#IStandWithVashti

Growing up, Purim was one of my favorite holidays. My family always threw a big party, with a hand-made piñata of Haman (thanks, Mom!), and a puppet show where we retold the story of Esther’s heroism. Not only was it tons of fun — and sugar-filled — but it was a holiday where we finally celebrated a woman, for once! Costumes, cookies, and girl-power: it doesn’t get much better than that.

I am far away from my family now, but every year I get a box from my Baubie with Hamentashen, and with it, a bit of good, ol’ nostalgia. I offered one to my roommate, and began to tell her the story of Purim. How Vashti denied the king, how Mordechai told Esther to go be the new queen, how Haman got mad at Mordechai and decided to kill the all the Jews, and how Esther saved the day by informing the king that she, too, was a Jew.

And that’s when I realized that we’ve been doing it all wrong. If this holiday is truly about girl power, then we should be looking to Vashti.

It was Vashti who refused to be paraded around like a prize-winning pony, passed from man to man like a cigarette in the king’s court. Vashti — despite not being dignified with a voice in the megillah — makes herself heard by standing up for what is right not just for her, but for all women. She stands up for freedom and dignity. And the king’s ministers realized thisare appropriately scared. Queen Vashti has sinned “against all the ministers and all the nations” in the king’s provinces, they say, “For word of the queen’s deed will reach all the women and it will belittle their husbands in their eyes… and there will be much disgrace and anger.” (1:16–18)

We are taught that Esther is the heroine, the one without whose actions the Jews would have perished. But the text says otherwise: “Even if you are silent now, the Jews will get relief and rescue some other way,” Mordechai tells Esther. (4:14) Unlike Vashti, Esther is reticent to use her position to help others, but eventually follows Mordechai’s orders just as a woman — or vessel, as we are often referred to in Talmud — should. Is that who we want to teach our daughters to be?

When I teach this story to my daughters, I will teach them to be like Vashti: I will teach them to stand tall for their rights and the rights of others, to speak with actions that are louder than words. I will teach them to think for themselves, and to never sacrifice their integrity because a man demanded it. I will teach them to be fearless. And I will teach them justice.

#IStandWithVashti.
Are you with me?