[Avodah] only virgins ?

[Zev Sero]

Levi Serebryanski wrote:
> */SBA <sba at sba2.com>/* wrote:
 
>> Rashi right there: "Mikol Hanoshim: Habeulos, she'af habeulos kibetz..."


> However, one can also explain pshat in the Posuk that he loved her more 
> than all the (former) besulos he had already been with, and she had more 
> chein in his eyes than all the ones that he had not as yet been with. 
> After all, the posuk uses 'vaye'ehav' with regard to the noshim, and 
> 'vatiso chein' with regard to the besulos.

And when all else fails one can look in the gemara, which gives yet
another explanation, that the pasuk describes the quality of his
experience with her.  It seems she shared a quality with the mon
(in the midbar, not in the homentash).

However, Rashi's explanation seems to be the simplest peshat, because
it answers several questions: not only how Esther got taken when she
could easily have demonstrated that she was a married woman, but also
why the rest of the Empire's population allowed their daughters to be
dragged off like that.  One would think that many people would come
up with this idea: http://www.mudcat.org/@displaysong.cfm?SongID=1602
just as many Jews under Czar Nikolai injured themselves to avoid being
conscripted.  Rashi explains that the melech may have been a tipesh,
but the bureacrats in charge of collecting candidates were not, and
let it be known that such tactics would not work.


-- 
Zev Sero               Something has gone seriously awry with this Court's
zev at sero.name          interpretation of the Constitution.
                       	                          - Clarence Thomas