Podcast Episode 8: Love Me Two Times, Baby

Elliott begins by recalling how his daughter would dress up like Esther on Purim, all made up as though entering a “beauty contest.” But when you read the Megillah, the facts are far scarier. The key verb in relation to the story’s central figure, Esther is that “she was taken.” And in fact, just like the Liam Neeson movie, she is taken, kidnapped, to be a sex slave. The Megillah relates that all women in Persia at that time are taken to be used sexually by the king, and then discarded, their bodies and their autonomy utterly stripped.

Yossi points out that a close reading reveals that a major focus of the text is not the Jews, but rather the women. One example is Vashti, the king’s wife, who is an independent woman, but is suddenly summoned by the king, who demands her presence. When she refuses, she is deposed of her crown (and executed). What ensues is what Yossi calls an “institutionalized massacre of women’s rights.” And yet, Yossi continues, even though she too was taken like an object, Esther somehow makes an impression on the king. 

Her key moment comes after the king has not sent for her for thirty days. Mordechai urges her to approach the king, to speak up about the plight of the Jews, though ordinarily one cannot approach the king without being summoned. So Esther internalizes the fact that, as Yossi says “if I die, I am going to die speaking, not silent.”

But how can she get through to a king who views her and all women as sex objects? So she invites him to not just one, but two parties. Why, asks Yossi, would she not have used the very first opportunity to beg for salvation for the Jews? Why delay matters by inviting the king to a second party? It is an attempt to get the king to see her as human, as someone outside of the bedroom.

Elliott likes this reading but asks us to speculate about the end of the story and beyond, and asks: “What is the position of women in Persia after the story? Answer: Unchanged.” What Elliott calls the “nasty residue” of the story is that in the kingdom you have a systematic transfer and trafficking of women. State mechanisms are used to transport women to the palace and prepare them for sex. And nothing that happens with Esther and Mordechai will change that fact.

Yossi envisions a less harsh possibility, in that Esther’s advocating for her own humanity will affect the king to recognize, perhaps, the humanity of others. Yossi asserts that “one woman’s voice is very powerful”, and that Esther was willing to risk everything in order to make a point about her humanness. Thus, the Megillah really is the book of Esther, where she is the centre and the heroine. Esther is a woman for our time, demanding to be seen as fully human. That would take two nights, not just one.