February 2007 Archives

Rabbi Stern compares Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to Haman, and there’s certainly reason for comparison--but there’s also at least one important difference. In the Purim story, it is striking that Haman displays a level of hatred and arrogance that is unique in Jewish history--which is really saying something.

After being snubbed by Mordecai, Haman immediately hatches and promotes a plan to destroy all the Jews. This is in contrast with other Biblical archenemies like Pharaoh and historical figures like Hitler, and, I would argue, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. None of these other figures jump immediately to the place of genocide, or at least that’s not the seeming intention. At first Pharaoh ‘merely’ enslaved the Jews and Hitler ‘just’ persecuted the Jews and took away their rights; the road that led to a plan to annihilate the Jews was gradual. Ahmadinejad, too, does not openly state an intention to wipe out all Jews--he ‘only’ wants to wipe the State of Israel off the map, after which, officially at least, Jews will be allowed to remain as Palestinian citizens (so, too, is the stated position of Hamas, at least regarding those Jews who lived in the area before 1948).

Of course, all of these positions eventually morph into a desire to annihilate the Jews--and it would come as no surprise if Ahmadinejad were to follow his predecessors in that direction. But there is a subtlety to the incremental approach, and Ahmadinejad has learned it well.

Haman, and his forerunners, Amalek, are unique in going immediately to the place of annihilation. Perhaps this is why the Purim story is farce: It’s hard to imagine this tactic working in the real world. Haman is ultimately a clown and buffoon at whom we can laugh. The greater danger comes from the subtler, incremental approach of Pharaoh, Hitler, and Ahmadinejad.

There is no end to the amount of homilies that rabbis will spin out of the story of Purim. Pending what’s in the New York Times that week, Vashti, Esther and Mordechai all become transformed into real-life characters. Usually this sermonic game ends up with someone asking, “So, rabbi, who is today’s Haman?” Usually this crude question engenders an equally crude but far more dangerous political answer. God knows how many people have been labeled Haman who, in other contexts, would be seen as a Mordechai. Rarely do we actually have a real breathing Haman standing right before our eyes.

This year, however, I am sad to say, but it seems there is such a man, the Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. What makes him today's Haman is that his hatred is not just directed at Israel or Zionists but at the entire Jewish people worldwide. What his Holocaust denial conference testified to was that his hatred is directed at Israel, Judaism, and the Jewish people worldwide. (Those crazy “Jews” who attended his conference may have been circumcised but have lost their ability to be considered part of the Jewish people) Lets hope Ahmadinejad finds the same end that Haman found.

Rabbi Stern’s reference to the Jewish Orthodox Feminist Alliance is right on the mark in our discussion of the place of women in today’s Jewish power structure. This week’s Jewish Week contains a front-page story on how that organization has been thwarted in its efforts to bring together mainstream (male) rabbis to even consider discussing the issue of agunot--women whose husbands refuse to grant them ritual divorces and so, by traditional Jewish law, are unable to remarry. According to the article, the Sephardic Chief Rabbi of Israel, Shlomo Amar, was going to convene a series of meetings to discuss this rank injustice--until threats from right-wing Orthodox leaders knocked out even the possibility of discussing the issue, let alone working toward a resolution.

Sounds a lot like the words of Ahasuerus’ advisors in squashing Queen Vashti’s attempts at self-assertion: “For this deed of the queen will be made known to all women, causing them to look with contempt on their husbands, since they will say, ‘King Ahasuerus commanded Queen Vashti to be brought before him, and she did not come’” (Est. 1:17). How do you fight the existing power structure when its guardians--be they the buffoonish advisors of Ahasuerus or the equally buffoonish Haredi rabbis who support the status quo--see even talking about the problem as an admission of weakness?

Perhaps that’s why Purim is our holiday of farce, where Vashti is divorced against her will, standing up to the existing patriarchal power structure and being squashed by it. And Esther, who plays along with a system of marriage that only celebrates beauty and objectifies women, ultimately uses it to her advantage and the advantage of the Jewish people. For women who wish to take the system on, there isn’t a lot to dance about this Purim.

Purim is amazing in terms of the importance it grants to women in leadership positions. So I guess it only normal for me to ask, so where are our Esther's today? Sadly, in the Jewish community today there remains a terrible lack of women in major leadership positions. There are a number of organizations working on this issue (most notably, of course, is Shifra Bronznik’s important initiative AWP, which has been working on this issue since its founding in 1995).

I hope they can fix the problem, because if you try to think of the 10--make it even 20--most important voices in Jewish life today, you'd more often than not be hard-pressed to find more than one or two female names to put on the list. Put another way, if you had to headline a 1,000-person event with a woman Jewish speaker who was active in Jewish life you would have a tough time coming up with more than three names who could hold the room. No, I am not in the mood to get into a game of list-making, but truth be told, where are today’s Esthers? And if they are out there, where have we gone wrong in promoting them?

Much of the problem, it seems, is based on a vicious cycle where women are not given prominent leadership roles because they do not occupy prominent positions of authority. But they don’t occupy prominent positions of authority because they don’t occupy prominent positions of authority already. I know there is a circular logic here, but that’s the point.

In the Orthodox community the issue is very clear and obvious. Aside from cultural pressures to get married and have kids, women are not given the title rabbi (Orthodox rabbis would do well to grant more legitimacy to the Jewish Orthodox Feminist Alliance, and in particular Tova Hartman, who is fast emerging as a very significant voice in Orthodox circles), but even so, in the Conservative world only a handful of women are rabbis of prominent congregations. There has yet to be a woman in the head of any major American Jewish organization (Hadassah and AWP not included... by the way, all one needs to do is look at how great a job Hadassah has done over the years to realize the need for more women in leadership positions).

Some have said that the lack of women leadership is a matter of time and patience, getting beyond the glass ceiling. Perhaps they are correct, but I think it’s probably more than just that. What? I don’t know; any thoughts?

No one is who they appear to be in the Book of Esther, which we read on the upcoming holiday of Purim. Vashti seems an all-powerful queen, yet she overestimates her power and is removed from office, probably not pleasantly, though the text is silent on that point. Esther, on the other hand, seems to be the paradigm of women’s powerlessness, forcefully taken from her family to become the king’s sex kitten. Yet it is she who deftly welds her influence with the king to save her people and overthrow the top minister, inserting her own uncle in his place.

Vashti and Esther both have something to teach us about the historic use of women’s power and influence.

Vashti is treated badly in rabbinic commentary, which seeks to blame her downfall as comeuppance for the sins of her father, or for her own sins of selfishness and haughtiness. According to Midrash, she leverages her descent from the mighty King Nebuchadnezzer (who destroyed the First Temple in Jerusalem) to wield power in the court.

When Vashti is called to come to the king clad only in her crown (and, readers are to assume, nothing else), she refuses. The king is convinced by his advisors that all other women will learn to refuse their husbands as she did if he allows her to get away with it so he has her removed. Her time on stage is completed in less than a chapter.

Since the 1970s, feminists have taken Vashti to heart as the first proto-feminist: She is the first woman in the Bible who refuses to be objectified as a sex object, instead naming such behavior as inappropriate. As the feminist movement (and the continuing movement to protect women from domestic violence) taught us, the first step towards changing intolerable conditions is to become self aware enough to be able to name those intolerable conditions, aloud to oneself and others. (It is precisely the danger of such change that drives the king’s advisors to seek her downfall.)

What a contrast to Esther, who is quite meek in comparison. When brought to the palace, she passively goes along with whatever the head eunuch plans for her. When she finally approaches the king, she wines and dines him before beseeching him, using every traditional feminine wile in the book, and rather effectively at that.

In many ways, Vashti is the paradigmatic woman who won’t take any garbage from the men around her, even if it costs her, which it does. In comparison, I always thought of Esther as the ideal of the savvy female business exec who learns how to make it in the top tier of a man’s world and bring her people along with her. It is the Esthers who learned that it is not enough to make it to the top if one cannot stay there and work effectively within the system, even if the system itself is wrought with difficulties and limitations. These have been the two models for how women have negotiated their lack of real power throughout history.

In today’s political climate, we might see Sen. Hillary Clinton as Vashti and Speaker Nancy Pelosi as Esther, each presenting a very different image of female leadership. I worry the analogy between Senator Clinton and Vashti may be apt because it remains to be seen whether our nation is ready to see a strong and bold woman wield real power. On the other hand, I have great hope that, like a modern Esther, Speaker Pelosi can negotiate the authority and influence of her office to bring positive and much needed change to our nation.

Sen. Clinton seems to be trying to soften her image, however. Perhaps she will be able to do what few women throughout history have: achieve that rare balance between the historic paradigms of Vashti and Esther. If so, then the entire nation will deserve some of the credit, for supporting a culture climate in which such an historic change is possible.

-- Posted by Rabbi Susan Grossman

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