[Avodah] Vashti

[T613K at aol.com]

R' Eli Turkel wrote: 
*I repeat my previous question - what forced  Chazal to assume Vashti has
*sins and
*was evil. This is not pshat in the  pesukim. Again, in accordance with the
*Malbim
*(and R.Boubil) it could  have been just political intrigue.
 
RZS wrote:
 
>>It's certainly not inherent in the pesukim.  From the pesukim  one
might conclude that Vashti was a real tzadekes, the innocent victim
of  a tyrannical king.  And yet Chazal do take it that way,  without
question. <<
 
RJR wrote:

>>imvho  it seems empirically  chazal had mesora's  concerning certain 
figures and interpreted the text (for good or bad) based on  the mesora.<<



R' Moshe Yehuda Gluck wrote:

>>The Chasimas HaTalmud  wasn't all that long after the story of the Megillah.
The secular world has  records from 500 years ago (think Colombus, Magna
Carta, Crusades, etc.).  Probably Chazal had either written records or an
oral tradition as to what  happened - that she was evil, that she grew a
tail,  etc.<<

KT,
MYG 


 
>>>>>
(1)  It is more likely that they had a long-standing oral tradition  than 
that they had written records but in any case RMYG's statement --  >>the Chasimas 
HaTalmud wasn't all that long after the story of the  Megillah << -- is not 
correct.  (Depending how you define "not  long.")   
 
The second bais hamikdash was built around 350 BCE according to frum  sources 
(further back according to secular historians).  The events  recorded in 
Megillas Esther occurred a few years before or a few years after  binyan Bayis 
Sheni. The Talmud Yerushalmi was sealed around 400 CE, the  Talmud Bavli around 
500 CE.   Thus, approximately 850 years elapsed  between the events of Megillas 
Esther and chasimas haTalmud.   
 
Memories and traditions can certainly shift in that time period.   I'm not 
saying that is what happened, but it could have.
 
(2)  Several people wrote that Chazal simply had a mesorah about  certain 
characters in Tanach and nothing in the text "required" them  to say what they 
said about Vashti.  But it seems to me that almost always,  a Midrash or comment 
of Chazal about something in Tanach answers some kind of  question or fills 
in a gap of some kind.  Thus, "Vashti grew a tail"  is not just a mesorah but 
the answer to a question that the text doesn't  address:  "WHY did Vashti 
refuse to come to the party?"
 
"Vashti was evil" answers a different kind of question, namely, "Why did  
Vashti die?"   Yes, there's an immediate reason -- Achashverosh's  anger -- but 
there is a cosmic reason too.  
 
To understand why it's a question you have to understand the planted  axiom 
of the Megillah, namely:  EVERYTHING happens for a reason.  For  a Divinely 
ordained, cosmic reason, that is.  It may not be obvious on a  day-to-day level 
but Hashgacha Pratis is always operative.   So -- WHY  did Vashti die?  That 
is, why did she DESERVE to die?  (Since if she  didn't deserve it, her death 
would be cosmically random and not Divinely  ordained)
 
Unlike the question "Why didn't she go the party?"  -- the context of  which 
is just a few pesukim -- in the case of the question "Why did she die?"  the 
context is the Megillah taken as a whole.  The message of the whole  Megillah 
is, as I said, that Divine justice is always operative even when that  is not 
immediately obvious.
 
In the Megillah (more neatly and obviously than in our daily lives), the  bad 
guys get their comeuppance and the good guys get saved.  In real life  things 
are messier, but if the Megillah were as lacking in clarity as our daily  
lives, its message would be blurred.  If someone died for no reason (no  cosmic 
reason), then the lesson of the Megillah would be  muddied.   So in the context 
of the Megillah's message, Chazal have to  answer the implicit question:  Why 
did Vashti die?  And in that  context the only answer that makes sense is 
"She was evil."



--Toby  Katz
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