Since today is Purim I thought I’d profile the woman behind the holiday. She has her own book in the Old Testament - and it’s the only one where the word God doesn’t appear. It is also the only book of the Hebrew canon not represented among the Dead Sea Scrolls. There’s been some debate as to whether or not she really existed but that could be said about a lot of people in ancient history. In any case the story about Esther has had a huge amount of influence on the concept of womanhood in Judaism but not enough coverage elsewhere for my taste. I find that most of the common Bible stories vilify women (Eve, Bathsheba, etc.) and this story to be a rare exception to that rule.

Esther was born in roughly 500 BC with the name Hadassah but was later renamed when she became Queen of the Persian Empire after marrying Ahasuerus (historically referred to as Xerxes). Interestingly, she was called some form of Ishtar or Astarte, but in Hebrew and Aramaic it was pronounced Ester.

This was right after the Babylonian Exile of the Jews when a national identity was being forged, the first Synagogue was being built, and the transition from an oral to a written tradition was taking place. It was also right before the first attempt to eradicate the Jewish people as a race.

During a wild drunken banquet for various emissaries King Ahasuerus asked his wife, Vashi, to expose herself which she promptly refused to do, for which she was exiled, giving the King a convenient excuse to do a little wife-shopping. Orphaned at a young age, Esther was a notoriously beautiful but extremely modest woman who had been raised by her cousin Mordechai in Persia. At the time of Vashi’s exile, Esther had been residing in the “house of women” where she was picked for the year long purification process before being brought before the king for wifely considerations. The “keeper of women” wasn’t aware of Esther’s Jewish heritage.

The king selected Esther from the throng of beautiful virgins vying for the Mrs Persia spot. Since no one seemed to have noticed, Mordecai warned her not to reveal her Jewish heritage. Once after a visit with his niece he was lingering at the gates of the palace and overheard two guards planning to kill the king. He immediately told Esther who passed the word to the king.

Soon after the assassination scare, Assuerus appointed a man named Haman to be first minister. Mordecai was among the spectators at the palace during the celebratory procession but he refused to bow to the new minister. Haman was infuriated and plotted to kill not only Mordecai, but all the Jews in Persia.

Haman cast lots (purim) to decide in which month to murder the Jews, deciding to slay all Jews on the thirteenth day of the Hebrew month of Adar. He managed to convince the king that they were refusing to honor his laws and persuaded the king to pass an edict authorizing the wholesale massacre of the Jews and the confiscation of their property.

Mordecai promptly sent an urgent message to Esther asking her to intervene on their behalf. But She had been forbidden to approach the king uninvited, on pain of death. However, she made a brave decision that changes history. “I will go into the king … and if I perish, I perish.”

The king was pleased to see her so she quickly invited him and his minister to a banquet. At dinner she invited them for another meal the next day when she would make a request.

Emboldened by these favors, Haman had a gallows built to hang Mordecai. The morning after Esther’s first banquet, the king asked him how he should honor a loyal servant. Unknown to Haman, the king has spent a sleepless night going through records where he was reminded that Mordecai once saved his life, but was never rewarded. Thinking the king was planning to honor him, Haman suggested that the man be dressed in royal robes and paraded through the city, then was devastated when he is ordered to honor Mordecai in that fashion.

At Esther’s second dinner, she revealed her Jewish origin, accusing Haman of orchestrating her murder, and the murder of her people. “If I have found favor in your sight, O king, and if it please the king, let my life be given me at my petition, and my people at my request. For we are sold, I and my people, to be destroyed, to be slain, and to be annihilated.” The king left the banquet room to consider the situation, and Haman threw himself at the queen’s feet pleading her to have mercy on him. When the king returned, he thought that Haman was attacking his queen, and ordered his death immediately. Haman and his ten sons were hung from the gallows he had built for Mordecai.

On the exact day the original edict was appointed, the Jews were given permission to defend themselves and since many of them had been trained in the Persian army, were successful in defending themselves. Mordecai was appointed the king’s new minister. He declared the fourteenth and fifteenth days of the Hebrew month of Adar as days of rejoicing, as the feast of Purim. Esther was a beloved queen and has been regarded ever since as the savior of her people.