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Most of the Jews preferred the comfortable life of the Persian Empire to an arduous life rebuilding their devastated homeland. Ahasuerus promised Esther that he would grant her request, even to half the kingdom(Esth. Esther was taken to the royal harem despite her being married, which further aggravated her sorry condition. You are also agreeing to our Terms of Service and Privacy Policy. Ahasuerus is moved by her words and instead orders Haman to be hung on the gallows he had built for Mordecai. The BT presents this in the opposite way: the king first talked with her by means of an interpreter, but when she told him that she was descended from King Saul, he spoke with her directly, out of respect (Lev. Verily, I seek Your mercy from window to window in the house of Ahasuerus. Rabbah6:9). She was 96 years old. Esther is then remembered and celebrated in the annual festival of Purim. 10:3) was able to have interceded for the welfare of all his kindred (Pirkei de-Rabbi Eliezer, chap. Esther then initiated a covert plan to defeat Haman using her grace and beauty. Rabbah30:4). He even granted permission for the Jews to arm themselves with weapons and deliver the kings edicts throughout the kingdom. The Bible doesn't say how old Esther was when she married him, but if she was 17 this would make her born in 500BC. According to the Babylonian tradition, she saw menstrual blood (BT Megillah15a). The Talmud sees Haman's decree as a punishment from Heaven to these Jews. After he had Vashti killed, all the lands rebelled against him; once he married Esther, one hundred and twenty-seven lands came under his rule once again, and when he appointed Mordecai as viceroy, they all returned to him (Midrash Tehilim, onPs. BC (he would have already been well over 90 years old at this [2] See Ilan,Integrating women, 127, commenting onJewish War1.71 andJewishAntiquities13.302. Part of HuffPost Religion. [7] Queen Esther risks her own life when she goes to the kings chambers uninvited: If I must die, so be it, she says (Esther 4:16). Prof. Mika Ahuvia is Associate Professor of Jewish Studies at the University of Washington and currently holds the Marsha and Jay Glazer Endowed Chair in Jewish Studies. What is the moral of the story of Esther? Furthermore, because of her passivity, her life with Ahasuerus was not thought to entail illicit sexual intercourse (a grave sin, for which one should be killed rather than transgress")(BTSanhedrin74b). Rebekah had sent him there to be safe from his angry twin brother, Esau. In another exposition, she was given this name by the Gentiles, after the celestial body Istahar (BTLit. Let us know if you have suggestions to improve this article (requires login). What is the answer punchline algebra 15.1 why dose a chicken coop have only two doors? It is known that Esther was the daughter of Abihail, and she had married King Xerxes of Persia around the age of 18. The King of Persia, Ahasuerus, had appointed Haman to be his prime minister and a decree was issued ordering the annihilation of all Jews. Considering that she was likely in her mid-teens when she met King Ahasuerus, she lost her parents before that point. Abase him before me, for You abase the proud (Esth. The myrtle has a good smell, just like Esther, who performed good deeds; the myrtle does not dry out either in summer or in winter, just as the righteous dry up neither in this world nor in the World to Come (Midrash Panim Aherim, version B, para. It was only when Esther came that Ahasuerus removed the likeness of Vashti and replaced it with that of Esther (Esth. Menstruation; the menstruant woman; ritual status of the menstruant woman. Their relationship was instrumental in saving the Jews from extermination and is one of the main themes of the Book of Esther. Mordecai is promoted to the second highest ranking position in the empire, and Esther is given control of the household of Haman. She was a beautiful Jewish woman, the wife of the Persian king Ahasuerus (Xerxes I). How can a woman test for infertility at home? She became the new wife of the king when his . does not give many details of Esther's life, Persian records do. I'm going to guess that Esther probably died with her husband in 16 September 2012. She died peacefully on Thursday afternoon at her Scottish estate, where. She and her cousin Mordecai persuaded the king to cancel an order for the extermination of Jews in his realm, plotted by the king's chief minister, Haman. My God, My God, Why Have You Forsaken Me? Jesus or Esther? Esther is noteworthy for her beauty, intelligence, and courage, along with her humility. She was living there as part of the harem of the king, but was singled out by the King who was so taken with her beauty that he chose her to be his queen. Like the moon, that is born after thirty days, Esther, too, said(Esth. Rabbah6:8), or to arrange for the kashrut of her food. At the meal she pleaded for the Jews, thus revealing herself as Jewish, and accused thiswickedHaman of plotting the annihilation of her people. This exegesis casts the Biblical narrative in a different light. 2:5as being a Benjaminite, from which the Rabbis assumed that Esther also came from this tribe. They derive this from the various verses that reflect the thought of the characters, or that attest to actions of which a normal person could not be cognizant, such as Haman said to himself(Esth. Designation of the five scrolls of the Bible (Ruth, Song of Songs, Lamentations, Ecclesiastes, Esther). Esther told the king that her people were in danger. cit.). Persian King would have probably not been interested in a 35 year [10] Frymer-Kensky,In the Wake of the Goddesses: Women, Culture, and the Biblical Transformation of Pagan Myth(Free Press, 1992), 130. Elizabeth I is one of England's most well-known monarchs. Browse 35 queen esther bible stock illustrations and vector graphics available royalty-free, or start a new search to explore more great stock images and vector art. Darius must be 37 years old (62 minus 25) when he got married to Esther. The Rabbis then mention an additional argument that is raised by the people, that the writing of the Book of Esther will arouse the enmity of the non-Jewish nations. In various sources the Rabbis relate to the question of the Book of Esthers acceptance as Scripture and to the establishment of the holiday ofPurim. The outraged king ordered that Haman be hanged on the gallows built for Mordecai and that Mordecai be named to fill Hamans position. Institution: National Library of Israel, Jerusalem. Queen Esther is a biblical figure from the Hebrew Bible who was the Jewish Queen of the Persian King Ahasuerus. The best. Those were the good old days, the rabbis say, the days of Queen Shelamzion. Help JWA continue to lift up Jewish womens stories, this month and every month, by. Daniel probably died shortly after Darius took the throne in 521 if(typeof ez_ad_units!='undefined'){ez_ad_units.push([[300,250],'coalitionbrewing_com-medrectangle-3','ezslot_3',146,'0','0'])};__ez_fad_position('div-gpt-ad-coalitionbrewing_com-medrectangle-3-0'); Queen Esther was a brave and courageous woman who risked her life many times to save the Jewish people. 22:5). Esther was a young Jewish girl taken into the palace of the king of Persia, King Ahasuerus. She was in a foreign land without the protection and support of her people. One advantage to welcoming Shelamzion back into Jewish memory is making space for a role model of diplomacy and peace. Mordechai later adopted Esther as his daughter after her parents died. They were in no way penalized for being ruled over by a queen rather than a king.[5]. He suggested that she might be Jewish, which implied some sort of relationship between them, since he was from the offspring of Amalek, the grandson of Esau (Jacobs brother) (Esth. 7:5states: Thereupon King Ahasuerus demanded [va-yomerliterally, and he saidwritten twice in the verse] of Queen Esther, Who is he. The midrash is of the opinion that the verbva-yomeris repeated here because Ahasuerus initially spoke directly to Esther, but when he discovered that she was a Jew, he spoke to her through an interpreter. QueenEsther, the central character in the Biblical book named after her, is extensively and sympathetically portrayed in the Rabbinic sources. and Nehemiah may have known each other personally. Esther: A Queen Under Control. The king was humiliated and enraged, and he banished Vashti. Her reign is famous as 'The Golden Age', for its . Contributors control their own work and posted freely to our site. Esther Greenwood, the protagonist of Sylvia Plaths novel The Bell Jar, is believed to be a representation of the author herself. The Queen ascended to the throne in 1952 at the tender age of 25, and was on a royal tour of Kenya when Philip delicately broke the news that her father, King George VI, had died. At first, Esther was hesitant to approach the king, as anyone who approached him without his invitation was put to death unless the king extended his top scepter. This last event was around the same time that Esther became Queen. Alexandra the Maccabee (died ca. He was a Jew living in the Persian city of Susa, and he became a prime minister in the Persian court of King Ahasuerus. Lastly, Mordecai helped the Jews to establish their rights, which became to be known as the Purim festival. According to the Bible, Mordechai was a Jew who lived in the Persian city of Susa, the modern-day city of Shush, Iran. Rabbah28:6). Esther remained passive and allowed the King to rape her repeatedly. She was a beautiful Jewish woman, the wife of the Persian king Ahasuerus (Xerxes I). No, Esther and Mordecai were not married. old or so, Estheryuckthat's not what they showed in the Do you, or does someone you know, demonstrate the same total commitment to a mission, even at the cost of sacrificing personal happiness? Read a brief summary of this topic. In reference to her lineage, the Rabbis state that she continued the way of the members of her tribe: Rachel, Benjamin, and Saul(Gen. Rabbah71:35; see below: Esther Does Not Reveal Her Origins). Old Testament Stories: Queen Esther When she approached the king, he held out his scepter. There is support for this too in the Talmud (Yoma 29a).4) Esther comes from the Median "astra," meaning "myrtle." When we celebrate Purim, may we laugh with Esther and Mordecai, but also remember Queen Shelamzion Alexandra, praise her example, and wish that Eretz Israel may experience those heavenly rains of peace again in our time. "Esther: Midrash and Aggadah." Help us elevate the voices of Jewish women. Additional traditions maintain that not only did Esther become pregnant by Ahasuerus, but she was also the mother of the last Darius (idem) or of Cyrus (Kallah Rabbati2:15). 49). Kings David and Solomon had many wives, some more influential than others, but they are never represented as ruling in their husbands stead. 5). For an analysis of these sources and their reliability, see Tal Ilan,Integrating Women into Second Temple History(Tbingen: Mohr Siebeck, 1999), esp. She was expressing her inner strength and her ability to survive and even to thrive in difficult circumstances. The story of Esther happened after Cyrus, the first Persian King, called for all deported Jews to return to Jerusalem to build the House of God (538 B.C., Ezra 1:2). There was no King Ahasuerus of Persia, but many Bible commentaries observe that Ahasuerus is likely the Hebraicised version of King Xerxes, the Achaemenid leader who ruled from 486 to 465 BCE.Historians say that Queen Amestris was Xerxes' only known wife and was definitely still queen at the time the biblical account says that Xerxes married Esther, casting doubt on the biblical story. However, later scribes, as the manuscript evidence suggests, no longer understood it. By merit of this, Mordecai(Esth. TheA type of non-halakhic literary activitiy of the Rabbis for interpreting non-legal material according to special principles of interpretation (hermeneutical rules).Midrash adds that Esthers father died during her mothers pregnancy, and the latter died during childbirth (Esth.

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