[Avodah] malbim on 19th century politics (was Vashti's tail)

[Samuel Groner]

"That's very nice, and fits well with the Malbim's take on what was
going on behind the scenes (which IMHO was meant more as a commentary
on 19th century German politics than on what he thought the megillah
really means)"

>> I find this statement extraordinary. ... Why would the >>Malbim
base his commentary on a book of the Tanach >>on a transient political
situation?

The Malbim may not have been the only 19th century commentator to do
this.  See Gil Perl's Torah u'Madda Journal article on the Netziv,
(available at http://www.yutorah.org/_shiurim/TUJ%2012%20Perl%2074%2D98%20QX%2Epdf),
particularly the following part:

"First, one would be justified in questioning whether the Tower of
Babel text should be read as a carefully crafted political philosophy
or as contemporary political commentary. After all, the regime
ascribed to Babel by Neziv bears striking resemblance to the regime of
Czar Nicholas I whose iron fist controlled the life of Neziv and his
community from the time he was six years old until he reached the age
of thirty-nine. . . . Thus, Neziv's depiction of Babel as a
totalitarian regime, with officers appointed to watch the every move
of its inhabitants, with people like Abraham persecuted for adhering
to un-orthodox beliefs, and with severe restrictions on travel and
settlement, evokes unmistakable images of Russian Jewish life under
Nicholas's reign. Since Ha'amek Davar was written over the course of
thirty years spanning the final years of the reign of Nicholas and
into the more liberal reign of Alexander I, one cannot date the text
at hand with any precision. However, whether Neziv was critiquing
current events or noting the resemblance between the biblical account
of Babel and the harrowing experiences of his own community but a few
years past, one must allow for the possibility that Neziv's comments
were driven more by his need, as one of Russian Jewry's most visible
and active public leaders, to defend his own community's freedom of
worship rather than by his desire to delineate a universal philosophy
of religious tolerance. Clearly, Neziv did not believe his Hebrew
biblical commentary on Genesis would be read by the Russian Czar or
might influence his national policy, but by emphasizing the parallel
between the past and the present, Neziv might well have intended to
comfort his readers by suggesting that the fate of the Czar and his
supporters would be similar to that of Babel and its inhabitants. By
shifting this text, then, from the realm of universal philosophy to
that of personal political commentary, the tension between Neziv's
apparent pluralism and his readiness to coerce fellow Jews into
maintaining a halakhic lifestyle becomes less acute."

Sammy Groner