March 7, 2005

The Purim Story: Traces of an Emerging Jewish Identity*

The presentation will propose the thesis, that the Purim story presents some traces of the later rabbinical conception of Jewish identity. The rol of the woman and the concept of Jewish People , which is reflected in the book could express an earlier diasporican way of thinking who was considered Jewish in this period (5-3 BCE)

By Liliana Furman for JewishPrograms.org

In Judaism, matrilineality is the transmission of Jewish status (identity) by Jewish women. In this case the matrilineal principle implies no material or legal consequences of any kind (as it does for other groups studied by anthropologists), but matrilineal descent is a conditio sine qua non for anyone to be considered Jewish by birth -- and from the modern point of view, “halachic” -- by other Jews. Matrilineal descent in Judaism places one in a religious, psychosocial, and cognitive category that has meaning above all within the group itself. The matrilineal principle was first recorded as law in the Mishnah, in Kiddushin 3:12, though still in somewhat muddled form.

First, I will explain what “matrilineality” means and describe its possible historical and literary development. Second, I will present a short comparative analysis of Exodus 1 (Shmot 1) and the Scroll of Esther 3 (Megillat Esther 3), which will help to illustrate the fact that filiation in different historical periods and geographic settings was far less clearly defined than we believe today. I will conclude with some reflections on the Megillat Esther that I would like to share with you.

Rabbinical Judaism, which was one of two groups within Judaism to survive the destruction of the Temple in 70 CE, introduced a system of admission to and membership in the Jewish people: a regulated procedure for conversion and the creation of a strict legal process with an emphasis on fulfillment of the laws (Mitzvot) and on matrilineal descent as the natural framework for admission to membership.

With its mention in the Mishnah, matrilineality became a “textual” fact. What was originally a misleading paragraph in the Mishnah developed first into a decision that it is the mother who transmits Jewish identity, and then into a clear text in the two Talmudim. The discussion about matrilineal descent seems to have been brought to its conclusion there, and probably in rabbinical circles as well.

With regard to civil law, as well as the law of inheritance, the patrilineal principle is still followed in the two Talmudim, as in the case of the Baba Bathra tract. However, this tract determines membership in the Jewish people on the basis of matrilineal descent. The dicta that are cited with respect to the subject of matrilineality are drawn from the writings of such famous teachers and rabbis as Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai, Rab, and Rabina, with the intention of discouraging possible opposition.

But what happened before matrilineality became prevalent? The Biblical text places the patriarchal and patrilineal elements decidedly in the foreground. However, if you analyze the Biblical literature in the light of literary, sociological, and anthropological findings, you can detect some traces of previous matrilineal features, particularly in the patriarchal and matriarchal tales, with their anti-exogamic messages and what are represented as certain feminine attributes of G-d. The Swiss philosopher Levin Goldschmitt’s thesis of a repression of maternal characteristics in the religion of Israel lends support to this notion.

Later works, such as Ezra and the Book of Esther, the writings of Philo, and the Testament of Job, an example of later Judaeo-Hellenic devotional literature (1st century CE – middle of the 2nd century CE), and the Diaspora writings in particular, reveal a clear change in the function and role of a Jewish woman.

Taking into account the proximity of Purim and Pesach, I will examine two Biblical texts related to these holidays. In their light I will attempt to trace barely perceivable evidence of the development of matrilineality in the pre-rabbinical period.

The Pesach story reveals certain parallels with the Purim story. Both contain the mention of an apparent threat that the Jews might represent for the non-Jewish world, which serves as a justification for implementing a policy of persecution and annihilation of the Jews. Both stories feature heroic characters who finally succeeded in avoiding the danger and resolving the tension inherent in both situations. Both show very active participation by women whose actions constitute vital elements of the plot. There is one striking point of divergence: In the Pesach story, G-d’s overwhelming intervention results in the Exodus, but in the Megillat Esther we find no obvious traces of divine interference in human affairs. These apparent differences could be interpreted as two sides of the same coin. To test our proposition, let us examine the two extermination orders cited in Exodus 1 and Esther 3: the Pharaoh’s plan to annihilate the Jews, and the command of Haman, the adviser of Ahashverosh (Ahasuerus), to destroy the Jews. Why are such orders given consideration in this presentation? According to the Biblical text, their intention was to destroy the Israelites, or Jews. Such an action implies a definition of WHO BELONGS TO THE THREATENED PEOPLE AND WHO DOES NOT and delineates the way in which the “socio-biological” continuity of the people of Israel was considered. Although that definition seems to be supplied by “outsiders” – in these cases, the Pharaoh and Haman – the text adopts and thus accepts it.

In both stories, the Israelites/Jews are seen as a potential threat, and the measures specified are to be understood as so-called preventive actions. In Exodus 1, the Israelites are regarded as potential future allies and collaborators of the Pharaoh’s enemies. That is, the Pharaoh feared a military alliance against him with the cooperation of the growing number of Israelites. After the text enumerates the deliberate harassments imposed on the Israelites by the Egyptians, it also records the final solution that the Pharaoh considered:

“And the King of Egypt spoke to the Hebrew midwives, of whom the name of the one was Shiphrah, and the name of the other Puah. And he said, When ye do the office of a midwife to the Hebrew women, ye shall look upon the birthstool: if it be a son, then ye shall kill him; but if it be a daughter, then she shall live.”

When the midwives failed to carry out the command, the Pharaoh ordered that the newborn males be cast into the Nile and the newborn females be allowed to live (Exodus 1:22). Here the scripture repeats twice that the decisive role in determining the continuity of a people is played by the males, not by the females. A profoundly discriminating view of men and women is at the bottom of this: the Pharaoh lets the newborn Israelite daughters live not because he is merciful, but because, from a patriarchal point of view, he doesn’t care (nor does the scripture) whether they survive or not, since without men, over the long run the Israelites would be doomed to extinction anyway.

Extermination Order No. 2: Book of Esther 3. An exact dating of the Book of Esther has not been accomplished thus far. Arndt Meinhold (1) bases his theories on the notion of a possible pre-Greek origin: no Greek words were used, but words from Persian and Aramaic are present. He suggests a composition date between 539 and 331 BCE.

For the purposes of this paper, the focus is on Esther 3:6. On the basis of a personal insult, Haman sought “to destroy all the Jews that were throughout the kingdom of Ahasuerus.” In Verse 13, the order is explained and details are provided: “and letters were sent by posts into all the king’s provinces, to destroy, to slay, and to cause to perish, all Jews, both young and old, little children and women, in one day, even upon the thirteenth day of the twelfth month, which is the month Adar, and to take the spoil of them for a prey.” This quote differs drastically from the extermination order of Exodus 1. First, Haman’s order is attributable to a personal emotional situation, though he defends it before King Ahasuerus with an argument based on civil policy. The Pharaoh’s situation is different: he refers to a long-range political plan. Second, in Haman’s reaction, men, women, children, and older people all are seen as a unit and thus are subject to the murderous decree. In this tale, women count as a concrete part of the people (2), and in this respect the extermination will be complete only if all Jews (including women) are destroyed. In the Book of Esther, therefore, women are perceived for the first time in a political context as an integral part of the Jewish people, for the purpose of annihilation.

Many years later, the Midrash Tanchuma, the editing of which in Felix Böhl’s opinion (3) was completed toward the end of the 4th century, compares the two annihilation decrees of the Pharaoh and Haman:

“18. (…) A different interpretation (for Proverbs 12:10, comment by L.F.) “But the tender mercies of the wicked are cruel.” This is Haman; for of him is written: “to slay and to cause to perish” etc. (Esther 3:13). R. Levi said: Woe unto the wicked, who give one another other deep counsel against the Israelites. Each one says: My counsel is better than yours! Esau said: Cain was a fool, that he slay his brother Abel while his father was yet alive, and he knew not that his father was fruitful and multiplied. I do not so, but “Let the days of mourning for my father be at hand; then I will slay my brother Jacob” (Genesis 27:41). Pharaoh said: Esau was a fool, that he said: “Let the days of mourning be at hand; then I will slay my brother Jacob” (ibid.). He knew not that his brother was fruitful and multiplied while his father was yet alive. I do not so, but while they are still small in the lap of their mothers, I will strangle them, for it is written: “Every son that is born ye shall cast into the river (…) and every daughter ye shall save alive” (Exodus 1:22). Haman said: The Pharaoh was a fool, that he said: “Every son that is born (…) and every daughter ye shall save alive” (ibid.). He knew not that all daughters are married to men, and that they are fruitful of them and multiply. I do not so, but: [the order was] “to destroy, to slay, and to cause to perish, all Jews, both young and old, children and women, in one day” (Esther 3:13).” (4) Tanchuma, in his attempt to shed light on the mechanism of cruelty, links the Pharaoh and Haman, saying that the Pharaoh had not realized that the women of Israel would marry and multiply. But Haman was well aware of that, and for this reason he ordered the extermination of all Jews, saying explicitly, “young and old, children and women.” He explicitly includes women because he knew that his command could be interpreted differently, to mean that women (and children) were excluded from the slaughter. Thus Tanchuma recognizes that Jewish women bear Jewish children and that, if they are not included, the people of Israel is not “threatened with extinction.”
With this recognition and with the acceptance of the matrilineal principle, Tanchuma develops a “retrospective” view of Esther’s story. The fact that a woman was given a heroic nature could also be interpreted as a consequence of the Bible’s literary traditions concerning women (think of Sarah’s behavior toward Hagar or of Rebecca when the blessings were reversed). Women who act are praised and acknowledged, although this almost never is made explicit in the text. The Book of Esther was adopted into the canon and thus its main character won a place of honor forever.

The Book of Esther thus makes it clear that the concept of membership in the people of Israel underwent a transformation. Women were included explicitly as members of the Jewish people, and their potential ability to bear Jewish descendants was implicitly recognized. Thus it appears in the Book of Esther, which originated several centuries before the Common Era began, and thus it is interpreted in Tanchuma, four centuries later. That is, although there is no comparison with matrilineality as it was understood by rabbinical Judaism some centuries later, the story of Esther could have formed part of a narrative that influenced the “imaginary collective” of the Jewish people and paved the way for the establishment of the matrilineal principle in the Mishnah in the 2nd century.

A kind of mystery now surrounds the approval of the Megillah Esther and its adoption into the Jewish canon, and these events remain a source of speculation. It is a book in which the reader can find no explicit word about G-d. It is a story full of erotic references. Its main characters initially avoid acknowledging publicly that they are Jews, thus expressing an inner conflict of identity. Ironically, a “high-level” mixed marriage ended up saving the lives of the empire’s Jews. Further, redemption, or salvation, is a consequence of a combination of diplomatic, psychological, political, and military factors. In every sense, it is a 2400-year-old book that can be considered highly MODERN!

Personally, I found this answer to my questions: The book was accepted as part of the canon because it could not remain outside it. The Megillah Esther is still a REPRESENTATIVE STORY, which does not transmit its message “à la Job” or “à la Prophets.” It is probably a mythical story, full of real or virtual references to everyday historical and social realities, in which readers find questions that address their own problems and uncertainties. Literature, whether religious or profane, is still a means of conveying a message, and literature invites its readers to become players in a certain game without playing it in actuality. * I would like to thank Prof. Gabrielle Oberhänsli Widmer for suggesting me the analyse of this texts for my work on Matrilineality in Judaism.

1.Arndt Meinhold: Das Buch Esther. Zürcher Bibelkommentare, (Zürich, 1983). Page 20.
2.From the theological point of view, women are also included in the Sinaitic Covenant!
3. Günter Stemberger: Einleitung in Talmud und Midraschim, (München, 1992) Page 301.
4.Hans Bietenhardt: R. Tanchuma über die Thora, genannt Midrasch Jelamdenu. Vol. 1 (Bern, 1980). Chapter Vayikra, page 132 ff.