[Avodah] vashti

[Moshe Yehuda Gluck]

R' Arie Folger:
*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.

It was much easier to keep a secret in the good ol' days, when revealing it
meant one's head be permanently estranged from the rest of one's body...
OTOH, perhaps you are right and it was not a secret - which was how Chazal
knew about it.

KT,
MYG