As soon as the news of the new law arrives, all hell breaks loose. After the many months of terror from Haman’s death decree, the Jews of Persia are legally allowed to stand up for themselves.
Once again, fact or most likely fantasy- this was written by Jews with no power who imagined what it was like to turn the tables on those in charge who would have no problem, and often had no inhibitions, about killing them:
וּבִשְׁנֵים עָשָׂר חֹדֶשׁ הוּא־חֹדֶשׁ אֲדָר בִּשְׁלוֹשָׁה עָשָׂר יוֹם בּוֹ אֲשֶׁר הִגִּיעַ דְּבַר־הַמֶּלֶךְ וְדָתוֹ לְהֵעָשׂוֹת בַּיּוֹם אֲשֶׁר שִׂבְּרוּ אֹיְבֵי הַיְּהוּדִים לִשְׁלוֹט בָּהֶם וְנַהֲפוֹךְ הוּא אֲשֶׁר יִשְׁלְטוּ הַיְּהוּדִים הֵמָּה בְּשֹׂנְאֵיהֶם׃
And so, on the thirteenth day of the twelfth month—that is, the month of Adar—when the king’s command and decree were to be executed, the very day on which the enemies of the Jews had expected to get them in their power, the opposite happened, and the Jews got their enemies in their power.
Esther 9:1
These troubled days, I might be accused of antisemitism for bringing attention to this troubling words from the Esther Scroll.
Yet here it is - most a figment of furious imagination, a diaspora-inspired revenge fantasy that is not fiction anymore, now gone very very wrong, It was feminist biblical scholar Phyllis Trible who coined the phrase Texts of Terror in her book on Literary Feminist Readings of Biblical Narratives:
“Sad stories do not have happy endings. They are texts of terror…These texts do not readily yield redemptive meanings. Instead, they invite us into the struggle of interpretation where we must reckon with suffering and injustice that refuse to be neatly resolved.”
Echoing this call for reckoning towards repair, Peter Beinart's recently published opinion piece refuses to look away from these ‘blood soaked words’:
“For most of our history, when Jews had little capacity to impose our will via the sword, the conclusion of the book of Esther was a harmless and even understandable fantasy. Who can blame a tormented people for dreaming of a world turned upside down? But the ending reads differently when a Jewish state wields life and death power over millions of Palestinians who lack even a passport. Today, these blood-soaked verses should unsettle us. When we recite them aloud in synagogue, we should employ the anguished, sorrowful tune in which we chant the book of Lamentations, which depicts the destruction of our ancient temples.
Instead, most of us ignore the violence that concludes the Esther scroll. Some contemporary Jews justify it as self-defense. On the far right, some revel in it. But they’re the exception. More often, we look away. We focus on what they tried to do to us.
Our refusal to reckon with the dark side of Purim reflects a refusal to reckon with the dark side of ourselves, to acknowledge our full humanity, which renders us capable of being not only victims, but victimizers as well.”
As Prof. Rabbi David Frankel suggests, chapters 9 and 10 are later additions, meant to connect the older story to the holiday of Purim, likely inspired by political tensions experienced by the author/s living under an oppressive Greek regime:
“It is difficult to determine when the editors of the book of Esther converted the relatively innocent and humorous tale about the salvation of the Jews into the more stark and violent charter for the holiday of Purim. This evolution may reflect shifts in Jewish-Gentile relations. In the original tale, the “city of Susa” identifies with the Jews and shares in their agony as well as their triumph. In the final form of the story, in contrast, eight-hundred enemies of the Jews must be eliminated from Susa, and the anti-Jewish attitudes of Haman become endemic of a multitude of citizens throughout the empire.”
Regardless of its origins, chapter 9 goes on to describe the riots in Shushan, where 500 Persians are killed, among them Haman’s ten children who are named. Their names are often written in bold fonts in the scroll, standing out, sometimes with illustrated gallows.
Tradition has it that when those names are read out loud it is to be done with a single breath.
The violence spreads out to the rest of the empire:
וּשְׁאָר הַיְּהוּדִים אֲשֶׁר בִּמְדִינוֹת הַמֶּלֶךְ נִקְהֲלוּ וְעָמֹד עַל־נַפְשָׁם וְנוֹחַ מֵאֹיְבֵיהֶם וְהָרוֹג בְּשֹׂנְאֵיהֶם חֲמִשָּׁה וְשִׁבְעִים אָלֶף וּבַבִּזָּה לֹא שָׁלְחוּ אֶת־יָדָם׃
The rest of the Jews, those in the king’s provinces, likewise mustered and fought for their lives. They disposed of their enemies, killing seventy-five thousand of their foes; but they did not lay hands on the spoil.
Esther 9:16
75,800 bodies later, the riots are over, and the empire goes back to business. The holiday of Purim is born. At what price? As the many scholars we’ve read these past week wonder - what does Purim’s origin story tell us about our traumatic histories and the ways we mask pain and avoid moral responsibility by pretending it is only ours?
In recent years, Chapter 9 Project by the Shalom Center, under the leadership of Rabbi Arthur Waskow, invited new ways of responding to these verses,
“To reimagine Chapter 9 of the Book of Esther as an exercise in dreaming new worlds, new responses, and new endings into existence.”
Each year, artists and scholars come up with redemptive responses that help hold this legacy and take it elsewhere.
This past year, the project’s creators reframed the goals in the context of this current violence between Israel and Hamas:
“For many of us, Chapter 9 is a shameful part of our people’s mythology, depicting the worst elements of retaliatory bloodthirst.
Some individuals and communities choose to skip over these disturbing descriptions, while others read the text in a whisper or with the melancholic Eicha/Lamentations trope to express their pain over the suffering of the innocent. Additionally, there are those who remind themselves that the text is not a historical account but rather a fantastical tale of a powerless people.
But what if there was a different way to navigate this painful chapter? An alternative to unbridled retribution, that replaced violence with hope? That uplifted transformation over reprisal?
Because tragically, these questions of how best to respond to attempted annihilation are not at all a fantasy in our own time, but rather, all too real.
As we know, we are living through an extremely dark chapter in the history of the Jewish people. After decades of displacement, occupation, corruption, and strife, the people of Israel faced an unprecedented attack by Hamas in October of 2023. In the months since, we have seen levels of violence in Gaza and the West Bank that break our hearts.
Attempted bloody annihilation has led to even greater attempted annihilation, with no end in sight. How much is too much? Is another world possible?”
With our highest hopes for healing and kinder days we respond - yes.
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Bravely faced
Thank you