Click here to receive the weekly parsha by email each week.
THE KING ASKED HER: "WHAT TROUBLES YOU, QUEEN ESTHER?
AND WHAT IS YOUR REQUEST? EVEN TO HALF THE KINGDOM, IT SHALL BE GRANTED
YOU."
AND ESTHER SAID, "IF IT PLEASE
YOUR MAJESTY, LET YOUR MAJESTY AND HAMAN COME TODAY TO THE WINE- FEAST THAT I
HAVE PREPARED FOR HIM...
AND THE KING SAID TO ESTHER IN THE WINE-FEAST: "WHAT IS
YOUR WISH AND IT SHALL BE GRANTED YOU? AND WHAT IS YOUR REQUEST, EVEN TO HALF
THE KINGDOM, IT SHALL BE FULFILLED." AND ESTHER REPLIED, SAYING: "MY
WISH AND MY REQUEST..."
(Esther 5:3-4,
6-7)
And the king said to Esther...: "...what
is your request, even to half the kingdom, it shall be fulfilled." Half the
kingdom and not the whole kingdom, and not something that would divide the
kingdom. What is that? The rebuilding of the
Let the King and Haman come to
the wine-feast. Our
rabbis taught: Why did Esther invite Haman?
R. Eliezer says: She set a trap for him, for it is said: Let
their tables set before them be for them as a trap (Psalms 69).
R. Yehoshua says: She learned it in her father's house, for
it is said, If your enemy is hungry, feed him bread, etc. (Proverbs 25).
R. Meir says: So that he would not
be able to consider his situation, and rebel.
R. Yehudah says: So that he would not realize that she was a
Jewess.
R. Nehemiah says: So that
R.Yossi says: So that he would
constantly be available to her [i.e., so that she would be able to find an
opportunity to trip him up].
R. Shimon ben Menasyah says: So
that perhaps the Omnipresent would take notice and perform a miracle for her.
R. Yehoshua ben Korha says: In
order to show him [Haman] favor, so that both he and she would be killed [by
the king, out of jealousy].
(Megillah 15b)
In the future, all of the books of the Prophets and the Ketuvim will become void in the Messianic era, except for Megillat Esther; that shall endure like the five books of the Torah and the laws of the Oral torah, which will never be revoked. Even though all memory of the troubles will cease, for it is said for the earlier troubles are forgotten and hidden from my eyes, these days of Purim will never be revoked, for it is said: And these days of Purim shall not pass away from among the Jews and their memory shall never cease from their offspring (Esther 9).
(RaMBaM Hilkhot Megillah ve'Hannukah 2:18)
The Eternal
Lamp
Binyamin Salant
Our parasha opens with a description of the Eternal Lamp. The Eternal Lamp is recalled only one more time, in the book of Vayikra (parashat Emor 24:3).
The classical sources refer to the Eternal Lamp as the Western Lamp and the Middle Lamp, which is the torso of the Menorah. Rashi explains the matter in these words: "Its middle branch that rose from the middle point of the base vertically upwards. On it was the middle lamp, made in the form of a cup into which to pour the oil and to put the wick" (Shemot 25:31, Silbermann translation).
Regarding the position of the Eternal Lamp, Rashi (Bamidbar 5:2) writes: "Facing the Menorah - towards the middle lamp which is not on a branch but on the torso of the Menorah." In First Samuel we find the expression and God's Lamp is not yet extinguished. ReDaK explains that this refers to the western lamp, and that the words is not yet extinguished refers to the break of dawn...Indeed, RaMBaN (Shemot 25:30, Chavel trans.) makes a similar statement: "Its being of beaten work, with the six branches coming out of the seventh, and upon them the lamp of God..."
What is called "Eternal"?
As used in Scripture, word tamid [constant or eternal] does not necessarily mean "continuous without breaks." Rather, it refers to a permanent practice.
In our parasha, Rashi explains: "tamid - [doing something] every night [as is described here] may be termed tamid, just as you speak of the tamid burnt-offering, although this was [sacrificed] only from day to day..."
In
addition, it should be said that while the Menorah did burn from evening until
morning, the Eternal Lamp also burned from morning until evening. The Gemara in Shabbat 22b explains: "What is the edut [pact]? Rav
said: It is the western lamp that
would be given the same amount of oil as the others, and he would light from it
and he would finish with it." Rashi explains: Finish - [performing] the maintenance
of the lamps, for it burned all day, and the Menorah would be lit from it at
twilight." Steinsaltz explains: "The
western lamp would continue burning all day while the other lamps burned only
at night." The Mishnah offers a further detail (Tamid 6:1). It
introduces a new eternal factor: the eternal fire.
After
the above explanation the Mishnah adds that "if he finds it extinguished,
he cleans it and lights it from the altar of burnt offerings," i.e., from the
eternal fire on the altar. A similar
description can be found in Josephus' book Against Apion.
Describing the altar and the Menorah in the
What do the Menorah, the lamp, and the light represent?
Many
of the commentators bring up his important question; is the Menorah's role
merely technical, i.e., to illuminate the darkness? From the fact that the
Eternal Lamp also burned during the day we may conclude that it did indeed bear
an additional significance, a symbolic meaning. The Menorah in general and the
light it produced represented a kind of spiritual and metaphysical dimension. This
may be deduced from many biblical passages. Two verses in Proverbs compare a
lamp to the Torah and to life. For a commandment is a lamp, and Torah light
(
Rabbi S. R. Hirsch counts more than thirty verses that express exalted spiritual ideas in connection to the Menorah and expands his discussion of them in a lengthy article about the Menorah in his commentary on parashat Terumah and parashat Tetzaveh.
Nehamah Leibowitz devotes a great
deal of space to the Menorah in her discussion of parashat Terumah,
parashat Tetzaveh, and parashat Beha'alotkha
(see her Studies in Shemot and Studies
in Bamidbar, published by the W.Z.O. Department for Torah Education &
Culture in the Diaspora).
RaMBaM, who usually avoids dealing with the details
of a commandment or with symbols, writes in exalted fashion regarding the
Eternal Lamp: "Thereupon a lamp was placed in front of it in order to
glorify and honor the
Quoting
the midrash Torat Kohanim,
Rashi (Vayikra 24:3) raises the Eternal
Lamp to an ever higher status: "Our rabbis explained that the western lamp
served as testimony to everyone in the world that the Divine Presence rested
upon
As stated above, Rabbi S. R. Hirsch dealt in great detail with the whole subject of he Menorah and the significance of light, and so he writes: "From this we can state that the Menorah represents spirit and knowledge" (pg. 322 in Shemot of the Hebrew edition). Hirsch speaks of the Menorah and the lamps as representing a movement of perfection, development, and growth. Light represents the spiritual element, knowledge and wisdom.
A tree shaped like the Menorah
Commentaries and midrashim compare the Menorah to a tree or plant. This idea would seem to be understandable in the light of the way the parts of the Menorah are described: its cups, calyxes, and petals... Rabbi S. R. Hirsch tells us: "This is a tree in the form of a menorah of pure gold" (op cit., 325). Indeed, it has been suggested that the Menorah borrowed its form from the vegetable world.
In
this picture, we see an example of a similar development. The plant to the left
of the Menorah is supposed to be a lulav (palm
branch). The image appears in an ancient synagogue in
The
entry on "Sage" [marveh] in Encycl
Dr. Efrayim and Hanah Hareuveini z"l researched
the matter and expressed similar ideas - see Nogah Hareuveini's article, "Menora
ve'Moriah - Or u'Vesamim"
(in her booklet, Semel
ha'Medinh Shorshav be'Teva ha'Aretz ve'Moreshet Yisrael, Ne'ot Kedumim 1988).
In
his aforementioned article, Hirsch stresses that the middle lamp - the Eternal
Lamp - unifies all of the lamps of the Menorah. In addition, he writes: "From
here we learn that the middle lamp is not only the unifying goal, it is at the
same time the common point of origin of all the lamps; all set out from it, and
all yearn for it." Later in his article, Hirsch compares the middle lamp
with the yearning for closeness to God, and he writes: "This yearning is
set in the heart of
Let
us conclude with a passage from the midrash: And you shall command, etc.
Benyamin Salant is a member of Kibbutz Saad
In memory of my father
HaRav Shlomo Zalman Beck z"l
who was
born exactly 100 years ago
on Taanit Esther 1906
Loyalty before
looks
Mordechai Beck
Since the advent of the Garden of Eden,
human beings have often found it more expedient to hide than reveal themselves.
"And the man and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the Lord God...and
[Adam] said: ‘I heard your voice in the garden, and I was afraid, because I was
naked, and I hid.'"(Genesis 3: 8-10) Concealment and exposure, too, form a
prominent theme in the story of Esther, where allusions to nakedness and
clothing abound, both literal and metaphorical. This is especially poignant in
the case of the two main characters, Esther herself and Vashti.
Vashti's famous refusal to appear before her
inebriated husband, King Ahasuerus, and his fellow revelers leads to her early
banishment, yet an interesting parallel recurs in the middle of her successor's
story. Having persuaded Esther to enter the king's palace and the beauty
contest that results in her being crowned queen, Mordechai is impelled to
upbraid her after informing her of Haman's plot to
wipe out the Jews. "Don't think that your fate will be different from that
of other Jews just because you are in the king's palace," he warns. "For
if you remain silent at this time then... you and your father's house will
perish. Who knows if you have not achieved royalty precisely for a situation
like this?" What brings about this angry note in what had been, up to
then, a close and intimate relationship? How had Esther, whose star (as her
name in Persian suggests) was indeed ever rising, come to such a pass,
regarding her loyalties to her family and people? The tension seems to be
within Esther herself. Up to this point, she has been a dutiful young woman;
whatever Mordechai has proposed, she has done. Now, suddenly, something has
changed, and Mordechai is obliged to reprimand her. These complex relationships
have particularly interested Jewish feminists. Naomi Hyman in one anthology of
writings, "Biblical Women and Midrash,"
highlights the parallels between Esther and Vashti,
while in another, "Which Lilith?" Henny Wenkart draws powerful
analogies between Esther and Vashti and Eve and the
mythological first wife of Adam, Lilith. "The
two stories," Dr Wenkart writes, "express
the same male dream... The male writer of this tale dreams of his two women:
the woman he can't live with, Lilith/Vashti, the wife
who is his equal, assured, honest, secure in the dignity of her worth: and
Eve/Esther who rules him through flattery and guile, catering to his vanity and
need to feel superior and in charge... "The uppity wife is banished, the one who is willing to feign a compliant
posture takes her place." Like her predecessor Vashti,
Esther has advanced to her superior status by virtue of her physical beauty.
Indeed, both she and Vashti are defined in precisely
the same way, as tovat mareh
"good looking," indicating that this is the main quality that the
half-sober Ahasuerus looked for in his queen. In her recent book, "Women
and Desire," Jungian therapist Polly Young-Eisendrath
suggests that many of her female clients strive "to look good and thus
desirable," in order to fulfill perceptions of femininity foisted upon
them by a still-patriarchal society. Woman's beauty is her power, but it is
also a trap. In the Book of Esther, it is her looks that land the obstinate Vashti in trouble. By refusing to "show off her beauty"
before her master and his important guests, she causes her own downfall. No
real reason is given for her refusal. Perhaps the narrator felt that none was
needed: surely basic human dignity was at stake here. However, the rabbis
mischievously suggest that she was summoned to stand naked before the king,
dressed only in her royal crown. This intriguing rabbinic invention again
re-echoes the underlying theme of hiding and revealing. What appeared to the
king to be a natural request that a man - a drunken one, at least - might make
to his wife, is to Vashti a demand to demean herself
in public, especially before her fellow female party-goers; how would it look
in front of them? Where the king saw beauty, she saw power,
and corrupt male power at that. When Esther is confronted by Mordechai, she has
to address two opposing possibilities: either to rely on her beauty to find
continuous favor in the eyes of the king, or to declare herself a Jewess and
throw herself on the mercy of a man whose support of Haman clearly indicated
his hatred of her nation. In either case, Esther could lose not only her crown
but also her head. When faced by a similar challenge to her person, Vashti prefers principles to pragmatism. Neither does she
turn to her natural support group, the sisterhood with whom she was having a
party. No collective protest by the women is even attempted. By contrast,
Esther appears to realize that her feminine beauty is insufficient to protect
her forever against the chauvinistic king. She turns instead to her natural
support group: "Go, assemble all the Jews... and fast on my behalf... I
and my maidens will observe the same fast... and if I am to perish, I shall
perish." By placing her loyalty firmly with the Jewish people, Esther
transcends her more limited identity as a woman and thus ensures the future of
the entire nation. Had she relied on her feminist identity alone, she - and we
- would long ago have vanished from the face of Mother Earth.
Mordechai Beck is an artist and a writer
Remember what Amalek did to you
In his commentary on Parashat Zakhor, Rabbi S. R. Hirsch interprets the commandment to wipe out the memory of Amalek as a commandment intended to constantly remind us not to adopt "Amalekitism" when we gain the power to do so.
I think that alongside the need to avoid exploiting our power to exploit the weak, on a more positive note, there is certainly also room to make efforts to protect the rights of those who are susceptible to be hurt by exploitation.
Therefore, we should welcome the new awakening of interest in social issues initiated by groups within religious Zionism.
The BeMa'aglei Tzedek organization initiated the "Social stamp of Approval," which protects the rights of workers in catering halls, cafes, and restaurants. It has done much to inculcate the value of social justice in the public.
Mavoi Satum and Matir Assurot are two organizations which fight fearlessly on the behalf of women who have been denied divorce by their husbands, and for women who whose husbands are missing.
We congratulate Tze'irei Ne'emanei Torah Va'Avodah for distributing the Mishpatim issue of Shabbat Shalom and for their contribution to the just struggle of women who have been denied divorce and to the resuscitation of Religious-Zionist discourse that is relevant to the Israeli society as a whole.
In addition, Beit Morasha sponsors a "Beit Midrash for Social Policy in Accordance with the Torah" that is headed by Rabbi Dr. Benyamin Lau. A most interesting magazine, which deals with various halakhic aspects of social justice, is web-published under its auspices.
All of these initiatives, which "restore the crown of religious Zionism," should be commended. Let us hope that "a little light shall dispel much darkness."
Pinchas Leiser,
Editor
Dear Readers,
We
are happy to have succeeded, with God's help, with your help, and with the help
of a generous contribution from
The
past years have demonstrated the importance of Shabbat Shalom's publication and distribution. We
believe that at the present time, when deep disagreement exists among the
people and within religious Zionism regarding national priorities, a
disagreement that will certainly accompany future political and normative
decisions, it is important that our voice be heard. It is no less important
that the debate should be pursued with reciprocal respect and commitment to
democratic values.
We
require an additional sum of $20,000 in order to publish and distribute Shabbat
Shalom through its ninth year. We hope that you, out readers, will be able to
help us complete this important mission.
There
is no need to mention that all contributions, for any sum, large or small, will
be accepted with gratitude. Contributions made by our supporters overseas (
It
is possible to have an issue of Shabbat Shalom dedicated to the honor of
a person or of an event, or in the memory of a deceased friend or relative. For
more information, please contact our editorial coordinator, Mrs.
Many
thanks,
The
Editorial Board of Shabbat Shalom
Oz Ve'Shalom-Netivot Shalom
Shabbat
Shalom is available on our website: www.netivot-shalom.org.il
If
you wish to subscribe to the email English editions of Shabbat Shalom, to print
copies of it for distribution in your synagogue, to inquire regarding the
dedication of an edition in someone's honor or memory, to find out about how to
make tax-exempt donations, or to suggest additional helpful ideas, please
contact
With
God's help and your own, we will ascend ever higher.
Editorial
Board of Shabbat Shalom
Executive
Board of Oz Ve'Shalom-Netivot Shalom
If you enjoy Shabbat Shalom,
please consider contributing towards its publication and distribution.
Issues may be dedicated in honor
of an event, person, simcha, etc. Requests must be
made 3-4 weeks in advance to appear in the Hebrew, 10 days in advance to appear
in the English email.
In
US and British tax-exempt contributions to Oz VeShalom may be made through:
New
New
PLEASE NOTE THAT THE NEW
PEF will also channel donations and provide a tax-exemption. Donations
should be sent to P.E.F. Israel Endowment Funds, Inc.,
All contributions should be
marked as donor-advised to Oz ve'Shalom, the Shabbat
Shalom project.
Oz Veshalom-Netivot
Shalom is a movement dedicated to the advancement of a civil society in
Oz Veshalom-Netivot
Shalom shares a deep attachment to the
Oz Veshalom-Netivot
Shalom's programs include both educational and
protest activities. Seminars, lectures, workshops, conferences and weekend
programs are held for students, educators and families, as well as joint
seminars for Jews, Israeli Arabs and Palestinians. Protest activities focus on
issues of human rights, co-existence between Jews and Arabs, and responses to
issues of particular religious relevance.
5,000 copies of a 4 page peace
oriented commentary on the weekly Torah reading are written and published by Oz
VeShalom/Netivot Shalom and they are distributed to
over 350 synagogues in
Oz Veshalom-Netivot
Shalom's educational forums draw people of different
backgrounds, secular and religious, who are keen to deepen their Jewish
knowledge and to hear an alternative religious standpoint on the subjects of
peace and social issues.
Oz Veshalom-Netivot
Shalom fills an ideological vacuum in