[Avodah] Melech

[Lisa Liel]

At 12:36 PM 5/31/2011, kennethgmiller at juno.com wrote:
>R' Eli Turkel wrote:
>
> > RHS (in the shiur of my other post) took it for granted that
> > Melech means a Jewish government in EY.  He thus felt that the
> > first of the requirements for building a new bet hamikdash has
> > been fulfilled.
> >
> > He further speculated that when Esther's son became king there
> > was a Jewish King over the land of Israel which affected some
> > halachot. When Esther dies Darius lost all contact with Jews and
> > could no longer be considered a Jewish king.
>
>Why would "contact with Jews" be a criterion for the definition of 
>"Jewish king"? I would expect the definition to be either 
>genetic/conversion-based (in which case he would be a Jewish king 
>even after he lost contact with the Jews), or it would also be 
>dependent on Shmiras Hamitzvos, like when we define Jewishness for 
>wine, or minyan, or many other situations (in which case his status 
>would be unchanged before and after Esther's death, unless he 
>actually converted out).
>
>It would help if I knew more about Darius. *Did* he convert out? Did 
>he know of his Jewishness at all? If he did, did he accept that and 
>observe mitzvos? Or did he see himself as a non-Jewish king who was 
>good to the Jews because his mother was Jewish?

There is no assurance that his mother *was* Jewish.  And there are 
numerous reasons to say otherwise.  The idea of Esther as Darius' 
mother is a midrash.  There's also a midrash that says a mal'ach 
replaced Esther in Ahasuerus's bed.  But to add to all of this, 
Darius wasn't Ahasuerus's son.  It's possible that Darius married a 
daughter of Ahasuerus and Esther and that Esther was his 
mother-*in-law*, or that she advised him, and when the midrash refers 
to him as Esther's son, it means this figuratively.  But it's 
unlikely in the extreme that Darius was Jewish.  Consider also the 
midrash that says Nehemiah needed a special heter to be his 
cupbearer, which implies that Darius was not Jewish.

>(Incidentally, my chavrusa raised an interesting question this past 
>Shabbos: According to those who say that Esther and Mordechai were 
>married, and that because of "karka olam" she did not become assur 
>to Mordechai, then is it possible that Darius was really Mordechai's 
>son? Do any meforshim suggest this?)

None that I know of.

What I find frustrating is when one midrash gains popularity because 
it appears in Artscroll or Jewish Action or something like that, and 
people start to lose track of what midrash aggadah is.  In this case, 
there are midrashim that contradict a literal reading of the midrash 
about Darius being Esther's son, but even if there weren't, it still 
isn't something we can use as historical fact.

Pharaoh's daughter's stretchy arm.  Nimrod and Avraham and the fiery 
furnace.  Aggadah is aggadah.  Whether it's literal or not doesn't 
even matter.  The purpose of aggadah is homiletic and didactic.

Lisa

Lisa