Avodah Mailing List

Volume 23: Number 44

Wed, 07 Mar 2007

• 1. Re: besulos (T613K@aol.com)
• 2. vashti (Eli Turkel)
• 3. Megila is not part of Bible? (Dov Kay)
• 4. Re: besulos (kennethgmiller@juno.com)
• 5. Re: besulos (Shoshana L. Boublil)
• 6. Re: Vashti (Daniel Israel)
• 7. Re: vashti (Zev Sero)
• 8. Re: only virgins ? (Zev Sero)
• 9. Re: Vashti (T613K@aol.com)
• 10. Re: besulos (Zev Sero)
• 11. Re: Tzinius and the ILG (Micha Berger)

 
 
From: "kennethgmiller@juno.com"  <kennethgmiller@juno.com>
>>I have often wondered: in this  context, and/or perhaps in other 
contexts, is it possible that we translate  the word "besula" too 
literally? Could it be that in some cases it can refer  to ANY 
unmarried girl, regardless of whether she has had sexual  relations?<<

Akiva Miller
 

>>>>>
Are you suggesting that Esther maybe was unmarried, but not a  besulah??
 
In the case of the Megilla, some say that Achashverosh took married women  as 
well as unmarried women.  No one says he took unmarried non-virgins as  well 
as unmarried virgins.  Why bother saying that?  The number of  unmarried 
non-virgins in his empire -- and in any country you could name, before  the advent 
of the Pill -- would have been vanishingly small.  The  overlapping sets of 
"all virgins" and "all never-married women" would have been  virtually 
identical.  So you are making a distinction without a  difference.




--Toby  Katz
=============
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Chana writes

<<My instinct is that it is because they understood the megila, in
totality, as being about everybody getting their just desserts (ie good
triumphing over evil). However, unless you understand Vashti in the way
Chazal do, then what happened to her does (and probably should) lead to
some moral discomfort.  - so I think one does need to conclude that Vashti
must have, in some way, been evil.>>

I agree with the thrust of Chana's remarks. Clearly Vashti even in pshat was
not a tzadekkes. However, simple pshat (and probably the way a historian
would see it at the time) was that Vashti was killed because of palace intrigues
which in fact is quite common. Hence we need not feel sorry for Vashti
but she is
still not an evil and immoral person.

The way I imagine things is what would have happened if a NY Times reporter
was present at the time what would he have said? In line with the nes nistar it
is hard to believe that the headlines would have been "Queen Vashti
grows a tail".
My proposal is that the headline would have been "Queen Vashti loses in
power struggle and is executed by the King"

-- 
Eli Turkel

<<Purim is portrayed in Seder Olam as being a key part of the events that 
bridge
shivat Tziyon (Zerubavel) and Chanukas haBayis (Ezra). Achashveirosh is 
placed
between Daryaveish and Koreish. Which would probably place Purim before 
Ezra.

In Pirqe deR' Eliezer, Achashveirosh is after Daryaveish, which means the
second bayis was standing for something like 40 years at the time of Purim.
Well after Ezra's return.>>

My brother-in-law, R. A Posen, mentioned at our Purim seuda that according 
to the Ramban (or a commentary attributed to him to a masechta whose name 
eludes me...), most Jews had already returned to Eretz Yisroel before the 
events of Purim.  This runs counter to the common understanding that, even 
after the shivas tziyon, most Jew remained in Bavel.

Kol tuv
Dov Kay

_________________________________________________________________
Solve the Conspiracy and win fantastic prizes!  
http://www.theconspiracygame.co.uk/

I had asked:
> in this context, and/or perhaps in other contexts, is it possible
> that we translate the word "besula" too literally? Could it be
> that in some cases it can refer to ANY unmarried girl, regardless
> of whether she has had sexual relations?

Several posters have misunderstood my question, and think that I have 
accused Esther of pre-marital relations. This is a total 
misunderstanding of my question, which was a purely linguistic 
inquiry.

My question came from R' Eli Turkel's post in Avodah 23:39, in the 
thread "Vashti's tail". I had not been following that thread, but I 
noticed where he asked:

> In line with medrashim on Megillat Esther I assume someone
> explains how Esther could have been married to Mordecai
> when only virgins were "invited "to Achashverosh"

So: I think might be possible that if Mordechai and Eshter kept their 
marriage secret, and appeared to others merely as uncle and niece, 
that could explain how she was rounded up by Achashverosh's men, 
despite her true status as a non-virgin. After all, does anyone think 
that the gov't performed any sort of medical tests to verify that the 
girls really were virgins?

If anyone disagrees with these suggestions, or can find any arguments 
against them, please have rachmanus on me. As I said, I was not 
following that thread, and only intended this as a linguistic 
question. Perhaps I should have sent it to Mesorah instead. My bad. 
Sorry.

Akiva Miller

> Date: Tue, 6 Mar 2007 12:53:21 GMT
> From: "kennethgmiller@juno.com" <kennethgmiller@juno.com>
> Subject: [Avodah] besulos
> Message-ID: <20070306.045410.19739.2374629@webmail40.lax.untd.com>
> Content-Type: text/plain

> I have often wondered: in this context, and/or perhaps in other
> contexts, is it possible that we translate the word "besula" too
> literally? Could it be that in some cases it can refer to ANY
> unmarried girl, regardless of whether she has had sexual relations?
>
> Akiva Miller

There is a far simpler explanation. I think I've poste it in the past, but 
it apparently bears repeating.

At his Shi'urim on Midrash, Rav Hess taught that not every Midrash has the 
same reason for existance, or the same goals.

First there are Midreshei Agada and Midreshei Halachah. They have different 
purposes and content.

Some Midrashim, came to answer questions that the shortness of the text 
leaves open.  For example: what happened between Avraham and Yitzchak as 
they travelled towards mount moria.  The Tanach just says that they went 
there.  It doesn't say what happened during the journey.  Many midrashim 
attempt to fill in this gap.

Some Midrashim take advantage of a question to make a moral or behavioral 
point that the Rabbi feels he needs to make regarding the behavior of his 
community.  While I can't point out a specific one from memory, there are 
many such.  I would say that a midrash describing Esther as an older, uglier 
woman may have answered a community need to increase the level of respecting 
the elderly;  perhaps people were judging people by the cover instead of the 
content, and the specific rabbi needed to make the point.

Other Midrashim were part of the Shabbat Afternoon (or Shabbat Evening, a la 
Rabbi Meir) Shiur in the local shul.  This shiur was given to women and 
Ba'al Batim, and not just the students.  Many of these Shiurim were 
accompanied by Midrashim which could be understood simply by people with 
less Judaic knowledge, teaching whatever point the Rabbi wished to teach, 
but they also had higher levels of information for those who were 
sufficiently knowledgeable to decode the story. Many of the fantastic tales 
belong in this category.  They are attractive; they cause people to remain 
and listen to the Derasha -- but they were not intended literally.  They are 
far more complex, and teach new information on a variety of levels.

(enough for now).

Shoshana L. Boublil 

RET writes:
>> I repeat my previous question - what forced Chazal to assume 
>> Vashti has sins and was evil. This is not pshat in the 
>> pesukim.

I'm thinking about it now, and I don't have a megillah handy to see 
if this is in the m'farshim, but there possibly is a hint in the 
pesukim.  It says that Vashti also made a party, that is, the pasuk 
could be comparing her party to Achashverosh's party.  Once you 
learn that his party has a problem, so hers was too.

OTOH, one could argue that the psukim don't obviously indicate that 
his was a problem.

--
Daniel M. Israel
dmi1@cornell.edu

Eli Turkel wrote:

> The way I imagine things is what would have happened if a NY Times
> reporter was present at the time what would he have said? In line
> with the nes nistar it is hard to believe that the headlines would
> have been "Queen Vashti grows a tail".  My proposal is that the
> headline would have been "Queen Vashti loses in power struggle and
> is executed by the King"

Well, yes, because the reporter would not have *known* about the tail.

Being at the palace he'd certainly know her reputation, so he'd have
no illusions such as the plain text of the megillah allows us to
entertain regarding her modesty.  So he'd have to come up with some
explanation for *why* she acted as she did, and the answer would be
some kind of hidden infighting, which doesn't really explain it but
is enough to throw sand in the readers' eyes.

But the gemara tells us the real reason: she suddenly developed an
embarrassing condition; either something like tzaraat, which one
could put down to bad luck, or something like a tail, which must be
ascribed to angelic intervention.  She still *wanted* to comply with
Achashverosh's invitation, but she'd rather die than be seen like
that, and so she did.

By the way, if you're sticking to the plain text with no midrashim,
it doesn't say anywhere that she was killed.  I think the Malbim
suggests that she was merely removed from her position as Queen,
and banished to quarters in some palace somewhere where she could
live out her life in seclusion.

-- 
Zev Sero               Something has gone seriously awry with this Court's
zev@sero.name          interpretation of the Constitution.
                       	                          - Clarence Thomas

Levi Serebryanski wrote:
> */SBA <sba@sba2.com>/* wrote:
 
>> Rashi right there: "Mikol Hanoshim: Habeulos, she'af habeulos kibetz..."


> However, one can also explain pshat in the Posuk that he loved her more 
> than all the (former) besulos he had already been with, and she had more 
> chein in his eyes than all the ones that he had not as yet been with. 
> After all, the posuk uses 'vaye'ehav' with regard to the noshim, and 
> 'vatiso chein' with regard to the besulos.

And when all else fails one can look in the gemara, which gives yet
another explanation, that the pasuk describes the quality of his
experience with her.  It seems she shared a quality with the mon
(in the midbar, not in the homentash).

However, Rashi's explanation seems to be the simplest peshat, because
it answers several questions: not only how Esther got taken when she
could easily have demonstrated that she was a married woman, but also
why the rest of the Empire's population allowed their daughters to be
dragged off like that.  One would think that many people would come
up with this idea: http://www.mudcat.org/@displaysong.cfm?SongID=1602
just as many Jews under Czar Nikolai injured themselves to avoid being
conscripted.  Rashi explains that the melech may have been a tipesh,
but the bureacrats in charge of collecting candidates were not, and
let it be known that such tactics would not work.


-- 
Zev Sero               Something has gone seriously awry with this Court's
zev@sero.name          interpretation of the Constitution.
                       	                          - Clarence Thomas

 
 
R' Eli Turkel wrote: 
*I repeat my previous question - what forced  Chazal to assume Vashti has
*sins and
*was evil. This is not pshat in the  pesukim. Again, in accordance with the
*Malbim
*(and R.Boubil) it could  have been just political intrigue.
 
RZS wrote:
 
>>It's certainly not inherent in the pesukim.  From the pesukim  one
might conclude that Vashti was a real tzadekes, the innocent victim
of  a tyrannical king.  And yet Chazal do take it that way,  without
question. <<
 
RJR wrote:

>>imvho  it seems empirically  chazal had mesora's  concerning certain 
figures and interpreted the text (for good or bad) based on  the mesora.<<



R' Moshe Yehuda Gluck wrote:

>>The Chasimas HaTalmud  wasn't all that long after the story of the Megillah.
The secular world has  records from 500 years ago (think Colombus, Magna
Carta, Crusades, etc.).  Probably Chazal had either written records or an
oral tradition as to what  happened - that she was evil, that she grew a
tail,  etc.<<

KT,
MYG 


 
>>>>>
(1)  It is more likely that they had a long-standing oral tradition  than 
that they had written records but in any case RMYG's statement --  >>the Chasimas 
HaTalmud wasn't all that long after the story of the  Megillah << -- is not 
correct.  (Depending how you define "not  long.")   
 
The second bais hamikdash was built around 350 BCE according to frum  sources 
(further back according to secular historians).  The events  recorded in 
Megillas Esther occurred a few years before or a few years after  binyan Bayis 
Sheni. The Talmud Yerushalmi was sealed around 400 CE, the  Talmud Bavli around 
500 CE.   Thus, approximately 850 years elapsed  between the events of Megillas 
Esther and chasimas haTalmud.   
 
Memories and traditions can certainly shift in that time period.   I'm not 
saying that is what happened, but it could have.
 
(2)  Several people wrote that Chazal simply had a mesorah about  certain 
characters in Tanach and nothing in the text "required" them  to say what they 
said about Vashti.  But it seems to me that almost always,  a Midrash or comment 
of Chazal about something in Tanach answers some kind of  question or fills 
in a gap of some kind.  Thus, "Vashti grew a tail"  is not just a mesorah but 
the answer to a question that the text doesn't  address:  "WHY did Vashti 
refuse to come to the party?"
 
"Vashti was evil" answers a different kind of question, namely, "Why did  
Vashti die?"   Yes, there's an immediate reason -- Achashverosh's  anger -- but 
there is a cosmic reason too.  
 
To understand why it's a question you have to understand the planted  axiom 
of the Megillah, namely:  EVERYTHING happens for a reason.  For  a Divinely 
ordained, cosmic reason, that is.  It may not be obvious on a  day-to-day level 
but Hashgacha Pratis is always operative.   So -- WHY  did Vashti die?  That 
is, why did she DESERVE to die?  (Since if she  didn't deserve it, her death 
would be cosmically random and not Divinely  ordained)
 
Unlike the question "Why didn't she go the party?"  -- the context of  which 
is just a few pesukim -- in the case of the question "Why did she die?"  the 
context is the Megillah taken as a whole.  The message of the whole  Megillah 
is, as I said, that Divine justice is always operative even when that  is not 
immediately obvious.
 
In the Megillah (more neatly and obviously than in our daily lives), the  bad 
guys get their comeuppance and the good guys get saved.  In real life  things 
are messier, but if the Megillah were as lacking in clarity as our daily  
lives, its message would be blurred.  If someone died for no reason (no  cosmic 
reason), then the lesson of the Megillah would be  muddied.   So in the context 
of the Megillah's message, Chazal have to  answer the implicit question:  Why 
did Vashti die?  And in that  context the only answer that makes sense is 
"She was evil."



--Toby  Katz
=============
<BR><BR><BR>**************************************<BR> AOL now offers free 
email to everyone.  Find out more about what's free from AOL at 
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kennethgmiller@juno.com wrote:

> So: I think might be possible that if Mordechai and Esther kept
> their marriage secret

Why on earth would they have done so?  They had no way of knowing
that such secrecy might end up useful.  And if they had known, they
would certainly have publicised their relationship in order to avoid
her being taken.  No, it must have been generally known that they
were married, but by the time she was taken that didn't matter, the
chappers were taking any woman who appeared extraordinarily beautiful
to them, whether she was married or not.


> and appeared to others merely as uncle and niece

<head-desk> COUSINS!  They were first cousins, as the pasuk plainly
says.   WHY is this idea that they were uncle and niece so prevalent?

-- 
Zev Sero               Something has gone seriously awry with this Court's
zev@sero.name          interpretation of the Constitution.
                       	                          - Clarence Thomas

On Thu, March 1, 2007 10:31 pm, kennethgmiller@juno.com wrote:
: When the Torah permits something in all cases, this indicates that it
: is not inherently immoral....

Then chazal would have no issurim other than siyagim and cheshashos --
corrections to adjust for accident and habit. But that's not true.

Beqitzur:
I am throwing out the possibility that Issurim deRabbanan are made when
society evolves to the point that a rule can be defined legally, rather than a
set of values given for people to decide situationally.

Reasoning:
Again I would assert the question isn't moral vs immoral, but rather whether
it's the more moral alternative. Sometimes this as-yet imperfect world forces
you to choose the least of evils.

The TYQ (ve'asisem haTov vehaYashar / Qedoshim tiyhu) chiyuvim aren't written
like legal texts because they are very situational. Perhaps there is a time
where society evolves until the situation can be articulated as a legal
imperative rather than the vaguer moral / value judgment.

IOW, the choice of chalitzah over yibum only shifted from being a case-by-case
call of which is TYQ to being able to ban yibum because of how society
evolved. Chalitzah is still being chosen as a least evil. It's possible that
we could have built a society in which the opposite would have almost always
been the lesser evil. Or one which still required a case-by-case assessment
based on a person being honest with himself about his motives.

Tir'u baTov!
-mi

-- 
Micha Berger             Spirituality is like a bird: if you tighten
micha@aishdas.org        your grip on it, it chokes; slacken your grip,
http://www.aishdas.org   and it flies away.
Fax: (270) 514-1507                            - Rav Yisrael Salanter



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