Heroism and selflessness: Lessons from Purim

Maasei Imahot, siman l’banot (“the actions of mothers indicate how daughters will behave” – a pun on a rabbinic saying about fathers.)

From the beginning of creation, women have taken initiative and determined human history. The Torah tells us so.

The first person to exhibit the human traits of curiosity and risk-taking was Eve/ Chava – not Adam, who showed no interest in his surroundings until he was instructed to look at and name the animals. Chava, on the other hand, stepped out alone. She came across the snake – and the rest is history (herstory). Human beings became fully “created”. No longer in the Garden of Eden, they had to contend with the world. Only with the qualities Chava displayed were people able to advance, to dream, to invent and to solve problems.

She is followed by Sarah – my role-model – who showed her independent spirit by listening at the flap of the men’s tent when she was expected to be in the kitchen!

The Torah narrates that not once but twice, Sarah puts herself at huge personal risk for her husband, which meant, in her case, for the future of the Jewish people. Her moral values, her dignity and her reputation may have had to be sacrificed – she was ready for it.

Generations later, Esther, the hero of our Purim story, exhibits the same qualities of bravery and selflessness – a willingness to sacrifice her personal freedom, her values and her reputation for the sake of a mission that was only to become clear later. Her uncle, Mordechai, like Abraham before him, sends the beautiful woman into the hands of foreign royalty. Both these women, Sarah with the name that suggests royalty and Esther, whose mission is hidden from her as her name suggests, are abandoned to powerful men while the men whom they trust are outside and free to make their own decisions.

In Chapter 4 of the Megillah (Book of Esther), there is a turning point in the story. Mordechai is able to inform Esther about the threat to the Jewish people and asks her to intervene. At first, Esther is unable to think how she can approach the king but when Mordechai says that it is precisely for that purpose she is in the Palace, it is she who comes up with a plan.

She tells Mordechai to arrange a three-day fast and to pray for her success. She says that if the men outside take the lead, she and her women inside the palace will do the same. Note the sequence of events: Esther tells Mordechai what he should do so that she can copy him.

It is a fascinating insight that the Megillah is offering us. Women who are deprived of their support systems and independence develop survival skills and are able to imagine creative solutions. However, society then and now prefers to think that it was a man’s idea – and we go along with it. Esther’s idea becomes Mordechai’s public call.

There is a midrashic tradition that the Megillah of Esther should really be called the Megillah of Mordechai and that he is the real hero of the story. Don’t believe it for one minute!

As Adin Steinsaltz said, Esther exemplifies heroism – a type of heroism of which only woman are capable.

When women read the Megillah, there are some who suggest that we are doing it because it was a man’s thing and we are copying them. Nothing could be further from the truth. We are proudly reading a story which begins with the men, led by a foolish king, legislating that women should obey their husbands and finishes with the women – or at least one of them – clearly in charge. We are reading it because it reminds us of the freedom we have to imagine, even when we are trapped somewhere we would rather not be. We read it because it is the most powerful feminist story in the Tanakh (Bible).

Chava and Sarah are not acknowledged for their bravery in the Biblical text but Esther is. She has the final word, writing the royal letters declaring the new regime. That is the end of the action but of course, the Megillah does not stop there. It adds that Mordechai becomes second-in-command to the king. We go back to where the men are in the public eye and appear to be making the decisions. And we know that when a risk must be taken and the nation’s future hangs in the balance, there will be Esther or other women in the background working out the solution, creatively, heroically, selflessly.

The Megillah teaches us that if men listen to women, wrongs can be righted and evil overcome. Perhaps our political leaders – our foolish kings of today – can learn the lesson.