“Theatre is poetry that lifts itself from the book and becomes human”
(Federico García Lorca)
Webs of Meaning
Writing has been, is, and always will be, an art. There will be those who dedicate themselves to so noble a labor for the sheer love of it and those who manage to tranpsort us with their writing to worlds as diverse as are possible, depending on the topic area of the text. It is not by chance that in academia the difference between “history” and “prehistory” is defined – among other variables – by the presence of indigenous written sources.
In antiquity, we can see how various writings found their place in the collective imagination by arguing, offering an opinion on or defending a particular topic. These texts searched for a certain position, and their authors made use of rhetorical resources such as the stories and histories that were first heard around the tribal fire, to later be integrated into writings that preserved the memories of the community. In the case of the Jewish people, the text that contains an important part of the histories of the past is the Hebrew Bible, and it is not by chance that the rabbis of the time of the Talmud said back then that it was our duty to read and reread the Torah, browsing and searching for values and meaning in its thousand-year-old stories, as “everything can be found within” (Avot 5:25).
The Hebrew Bible is not, as one might think a priori, a monolithic text. Even though we know that several of its books were edited by the same school of thought, the stories and histories we find there do not always share the same opinions or agree on all points. It is in this sense than we can say that the Hebrew Bible is not a book but a great library, with multiple voices and varied perspectives.
So the texts, accounts and histories of past times and those that we tell today are interconnected by a great web, which is not necessarily noticeable at first sight. This intertextuality is what ennobles the biblical text even more as a work of literary art. We are going to talk about some of these webs of meaning below.
Mise en Scène
The wonderful thing about the stories is the possibility that they have of not only projecting certain values or cosmic visions but also of subtly bringing to life a script that does not seek to merely entertain or shock its audience. As García Lorca put it so well, theatre manifests itself through stories that are acted out, the poetry of the book brought to life. What is more: that poetry that comes out of the book is reflected in life not just by the actors but also by the spectators that allow themselves to be caught up to the extent that what they are watching is correlated to some story in their own future.
Esther, a central figure in the festivity of Purim, enters into dialogue not only with King Ahasuerus but also with other biblical stories in general and with the figure of Joseph and the stories about him in particular. Furthermore: there are possibly no two more theatrical stories than those of Esther and Joseph in the whole of the Tanach, and it is well worth us examining some of their fundamental principals, both the similarities in form and the apparent differences in content.
Stage: Diaspora
Purim is the festivity of the Diaspora. It is set in foreign lands under the rule of a Persian king with so much territory that it is impossible to know the diversity of color and customs of the conquered peoples. Esther herself leaves her home, the house of her Uncle Mordecai, to settle in the royal palace in what we could call a diaspora within a diaspora. It would be that particular scene, located on the margins of surrounding society, where Esther would ensure the survival of her people. For his part, the stories of Joseph start in the Promised Land but swiftly shift to Egypt, where the main scenes unfold. It would be there that Joseph would be sold by his brothers, where he would ascend to the position of head slave in the house of Potiphar, where he would fall into the depths of prison and where he would rise again triumphantly as viceroy of the empire. Joseph and Esther would both live in a diaspora within a diaspora, exercising their capacity for leadership as an outsider in the royal palace.
Costume: Unchained from the plot.
No self-respecting theatre play would exist without a good wardrobe to accompany every scene. Or was it not a coat of many colors that first lifted Joseph up from amongst his brothers (Gn. 37:3) and later caused the sons of Jacob to cut off the little dreamer’s fantasies of greatness (37:23)? And it was the same tunic, now soaked in blood, that served to plunge Jacob into a mourning that would last for many years. (37:33-35).
Some time later, it would be Joseph's clothes that would be used as the incriminating proof that would send him to prison on suspicion of adultery (38:12-13). In the same way, his release from prison would be accompanied by a change in clothes (41:14), and lastly, his later Egyptian appearance would mean that even his own brothers could not recognize him (42:8) and that his father Jacob later could not recognize his own grandchildren (48:8).
As for Esther, her book begins with Queen Vashti refusing to attend the banquet of her husband, Ahasuerus. In our context, the Talmud (Megilah 12b) interpreted the verses: “On the seventh day, when the heart of the king was merry with wine, he commanded Mehuman, Biztha, Harbonah, Bigtha, and Abagtha, Zethar, and Carcas, the seven eunuchs who served in the presence of Ahasuerus the king, to bring Vashti the queen before the king with the royal crown, to show the people and the princes her beauty; for she was beautiful to look on” (Esther 1:10-11), to mean that the queen had to attend the banquet wearing nothing more than her crown.
Further on, and not by coincidence, the text details the beautification process undergone by those who aspired to replace Vashti:
“And when every maid’s turn had come to go in to king Ahasuerus, after she had been twelve months, according to the manner of the women, for so were the days of their purifications accomplished, namely six months with oil of myrrh, and six months with sweet perfumes, and with other ointments for women.” (2:12)
Her wardrobe not only took Esther to the throne of the Empire. Clothes are the channel used by the teller to present Mordecai’s mood and that of the rest of the Jewish people when they hear the royal decree (4:1-3), and to show Esther with “her royal dress” presenting herself out of turn to the king (5:1). Lastly it also serves to mark the differences between Haman and Mordecai: while Haman thinks that he is deserving of the best clothes for his exalted position in the Persian government, Ahasuerus awards Mordecai with those clothes in thanks for having exposed the plot of those who wished to kill him (6:6-10).
However, our examination of dress does not end here. Because a deeper reading of the stories reveals that the clothes adopted by Joseph in Egypt and Esther in Shushan hide in some way their own particular Jewishness. In the case of the story of Purim, the text mentions it explicitly:
“Esther had not declared her people nor her country; for Mordecai had charged her that she should not tell.” (2:10)
Abraham ibn Ezra commented on this verse:
“Esther hid her origin in order to be able to obey the precepts in secret, as if they had known that she was a Jew, they would have obliged her to transgress them.”
Esther hides in order to do her duty. She veils so as not to renounce. From this we can understand the name of Esther – coming from the Hebrew root of the word for ‘secret’ – as that which hides to maintain its identity, and ensures at the same time not only personal continuity but also that of the whole people.
On his part, Joseph also hides before his brothers, but he is called “Tzofnat Paneach”by the Pharaoh, a title that Rashi understood – based on the tradition of Onkelos – as “that which reveals what is hidden.” He who called his firstborn Manasseh, because he said “G-d has made me forget all my toil, and all my father’s house” (Gn. 41:51) will also be he who makes possible the establishment and subsequent salvation of that same forgotten family with all the benefits of local royalty.
In conclusion, we can affirm that only in the creative adaptation to challenging circumstances were Joseph and Esther able to save the people from misfortune. If they had conformed to a static and monolithic vision of their identity, it is possible that our tradition would have died out a long time ago.
Characters: Kings and kings
Although there are many characters in both stories, here we will only say a few words in relation to the position occupied by kings in our stories. Both stories present great imperial kings who share absolute remoteness from the exercise of power. Neither of them rule, but rather are ruled over by various forces to which they offer no resistance whatsoever. We read in the Book of Esther:
“And the king took his ring from his hand, and gave it to Haman the son of Hammedatha the Agagite, the Jews’ enemy. And the king said to Haman, The silver is given to you, the people also, to do with them as it seems good to you.’” (3:10-11)
In the case of Joseph, the Book of Genesis tells us:
“And Pharaoh took off his ring from his hand, and put it upon Joseph’s hand, and arrayed him in cloaks of fine linen, and put a gold chain about his neck; And he made him to ride in his second chariot; and they cried before him, Bow the knee; and he made him ruler over all the land of Egypt. And Pharaoh said to Joseph, I am Pharaoh, and without you shall no man lift up his hand or foot in all the land of Egypt.” (41:42-44)
Thus we see that although the kings had nominal rule, others determined the actions of the government. Nevertheless, while Joseph’s actions served to save his brothers from hunger and poverty, Haman puts the survival of the Jewish people at risk. And it is for this reason that Esther and Mordecai had to act to stop that from happening, leaving them responsible for the destiny of both the Jewish people and the Persian empire at the end of the story:
“And the king took off his ring, which he had taken from Haman, and gave it to Mordecai. And Esther set Mordecai over the house of Haman.” (Esther 8:2 )
It is impossible not to relate the descriptions of such dysfunctional kings with the presence – whether it is made explicit or not – of Go-d. The king of the universe is he who makes earthly governments seem small, and according to what is shown in the story of Esther and Joseph, is the being ultimately responsible for the happy ending of both stories.
Even so, there is an obvious difference in the way each story deals with the topic. While Joseph affirms that it is G-d who resolves the pharaoh’s mysterious dreams (Gn. 41:16), and partly exonerates his brothers for the sale that made his arrival into Egypt possible, giving us to understand that it was part of the Divine plan (45:5), in the book of Esther, G-d is not mentioned at all. While the theology of Genesis still permits the presence of a G-d that openly manifests himself on the historical stage, during the Persian era G-d appears behind a backdrop, pulling the threads of the plot almost imperceptibly. Esther, in this case, is not only the name of somebody who hides their identity to save the people, but refers at the same time to a G-d who, although hidden, does not refrain from intervening and taking part in the destiny of humankind. It is this G-d, this king, who inevitably eclipses both the pharaoh and Ahasuerus.
Meta-message or moral: determinism or free will
As there are so many connections and points of convergence between Joseph and Esther, there is significance in the fact that, at first sight, the meta-messages of both stories seem to be contradictory: while the stories of Joseph reveal not only an explicit G-d but also a theology of determinism, the book of Esther veils G-d and laughs at destiny.
Decoded in this way, the book of Esther can be understood as a profound critique of the idea that the world is bound by fate and that there is no escape from this. Moreover: the paradoxical (or rather burlesque) theme is that the festivity of Purim receives its name from the word Pur, and returns us to the moment when Haman decided the date upon which the Jews of the kingdom would be annihilated:
“In the first month, that is, the month Nisan, in the twelfth year of king Ahasuerus, they cast Pur, that is, the lot, before Haman from day to day, and from month to month, to the twelfth month, that is, the month Adar.” (Esther 3:7)
The irony is clear: Haman draws lots to decide the destiny of the Jewish people but so ill-fatedly that when he carries out this ritual in the first month, destiny has it that the Jews must be exterminated only twelve months later.
In the same way, we could say that faced with the destiny that points to Haman as the assassin, the story ends up hanging him by his own noose; and faced with the destiny that points to the disappearance of Mordecai and his people, it is the anti-Semites who fall into the hands of the Jews…..on the same day that the Jews are to be annihilated.
The moral of the book of Esther is a call to action itself, that which marks step by step the destiny which is always built in the continuous present. Nothing is pre-determined and what occurs in our daily lives will always depend on many factors, but mainly on the decisions that we know to make day by day.
On the other hand, the story of Joseph seems to be a hymn to determinism. As we noted earlier, Joseph realizes that his sale to the foreign caravan and his descent into prison were no more than the steps necessary to reach the influential circle of the government of the most important empire of the time. And all to guarantee the salvation of his family, of which he would be the tool, but G-d the artifice.
What should we do in the face of the apparent dichotomy between the messages of the stories? One possibility is to maintain the difference, and consider the plurality of voices and visions that co-exist within the biblical text. That is what we have done in explaining the tension between Esdras and Ruth, and we could stay on that same path in the case of Esther and Joseph
But in that case I think it is important that we think about alternatives that reconcile the positions taken up by the texts. And this is owed to the fact that – unlike many other themes – where the inherent tension between determinism and free will is concerned, the problematic philosophy is deeply complicated and I believe that the texts, in their two different meta-messages, take that difficulty into account.
A well known rabbinical phrase maintains that: “Everything is foreseen and freedom of choice is granted” (Avot 3:15). On this point, Maimonides observed in his Commentary on the Mishnah that “this phrase contains great things and it is no coincidence that it was said by Rabbi Akiva.” Neverthless, the phrase is still apparently contradictory: either everything is foreseen, as the stories of Joseph tell us, or we have the possibility of choosing our path, as the story of Purim, teaches. So which is the correct answer? At least as far as I am concerned, the correct answer is: both. And permit me to this end to cite a principle that rules in the world of physics and that might help us get to the bottom of what is occuring here: the indeterminable determined. In accordance with this proposal, it is possible that everything refers to a great many causes and consequences, making everything theoretically determined. But even so, if we don’t count all the necessary details of our present to scientifically establish the future which will inevitably unfold, that future will remain undetermined forever, and the only way to unfold it is through the decisions we make as we go along. In this way, and always a posteriori, Joseph finds meaning and maintains that it was G-d – and not his brothers – who conceived his arrival in Egypt. And even so, this does not excuse his brothers from responsiblity for the terrible way that they behaved.
In conclusion, the moral of the stories of Esther and Joseph is also united on this point. The stories do not only deal with similar structures in terms of scenes, characters and wardrobe. They also meet and grow stronger in their internal poetry, in this last message which comes out of the books to become reality in our daily lives, always summoning us in the continuous present to be the artifices and the artisans of our own existences.