Poor Esther | Imamother

leah233

Sat, Mar 03 2018, 4:46 pm

amother wrote:

That's pshat. The medrash that says he was her husband complicates things (directly contradicts the pesukim, and makes her an active sinner). I've always wondered what was behind it.

The posuk says she was a cousin.

וַיְהִי אֹמֵן אֶת-הֲדַסָּה, הִיא אֶסְתֵּר בַּת-דֹּדוֹ--כִּי אֵין לָהּ, אָב וָאֵם;

Even had she been a niece had she been his sisters daughter he could have married her.

Which posuk explicitly says he didn't marry her?

I do remember having heard that he married her because initially only single girls were taken to Achosvorosh and they were trying to prevent that from happening

amother

Aqua

Sat, Mar 03 2018, 5:26 pm

leah233 wrote:

If she's described as his orphaned and adopted cousin or niece, and not as his wife, why would you need a pasuk saying they weren't married? Do you assume that everyone is married, even when the relationship is described differently? Yes, he could have married her. Not every man and woman who could potentially be married are married.

And since it's virgins who were gathered, you need to invent a whole backstory to explain why Esther was taken. Much more sensible to go with the text itself - Mordechai raised her, and she was one of the young girls gathered up.

Generally, a medrash comes to solve a problem posed by the text. Here, it creates one.

cbsp

Sat, Mar 03 2018, 8:02 pm

crust wrote:

I'd love to see it. My kids keep asking me questions that I don't know how to answer.

Till now I only listened to shiurim about it but Maybe I should start learning it in depth.

If you can find Rav Brevda's z"l shiurim on Purim they are eye opening. He also has it in book (pamphlet) form (part 1 and 2) - I believe he presents the Vilna Gaon's view.

I think this is the first part :

http://www.kolhalashon.com/New.....um=44

Link to part 2 (don't know if it's part 2 of the above shiur, this one starts where Mordechai tells Esther to approach Achashveirosh):

http://www.kolhalashon.com/New.....um=41

shanie5

Sat, Mar 03 2018, 10:29 pm

seeker wrote:

Maybe it's blasphemous of me to take this liberty, but I imagine it might have been somewhat of an exaggeration to say that he collected literally every single girl in the empire. Maybe every single girl had to show up for screening and then there was some pre-selection process? I don't know but it doesn't seem feasible to take it literally.

It says in the posuk that messengers were sent out to collect the girls. Why? because parents knew that by going, their daughters would never get a chance to marry and have a family of their own. They would spend the rest of their lives in a harem. So they hid their daughters from the king and his messengers. Therefore, many girls must have stayed hidden and not been caught.

shanie5

Sat, Mar 03 2018, 10:31 pm

octopus wrote:

Yes, Esther made a tremendous sacrifice. In a sense her physical continuity was lost to the Jewish people, because even though her kids were Jewish, they were raised as persians. I feel like she alludes to this when she says "If I am lost, then I am lost." But she left an unbelievable spiritual legacy. And she singlehandedly saved the physical existence of the Jewish people people. Every single Jew can attribute their being alive today to Esther. You have to remember this was galus bavel, so the Jewish people were not all spread out all over the place.

Yes and no. As mordechai says to Esther 'you have the opportunity to save the jewish people. But if you don't, Hashem will send someone else and you will have lost your chance'. So yes, she did save the jewish people, but if not her, our salvation would have come from another source.

shanie5

Sat, Mar 03 2018, 10:35 pm

leah233 wrote:

When six million lives are at stake I would like to think I would make the sacrifice. Anyway I don't think that is what Esther's life with Achasvorosh was like. She barely knew him. If she wasn't called to him for thirty days and was scared to approach she couldn't have had any real relationship with him.

To make your analogy more actual. Would you agree to be what Eva Braun was to Hitler YMS to prevent the holocaust? I don't think being physically scared of him is part of the question. It is alleged that she attempted suicide twice but that was because of loneliness not because Hitler beat her.

They weere married 5 years by this point. Achashverosh summoned Esther fairly often. What she was saying to Mordechai was "He hasn't summoned me for 30 days, so he is bound to call for me fairly soon. Why don't I just wait until he calls for me instead of risking my life by going to him". As for being scared to approach him, NO ONE approached the king without being summoned or they were killed. Esther herself was saved when a Malach lowered Achashverosh' staff. He didn't do it himself.

etky

Sun, Mar 04 2018, 12:43 am

amother wrote:

Right, so we have to try to understand why chazal say that they were married. What is the possible origin of the midrash and/or what were chazal trying to accomplish with this exegesis that goes against the pshat and just complicates the story?

Regarding origin: one theory put forth by modern scholars is that the midrash derives from the translation of the pasuk in the Septuagint, which states that Mordechai took his cousin Esther as 'his wife'. According to this theory, the translator of the Septuagint might have been misled by a scribal error - the insertion of an extra yud in the word "bat", rendering בת as ב.(אישתו = ביתו) בית
Others posit that the Septuagint was just recording an already existing tradition, later recorded in the Talmud, that differed from what was recorded and handed down to us in the Masoretic text of Tanach.

Regarding intent: The Megillah strongly echoes the 'Yosef in Egypt' story but to a lesser extent it also builds off of the Avraham/ Sarah and Pharoah story. Perhaps Chazal were trying to strengthen the analogy between the stories by suggesting that Mordechai had married his close relation- in the same way that Avraham had married Sarah who, according to some interpretations was Yiscah, the daughter of his brother, Haran. By strengthening the analogy between the stories they are subtly enhancing the Karka Olam midrash by suggesting that Esther remained pure and intact like Sarah who was not touched by Pharoah, even if in practice she had endured forced relations with Achashverosh.

amother

Aqua

Sun, Mar 04 2018, 1:18 am

etky wrote:

Thanks, this was very interesting.

sushilover

Sun, Mar 04 2018, 7:59 am

amother wrote:

I remember reading somewhere that the text couldn't explicitly say that Esther was married to Mordechai because this would have embarrassed Achashverosh.

leah233

Sun, Mar 04 2018, 8:29 am

shanie5 wrote:

Are you sure the bolded is correct about his inner circle?

Haman didn't seem to have any problem with showing up in middle of the night at a time Achashverosh normally would have been sleeping

Mommyg8

Sun, Mar 04 2018, 8:39 am

leah233 wrote:

Are you sure the bolded is correct about his inner circle?

Haman didn't seem to have any problem with showing up in middle of the night at a time Achashverosh normally would have been sleeping

Wasn't Haman summoned? In other words, he didn't walk right into Achashveirosh's room, didn't Achashveirosh hear him because he wasn't sleeping?

In any case, the megillah does say that she was risking her life, so she was.

leah233

Sun, Mar 04 2018, 8:50 am

Mommyg8 wrote:

Of course he had to be let inside at that hour.

Haman didn't think he was risking anything by just showing up in middle of the night to speak to Achashveirosh. Esther was risking her life by approaching him even during the day.

Which was my original point that she didn't seem to have any real relationship with him.

Mommyg8

Sun, Mar 04 2018, 8:55 am

leah233 wrote:

I don't get what you are saying. I'm sure it was a big palace, with tons of people all over the place. He didn't actually walk into the king's chamber, or am I remembering this incorrectly?

etky

Sun, Mar 04 2018, 8:58 am

leah233 wrote:

Haman entered חצר בית המלך החיצונה - the outer courtyard, whereas Esther entered חצר בית המלך הפנימית the inner courtyard facing his 'sanctum sanctorium' - the throne room, where it was prohibited to enter without permission.

leah233

Sun, Mar 04 2018, 9:03 am

Mommyg8 wrote:

I don't get what you are saying. I'm sure it was a big palace, with tons of people all over the place. He didn't actually walk into the king's chamber, or am I remembering this incorrectly?

The posuk says

וְהָמָן בָּא, לַחֲצַר בֵּית-הַמֶּלֶךְ הַחִיצוֹנָה, לֵאמֹר
לַמֶּלֶךְ, לִתְלוֹת אֶת-מָרְדֳּכַי עַל-הָעֵץ אֲשֶׁר-הֵכִין לוֹ.

He didn't just happen to be there.

Apparently he wasn't scared to just show up and ask to speak to Achsovorsh like Esther was . Not even in middle of the night.

If it was so easy to (1) request to speak to Achsovorsh as long as you didn't go inside his room and (2)Eshter had a real relationship with him why couldn't she do the same thing?

Why would she have risked her life and infuriated Achsovorsh by going into the inner chamber as a first option? Why not ask to come in first?

If she had a real relationship with him why would he say no?