rabbi David Luria of Vilna comments: since it is improper for women to become drunk on wine, Vashti’s feast featured the sweets women enjoy. Even Vashti understood that accompanying a feast with copious wine drinking was not for women.
The next character, a villain, is Zeresh, Haman’s wife.
She came from a noble family. Her father was Tattenai, governor of the region Beyond the River, who tried to obstruct the building of the Second Temple (Ezra, 5). According to one opinion among the sages, Memucan, who advised punishing Vashti and sending letters about wives’ behavior, was none other than Haman, a former barber and bathhouse attendant whose highborn wife ordered him around at home.
When Haman wants to tell someone that Mordechai will not bow to him, he summons his friends first and then Zeresh. On the one hand, he is reluctant to tell his wife, who thinks nothing of him, that despite all the honors he has received, there is someone who does not respect him—it diminishes his dignity. On the other hand, as Rabbi Shlomo Kluger of Brody says (based on Megillah, 14b), women are compassionate, and perhaps Zeresh will have mercy on Mordechai. But not a chance! Zeresh was truly wicked by nature, so she is the first to speak, advising him to find a tall tree and hang Mordechai.
Zeresh was a very intelligent woman. The midrash “Esther Rabbah” (9:2) states that Haman had 365 advisers, but only his wife could analyze the situation and offer “good” advice.
She said: “You must act wisely and not kill him in the ways others before you tried to dispose of Jews. If you throw him into a furnace, he will escape like Hananiah, Mishael, and Azariah. If you throw him into a lions’ den, he will come out like Daniel. If you put him in prison, he will be freed like Yosef. If you light a fire beneath him (boil him in a cauldron), as was done to King Menashe, the Almighty will save him. And if you try to drown him, it will not work—their G‑d split the sea. If you send him into the wilderness, his ancestors multiplied in the wilderness. And if you blind him, consider Shimshon, who killed many Philistines when he was blind. But hang him on a tree, since no one from their people has yet been killed that way.”
Rabbi Chaim Vital holds that Zeresh was well versed in sorcery. She knew that it was very important for sorcerers to have their feet on the ground while performing sorcery. But she believed that the Jews also practiced sorcery, so it was important specifically to hang Mordechai, so that he would be unable to use it. They were also astrologers and “saw” in the stars that Mordechai was high above their house. She therefore advised erecting the tree in their own courtyard to fulfill what had been foretold. Even in her worst nightmare, she could not have imagined what this “prediction of the stars” meant: Mordechai would receive Haman’s house!
According to one of the opinions cited in tractate Megillah (15a), Haman and Zeresh had 30 sons (according to other opinions, they had 90 or 208).
Ten died, ten were hanged, and ten begged for alms. Zeresh later joined them. Some commentators maintain that the last ten were the sons who disagreed with their father, Haman, that Mordechai and all the Jews should be destroyed, and left home.
After Haman leads Mordechai through the city in royal clothing, his advisers and Zeresh realize that it was no coincidence that he returned home “dejected (over his daughter’s death) and with his head covered (covered in slops)” (Esther, 6:12). He insists that it was a coincidence, but they already see a connection to Mordechai’s ancestry. They advise Haman, since his “star” has already begun to decline, to “fall” before Mordechai, just as Agag, king of the Amalekites, had previously fallen prostrate before Shaul—and Shaul spared him. Rabbi Yitzchak Ze’ev Soloveitchik holds that they simply did not have time to finish giving their advice. In fact, they were advising Haman to flee and hide, but they ran out of time: “While they were still speaking with him, the king’s eunuchs arrived and hurried Haman away to the feast Esther had prepared” (Esther, 6:14). And that was a miracle.
Our sages (“Midrash Mishlei,” 11:27) compare Zeresh to Korach’s wife.
“Rabbi Levi said: There were two immensely wealthy men in the world, one in Israel (among the Jews) and the other among the nations of the world. Korach in Israel and Haman among the nations of the world. And both ‘fell’ because they heeded their wives’ advice.” Both women wanted greater honor for their husbands and advised them to begin pursuing it. They nagged their husbands until everything ended badly.
Astonishingly, Korach and Haman were the richest people in the history of the world. What, then, was Haman’s wife lacking?
When a wife nags her husband about something, there is, of course, little joy in the home. In the chapter “Criticism” in her book “Woman to Woman,” Rebbetzin Esther Greenberg tells of a nagging wife who, every time she sees her husband, asks him to fix a chair that is falling apart: in the morning at breakfast, in the evening when he comes home tired—and so on every day. “Is it really worth destroying a family to fix a chair?” By removing criticism, we will increase our joy.
to be continued