Happy Purim!
If you’re Jewish, you probably baked or bought some of those delicious Hummentash (“Haman’s hat”) cookies. And I don’t know whether it’s still a mumming holiday anywhere in this country, people going round dressed up as King Ahasereus, the villainous vizier Haman, or Esther herself.
But what I want to tell you is, Queen Esther belongs to us Christians, too.
My sister and I (who had never heard of Purim) used to love playing at the scene where candidates to replace the foolish and shrewish Queen Vashti were allowed to deck themselves in any or all, of the palace jewels and parade before the King. We used the beautiful glass necklaces my parents brought back from Mardi Gras, an absolute treasure chest they threw open for us after the several times they attended the festivities in New Orleans. Then eventually one of us would get to be the beautiful, modest and unadorned Esther. I think we probably used a nightgown for her costume.
We also used to play at the scene where Esther risks her life to approach the King uninvited, and by some miracle he extends his scepter to her to show favor, instead of imposing the death penalty on her for dropping in in him. Whew! What’s a scepter? we musta chirped the first time we heard the story! Well, it’s like… a wand, we got that; we had a couple of glittery plastic wands lying around that we could use.
Esther wвs the first good queen we ever encountered—I think she ‘s the only good one in the Bible, and most of the queens in fairy tales are more like Vashti….although now I think of it, the Esther story has something in common with the “Patient Griselda” type folk tale: a commoner raised to queenship by marriage, then finding herself persecuted, then winning it all in the end….
….But that’s a grownup thought! Back in our childhood bedroom where we heard Bible stories every night, we only knew that Esther was beautiful, she was brave, she was clever: she defeated and killed the scheming Haman, she got her King to amend his prior decree, even though it was part of “the law of the Medes and the Persians which, once it was written down, could not be changed”.
God send such another to his Israel now: Esther, our Queen!
ST UnWoked & UnVaxxed! 
Another brilliant post! Thank you, Hypatia 🙂
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thank you for reading and commenting!
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Purim Semeach and Blessed Palm Sunday, Hyp!
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Thanks so much yet again dear Hypatia. With this OP of yours we, the UnWoked & UnVaxxed, all now know more about Jewish holidays than do the so-called rabbis of L!
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Yesterday I read a piece by NPR about the “darker side” of Purim. What Ahasereus did, since he couldn’t legally revoke his decree that every Jewish man, woman and child be slaughtered and their property despoiled, was to issue a subsequent decree allowing the Jews to arm themselves and defend. And they did, they “stood for their lives” and they killed 75,000 of their foes, but did not despoil them.
Get that? A “disproportionate response”! And to think those bloodthirsty Jews actually have their little children celebrating this even today, making cookies to ridicule Haman ( who was hanged along with his ten sons, at Esther’s suggestion) …..why, it’s a prequel to the “humanitarian slaughter” going on in Gaza right now!
The Passover ceremony includes a ritual prayer of compassion for the poor Egyptians who had to suffer the awful plagues sent by Yahweh due to their Pharoah’s recalcitrance. But Purim celebrates a victory engineered by a human, a brave, clever Jewish woman. Jews actually get to kinda “spike the football” for once. It’s a joyful feast. You GO, Esther!
But of course, in this day and age, the wise, breathy-voiced sages at NPR cannot countenance that.
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Our military is so woke that Israel doesn’t even want our military subject matter experts.
Oh how the mighty have fallen!
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