[Avodah] vashti

[Zev Sero]

Arie Folger wrote:
> One problem occurs to me regarding the literal interpretation of Vashti 
> physically having a primitive appendage grow from her coccyx (tailbone). 
> Since eventually she was executed, the executioners and those dealing with 
> the body would have seen the odd sight of Vashti with a monkey's (or cow's, 
> or horse's, or whatever's) tail. Imagine the headlines of Shushan Times. "Was 
> Queen a Demon, Tail and All?" Somehow, I feel that tsaraat would have made 
> for less interesting headlines, but a tail?
> 
> Forcibly, we must say that the tail disappeared, creating a second miracle not 
> mentioned by 'Hazal at all.


1. So who says she was executed?  That is no more Biblical than the tail.
There is no more reason to believe in the execution than there is to
believe in the tail.

2. There was no Shushan Times; the women who dealt with the body would
have whispered, and rumours would have spread among the women, but
there'd be no official record.  So what makes you think this didn't happen?

3. Once the tail was no longer needed, it might make sense for it to
disappear on its own.  Its very existence was unnatural, so why should
Hashem continue to create it after it had served its purpose?

4, and this should satisfy the minimalists: Maybe the tail was "visible"
only to Vashti.  It was all in her mind; or if RMB prefers, it existed
in her private universe but not in anyone else's.  When she looked in
the mirror, she saw a tail; when she felt behind her, she felt a tail,
and so she refused to be seen like that.  There was no need for anyone
else to see it, so they didn't, but *she* didn't know that.


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