Hiding Hadassah

Esther 2:5-7

She wasn’t the first nor is the last to tuck away her star-of-david necklace and hide her Hebrew origins. What does her story tell us during these difficult and complex days?

The heroine steps into the spotlight halfway through the second chapter of the story named for her - yet from the first moment she’s introduced she is also a masked and mysterious figure, with multiple identities.

That is perhaps her most defining feature and why over time Esther has become not only the Queen of the holiday of masks but also the patron saint of Crypto-Jews who had to practice their religion in hiding.

Whoever wrote this story - and there are several versions beyond the biblical one, and more about that later - wanted the hidden aspects of the queen to be the story’s highlight. That is also one of the meanings of her more famous name.

The plot picks up at the beginning of the chapter as the Persian empire lacks an official queen and the search for the new one begins. What is often depicted as a beauty pageant reads more like human trafficking on mass scale, with each young suitable virgin delivered to the royal harem for extensive preparation before she is presented to the king. One of the virgins is a young Jewish woman whose lineage matters enough to be detailed by the authors:

אִישׁ יְהוּדִי הָיָה בְּשׁוּשַׁן הַבִּירָה וּשְׁמוֹ מׇרְדֳּכַי בֶּן יָאִיר בֶּן־שִׁמְעִי בֶּן־קִישׁ אִישׁ יְמִינִי׃ אֲשֶׁר הׇגְלָה מִירוּשָׁלַיִם עִם־הַגֹּלָה אֲשֶׁר הׇגְלְתָה עִם יְכׇנְיָה מֶלֶךְ־יְהוּדָה אֲשֶׁר הֶגְלָה נְבוּכַדְנֶצַּר מֶלֶךְ בָּבֶל׃ וַיְהִי אֹמֵן אֶת־הֲדַסָּה הִיא אֶסְתֵּר בַּת־דֹּדוֹ כִּי אֵין לָהּ אָב וָאֵם וְהַנַּעֲרָה יְפַת־תֹּאַר וְטוֹבַת מַרְאֶה וּבְמוֹת אָבִיהָ וְאִמָּהּ לְקָחָהּ מׇרְדֳּכַי לוֹ לְבַת׃

In the fortress Shushan lived a Jew by the name of Mordecai, son of Jair son of Shimei son of Kish, of the tribe of Benjamin.

He had been exiled from Jerusalem, carried into exile along with King Jeconiah of Judah, by King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon.

He helped raise Hadassah—that is, Esther—his uncle’s daughter, for she had neither father nor mother. The maiden was shapely and beautiful; and when her father and mother died, Mordecai adopted her as his own daughter.

Esther 2:5-7

The family pedigree matters for the rest of the plot - Esther’s family is from Benjamin, the tribe from which King Saul rose, before King David took over. Saul’s struggle with the nation of Amalek was a crucial crossroads in his career and in the tensions between the two nations. It will be this trauma that will be reactivated in this story. It’s unclear from this text whether it Mordechai himself who was exiled from Jerusalem - or his father or grandfather. But the choice of names here is telling. Mordechai is a Persian name - echoing Marduk, the chief God of the pantheon. While the ancestors still bear Hebrew names - Mordechai already represents the generation of assimilation - with a local name and access to power.

This familiar pattern of foreigners blending into their new society over time is best seen through the heroine’s names - she is introduced with two - one if Hebrew, and the second - Persian. What’s in a name? Or two?

Sandra E. Rapoport blends midrash and fragments of speculative commentaries to make sense of both names and add more details to the queen’s biography:

“ The girl, known later as Esther, had been orphaned at birth. Her father, a Persian of Israelite lineage by the name of Avichayil, had died during his wife's first pregnancy, and soon thereafter her mother had died giving birth to her.

The hopeful midwives had named the jaundiced newborn Hadassah, from the Hebrew word hadas, for the evergreen and strongly-rooted myrtle tree. Her name, perhaps to contradict a cruel fate, was a hopeful augur of the infant girl's life-force. The myrtle tree is characterized by dense clusters of leaves that obscure its branches, and ancient drawings of the hadas flower show it as star-shaped, bringing to mind the girl's Persian name—Esther—for the Mesopotamian goddess Ishtar, meaning "morning star."

The ancient Near East was a region that respected symbolism and superstition, and the girl Hadassah would come to embody the various qualities of her given names: she grew to be beautiful, strong, and, essentially, a mystery. And in her Persian persona she would represent a dawning hope for her doomed people.”

Whatever the meanings and symbols behind the names - what seems clear is that Mordechai and Esther, like so many in history, were part of the Judean community who learned how to hide - and blend into Persian society. By the time this story comes around - there is already a vibrant Judean community in Jerusalem - ruled by the Persian empire that enabled the return to Judea a generation or two earlier. While some Persian Jews chose to resettle their homeland - most Jews preferred to stay where they were - and as so often in other diasporas since - choose hyphenated lives and identities - often, doing so in hiding, likely in order to survive.

It’s unclear why she was the one chosen - but after a full year of cosmetic care in the harem, she is picked up to be the queen. And she will never publicly use her Hebrew name again:

אֵין אֶסְתֵּר מַגֶּדֶת מוֹלַדְתָּהּ וְאֶת־עַמָּהּ כַּאֲשֶׁר צִוָּה עָלֶיהָ מׇרְדֳּכָי וְאֶת־מַאֲמַר מׇרְדֳּכַי אֶסְתֵּר עֹשָׂה כַּאֲשֶׁר הָיְתָה בְאׇמְנָה אִתּוֹ׃

But Esther still did not reveal her kindred or her people, as Mordecai had instructed her; for Esther obeyed Mordecai’s bidding, as she had done when she was under his protection.

Esther 2:20

It isn’t just Esther who is hiding her identity. The authors of this scroll are well aware that the name Esther is connected to Ishtar the Great Goddess - but in Hebrew the name also means ‘Hidden’. Whoever wrote this knew enough to honor the ancient goddess in a Hebrew book dedicated - through an alias - to her legacy and hidden memory. Was this too an act of resistance to patriarchal power and the preservation of older narratives that defy dogmatic narratives?

Veil within veil, name next to name, secret upon secret, this story, just getting started, is about individual and collective identities that for different reasons require discretion and disguise. Perhaps this is one of the reasons that this scroll has become so popular and important for Jewish people throughout centuries of tough choices as often persecuted minorities in multiple lands.

It’s also the reason for the surprising emergence of an unofficial Catholic saint named for the Jewish queen.

Prof.Emily Colbert Cairns explores the incredible evolution of ‘Santa Ester’ - the patron saint of Crypto-Jews in the Iberian peninsula and later in the New World. Especially popular among women, Santa Ester - not officially recognized by the church as a saint - was nevertheless a known icon, revered by generation of ‘Conversos’ - Jews who had to become Christian but kept on to their heritage - through the story and icon of Esther:

“Esther was the most beloved biblical figure amongst conversos or crypto-Jews, a community created when Iberian Jewish life transformed dramatically between the first mass baptisms in Spain in 1391 and the subsequent exile from Spain in 1492 (and from Portugal in 1497)...In calling her Saint Esther, conversos incorporated Christian elements into their practice, again showing how crypto-Judaism is a hybrid faith that cannot be divorced into its constituent Catholic and Jewish influences. Figures such as Esther had power precisely because she had meaning within both faiths.”

Young Hadassah, forever known as Esther, is just getting used to life in the palace in this second chapter, hiding her history and playing the part of the Persian Queen.

But not for long. The veils that flutter in the first act will come undone as the saga continues, and what is hidden within the hidden will only keep winking at what is always hidden, beyond and within.