Earning Your Name: A Purim Meditation
By Andrea Most
“Do not imagine that you…will escape with your life by being in the king’s palace… Who knows, perhaps you have attained to royal position for just such a crisis.” [Esther 4:13-14]
“We earn our name by what we bring back from the Underworld” -- Martin Shaw
In Jewish tradition, children are named for relatives who have passed on. Among assimilated American Jews, children are given two names: an English name for secular purposes and a Hebrew name reserved for ritual – births, bat mitzvahs, weddings, honors given in the synagogue.
I’ve always been especially proud of my Hebrew name, Esther Malka, which in English means “Queen Esther.” Esther is the heroine of the Purim story, a dramatic tale of palace intrigue.
In ancient Persia, the story goes, a king throws a feast. He calls for the queen to dance naked for his drunken friends. She refuses and he banishes her. His servants scour the land for virgins to audition for the role of new queen. They discover Hadassah, a beautiful Jewish orphan, and take her into the king’s harem. Her uncle and guardian Mordecai warns her to keep her identity secret so she uses only her Persian name, Esther (which means “hidden”). The king falls in love with Esther and she becomes queen.
Around this time, Mordecai slights the king’s evil advisor, Haman, refusing to bow down to him. Haman takes his revenge by convincing the king to decree that all the Jews in the kingdom should be killed. Mordecai sends an urgent message to Esther that she must speak to the king and save her people. The task is fraught with danger. The law says no one – even the queen -- may approach the king, on pain of death, unless they have been explicitly invited; The king must offer his scepter to the supplicant. Esther hatches a clever plot, dolls herself up, risks the king’s wrath, passes the test, receives the scepter and speaks truth to power, revealing Haman’s evil plot and saving her people from destruction.
In the late winter, when Spring is just peeking over the horizon, Jews recall this miraculous near miss with feasting and drinking, costume parties, dramatic re-enactments and beauty pageants, which evoke the parade of virgins before the king. (No joke. We were still doing this in my family’s synagogue in the 1980s.).
Needless to say, this was my time to shine. I dressed as Queen Esther every year for the Purim carnival. So did all the other girls. But I haughtily informed my friends that while they might impersonate Queen Esther, I really was Queen Esther, that was my actual name.
As I mentioned in my last post, a few years ago I began training in the 19 Ways. In our classes, there is much discussion of offerings and ancestors. I felt bereft. I had no relationship with my ancestors. I didn’t know what offerings to give, or to whom.
I asked my mother for more details about my ancestral namesakes. Who were they? What stories did they carry? But aside from their names – Ette (Esther) on her side; Milly (Malka) on my father’s – she knew little.
Why did they decide to name me Queen Esther? It seemed like a pretty weighty choice for a newborn girl. Actually, my mother replied, it was an accident. The significance of the combination of names didn’t even occur to them at the time. They were just following protocol, honoring the most recently departed ancestors on each side of the family.
[Although as I grew older, she added, they felt the name “seemed to fit” because I always “loved the spotlight”. This was not meant as a compliment.]
When Mordecai asks Esther to intervene with the King, to save her people, at first she refuses, explaining that she can’t, that the king will kill her if she approaches the throne without permission. Mordecai replies: And what do you think will happen to you if don’t speak out? You are not immune from the fate of your people. It may be that you have been sent into the palace for just this purpose. You must speak.
Esther considers, and decides to place herself in the hands of Spirit. She sends this message to Mordecai: “Go, assemble all the Jews who live in Shushan, and fast on my behalf; do not eat or drink for three days, night or day. I and my maidens will observe the same fast. Then I shall go to the king, though it is contrary to the law; and if I am to perish, I shall perish!” [Esther 4.16] A fast day just before Purim commemorates the three days Esther spends deep in the bowels of the palace, preparing to approach the King.
For years I have been entranced by the story of Persephone and her journey to the Underworld and back. I was fascinated to discover that Esther, too, travels into a dark place before emerging prepared to speak her truth. A little research reveals: Esther is a cognate for Ishtar, the ancient Babylonian goddess (sometimes known as Inanna), who also makes a perilous 3-day trip to the Underworld.
I have come to know that place. The Underworld. Been there a few times, just clawing my way out of it again now. One of my favorite storytellers, Martin Shaw, wrote in “Navigating the Mysteries” that “we earn our name by what we bring back from the Underworld… the place where you broke bread with Baba Yaga, made peace with limit, were fed small scraps of meat by crows when you needed it the most…the deep dip in a myth, the descent, the mischievous.”
This Purim, I am emptying out my carrier bag and examining what I’ve brought back from my journey down below. What talismans have I found that will offer protection? What beautiful gown might I adorn myself in as I face the king? What stories will give me the strength to speak? What do I need to bear witness to so that I may earn my name?
The unpacking is solitary work. But the storytelling needs to happen in community. Come sit by the fire with us as winter melts into spring. We have tales to tell.