Self Defense and/or Revenge?
Esther 8:7-9
Self defense or revenge? When do victims become victimizers? How does the hurtful past determine our present horror and do we have ways to prevent the future from perpetuating historical hurts and traumas - even when they may be nothing more than myth?
In his powerful book Reckless Rites, Purim and the Origins of Jewish Violence, the late historian Elliot Horowitz offers a chilling reading of the imaginary and actual acts of violence depicted in the Scroll of Esther, associated with this story and holiday of Purim throughout history - all the way to today:
“No book in the Old Testament, it has been aptly observed, “has occasioned more antipathy for some readers, and more enjoyment for others, than the book of Esther.” Among the Jews it was a great favorite, especially when they found themselves threatened by a new “Haman” of their own generation. Its status was both reflected and buttressed by the authoritative statement of Maimonides in the twelfth century that, alone among the Bible’s non-Pentateuchal books, Esther would never become obsolete, even in the Messianic era? Among Christians it has been treated, especially before Luther, either “as an allegory or as a prophetic... statement regarding Christ and the Virgin,” in which Mordecai featured as the former and Esther as the latter, or, particularly among Protestants, “with bewilderment and with scorn for its sanctioning of... barbarous deeds against non-Jews.”
Stories have lives of their own. Often surprising.
Like many other scholars, Horowitz raises the plausible theory that the original Esther story ended halfway through chapter 8 - the bad guy is killed and the good guy takes over. There is weight to the suggestion that the final 2 ½ chapters that links the story to the holiday of Purim and includes the horrific acts of violence that are decreed in chapter 8 and executed in the next chapter - were late additions by editors who eventually created a new narrative that would become the book we know - complete with all its familiar and problematic tropes.
Regardless of the story’s evolutions and accumulated agendas - the narrative we now know includes dark disturbing matter, not often highlighted by Jewish readers who prefer not to deal with the shadows that show up here, fact or fiction or fusion of both.
Chapter 8 begins with quick action by Esther and Mordechai - making sure that Haman’s hanging is only the first step towards the elimination of the threat against their people. Their challenge is red tape. Once Persian law is public, sealed with the king’s ring - it can not be revoked. The only way out was to create a new decree that cancels the prior one. Per their request, he king gives them his signet ring and permission to write what they want:
וַיִּכְתֹּב בְּשֵׁם הַמֶּלֶךְ אֲחַשְׁוֵרֹשׁ וַיַּחְתֹּם בְּטַבַּעַת הַמֶּלֶךְ וַיִּשְׁלַח סְפָרִים בְּיַד הָרָצִים בַּסּוּסִים רֹכְבֵי הָרֶכֶשׁ הָאֲחַשְׁתְּרָנִים בְּנֵי הָרַמָּכִים׃
אֲשֶׁר נָתַן הַמֶּלֶךְ לַיְּהוּדִים אֲשֶׁר בְּכׇל־עִיר־וָעִיר לְהִקָּהֵל וְלַעֲמֹד עַל־נַפְשָׁם לְהַשְׁמִיד וְלַהֲרֹג וּלְאַבֵּד אֶת־כׇּל־חֵיל עַם וּמְדִינָה הַצָּרִים אֹתָם טַף וְנָשִׁים וּשְׁלָלָם לָבוֹז׃ בְּיוֹם אֶחָד בְּכׇל־מְדִינוֹת הַמֶּלֶךְ אֲחַשְׁוֵרוֹשׁ בִּשְׁלוֹשָׁה עָשָׂר לְחֹדֶשׁ שְׁנֵים־עָשָׂר הוּא־חֹדֶשׁ אֲדָר׃
Mordechai had the edicts, in the name of King Ahasuerus and sealed with the king’s signet. Letters were dispatched by mounted couriers, riding steeds used in the king’s service, bred of the royal line.
to this effect: The king has permitted the Jews of every city to assemble and fight for their lives; if any people or province attacks them, they may destroy, massacre, and exterminate its armed force together with women and children, and plunder their possessions— on a single day in all the provinces of King Ahasuerus, namely, on the thirteenth day of the twelfth month, that is, the month of Adar.
Esther 8:7-9
Self defense is the usual way to frame this edict and its activation in the next chapter. The date is the same as the one Haman proposed -- but the tables are now turned. While self-defense may make urgent sense here we must also wonder: Why pass an edict that includes the killing of women and children, and even the plunder of property? Could there be another way, another law?
Many have tried to pry and probe this uncomfortable text and its socio-political implications.
In the late 20th century, the French-Jewish philosopher Emmanuel Levinas focused on one fragment from these verses to articulate how hard it was to deal with, and to convey this text of terror and its impact on Jewish people in ways that literally defy transmission, or compassion of others.
Levinas focused on the odd expression that describes the transportation used by the messengers to deliver the new law: “steeds used in the king’s service, bred of the royal line.”
The original Hebrew in the scroll may be Persian, is ambiguous, and has puzzled readers through the ages.
Levinas suggests that it is untranslatable and an exemplar of the idea that in every culture and human experience, there are some aspects that cannot be universally communicated.
According to him, when the Talmud (Tractate Megillah 9a) states that the public chanting of the cannot be translated into vernacular but must be read "as it is written and in its original language," it points to an element of Jewish culture that cannot be transferred into another culture. Some aspects of Jewish memory, or any ethnic ethos, Levinas suggests, are too raw and complex to be understood universally:
“Unlike the Torah, which can be translated into Greek, the Scroll of Esther which is a book about persecution, a book about antisemitism, is understood by Jews only when its words are conveyed as they were originally written and spoken! The pain of antisemitic persecution can only be expressed in the language of the victim; it is transmitted through irreplaceable signs. Say what they will, sociologists cannot reduce this pain to a particular instance of a general phenomenon, even if all other themes found in scripture are inter-human and can be translated into any language. This text, about the antisemitism of Haman and Amalek, carries meaning only when it is transmitted in a ‘Jewish script’ and in the original language.”
Levinas, by the way, wrote this in French.
Maybe this is true for every ethnic and particular pain and national narrative - often getting lost in translation. And perhaps, as these dark days prove, universal solidarity is a tall order and expectation when local fighting demands global allegiance and challenges more nuanced empathy and response?
Reading chapter 8 during these days of ongoing violence and growing hate brings up these questions about the agenda of the authors, the weaponization of these texts by pro-and anti-semites alike, and leaves us wondering -- what are the ways we can protect ourselves and our sacred stories, celebrate survival and kinder continuity - without the kind of violent hatred we most fear and detest?
Reading Esther as myth and not as history, as a fantasy of power and not as a recipe for its use - is one of the best ways we have to face it with an open heart and mind, resisting the call to revenge and reclaiming older layers focused more on the legacy of holding on to life, less on the vengeful blood thirst that leaves behind these endless trails of tears.
What’s next?
Relief. Release. Revenge. The story, with its added layers and challenges, goes on. Hold on to hope in kinder days.
Image: Illustrated Scroll of Esther J. T. Waldman, AYIN Press
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