Tetzaveh: Esther Dressed in Holiness
Rabbi Lizz Goldstein is with IfNotNow DC.
This week’s Torah portion is Parashat Tetzaveh. It is always read within a week of Purim, which this year will be celebrated at the conclusion of Shabbat this Saturday night.
Tetzaveh tells of the priests’ vestments. God tells Moses to tell his brother Aaron and Aaron’s sons of how they will create their holy uniforms for the work of serving in the Mishkan, the portable sanctuary that goes throughout the wilderness with the Israelites. Many of the colors and materials named for the priestly vestments are the same as those named in the instructions given in last week’s Torah portion to build the Mishkan, demonstrating the importance of these garments. It was important for the priests to dress their part, and show their devotion to holiness in their garb. Meanwhile, the story of Purim is set in Persia, presumably in the First Exile, when there is neither Temple nor Mishkan nor Priests standing. A Midrash from Esther Rabbah claims that King Ahasuerus of Persia and his first wife Vashti wore the stolen garments of the priests, which had made their way to these Eastern lands after the Babylonian destruction of the First Temple in Jerusalem. These fine tunics and breastplates, created so lovingly for holy work, were being worn by heretics at their feasts and lecherous parties.
This first queen, Vashti is banished from the kingdom for refusing King Ahasuerus, who finds himself a new queen. This new woman, deemed most beautiful in all of Persia, is Esther, a Jewish woman. At the climax of the story, Esther finds herself in a precarious situation. Ahasuerus has somewhat unknowingly signed an edict agreeing that the story’s villain, Haman, may kill all the Jews of Persia. Esther is paralyzed with fear, unsure of the best way to intercede on behalf of her people. Her older male relative Mordecai admonishes her for this perceived cowardice and tells her it is her duty as a Jewish queen to step in and speak to the king on behalf of them all. He says to her, “Do not think that being in the king’s palace will save you over any of the Jews. For if you remain silent at this time, then relief and deliverance will come from another place, but you and your father’s house shall be destroyed. And who knows? Perhaps you have come to the king’s palace for such a time as this.”
When Esther approaches the King to make him aware of Haman’s evil plot and her own Jewish identity, she is wearing “Malkhut,” royalty. In the most direct translation of the text, this is presumably royal clothing, that she is dressed in her finery to remind Ahasuerus of how desirable she is so that he will be inclined to do whatever it takes to keep her around. However, the Zohar, a Kabbalistic work, brings this back to the idea of the holy vestments of the priests. Wearing “malkhut” could mean royal clothing, but Malkhut is also one of the Kabbalistic expressions of God. According to the Zohar, Esther is acting as High Priest, clothed in the royal holiness, entering the inner chamber, and coming before the Most High. She is speaking to King Ahasuerus, but she is also entreating God to save the Jews. The Megillah tells us “She found favor in King Ahasuerus’s eyes,” and the Zohar says, “The secret of these words is that God saw her and remembered the eternal covenant. God heard her, and responded.”
Our current political climate is similar to Esther’s “such a time as this.” While Jews have not been directly the targets of the administration’s bigoted actions and legislations, we have also seen a significant rise in hate crimes directed at our own communities. While many Jewish institutions choose to ignore the correlation between the bomb threats to our schools and racism of the current political administration, IfNotNow has been a Mordecai for our people. We have said loudly and clearly, consistently and continuously, that any Jewish person with political influence should not fool themselves into thinking that they will fare any better than the rest of us. When progress inevitably wins out, those who tried to cozy up to power and ignore the dangers at hand will find themselves on the wrong side of history, irrelevant and forgotten, while Judaism thrives on without their institutions, just as Mordecai warns Esther. We’re still waiting for an Esther, someone clothed in holiness, unafraid to use their proximity to power to influence great change for freedom and dignity for all. May that time come swiftly for us all.
