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(1) It happened in the days of Ahasuerus—that Ahasuerus who reigned over a hundred and twenty-seven provinces from India to Nubia [or Ethiopia]. (2) In those days, when King Ahasuerus occupied the royal throne in the fortress Shushan, (3) in the third year of his reign, he gave a banquet for all the officials and courtiers—the administration of Persia and Media, the nobles and the ...
Queen Vashti: Mystery Woman of the Megillah. Here’s what we know about Vashti from the first chapter of the book of Esther: She was the queen before Esther replaced her, she held a party for other women in the palace, she refused to go to King Achashverosh’s party, and she is banished in order to teach her and others a lesson. That’s it.
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Sandra E. Rapoport is an attorney, Bible teacher and award-winning author, whose books give voice to the women of the Hebrew Bible. Sandra was Resident Scholar in Law and Bible at Harvard University. Her third book, Biblical Seductions, won a National Jewish Book Awards Finalist Prize, and was a Boston Globe Top-Ten Bestseller.
- “It Happened in The Days of Ahasuerus”
- Vashti in Modern Literature
- Conclusion
The megillah opens with a display of rudeness: Why, the rabbis wonder, does the text fail to note the king’s title? Shouldn’t it have read: “It happened in the days of KingAhasuerus”? The reason, the rabbis infer, is because, technically, it was true. Ahasuerus was not yet king — he was merely angling to become the monarch of a newly-formed empire....
Like ancient commentaries, modern versions are rife with opportunities for reimagining Vashti. Elizabeth Cady Stanton’s The Woman’s Bible cheers, “[Vashti] added new glory to [her] day and generation … by her disobedience; for resistance to tyrants is obedience to God.” In her short story Vashti and the Angel Gabriel, Rabbi Jill Hammer imagines the...
The Talmud (Chagigah 3b) describes a lesson taught by Rabbi Elazar ben Azaria in the great yeshivah at Yavneh. “Make your ears like a funnel,” he urged his students, “praise those who deem the matter pure, and those who reject it as impure. Acquire for yourself an understanding heart to listen both to those who validate and those who invalidate.” R...
Mar 13, 2019 · Each Purim, Queen Vashti earns her brief mention before she is swiftly banished (or killed, depending on the interpreter), but not before being denounced for disobeying the Persian King Ahaseurus.
- Emily Ray Baraf
A Study of Vashti vs. Esther. By Mendel Kalmenson. " Vashti was a biblical feminist; she wouldn't dance for the King." That's a line from the chorus of a new-age Purim song. A new tradition being peddled is the "Vashti flag." According to one writer, waving Vashti flags (complete with bells attached) serves to make the holiday "an opportunity ...
Feb 7, 2019 · According to the midrash , Vashti (ושתי) was the great-granddaughter of King Nebuchadnezzar II of Babylon and the daughter of King Belshazzar, making her a Babylonian. As a supposed descendant of the destroyer (Nebuchadnezzar II) of the First Temple in 586 BCE, Vashti was doomed in the Talmud by the sages of Babylon as evil and sinister ...
