The Vashti-Esther Dilemma

The story of Esther, which we will read Thursday night on the festival of Purim, is a narrative as layered and thought-provoking as it is dramatic and triumphant. For children, Esther is a fairy tale – a story of kings, queens, fools, beauty contests, and the foiled plans of a dastardly villain. For some readers, the story represents the Bible’s proto-feminist voice, with Esther saving her people from within Persia’s patriarchy. For others, the tale is a theological meditation – the absence of God’s name prompting one to consider the line between human agency and divine providence. For still others, Esther is a manual for Jewish survival in exile, diaspora resilience, the fight against antisemitism, vulnerability, and self-assertion, a blueprint for our post-October 7th world. (There is a book to that effect, For Such a Time as This.) Satire, psychological drama, fiction, history, social commentary – there are as many interpretations as there are fillings for the hamantaschen we will eat in the next few days.

Like a royal diadem refracting light in infinite directions, every interpretation illuminates. Yet, given its setting in the court of King Ahasuerus, the political dimensions of the book of Esther are unavoidable. It is a story of palace intrigue, strategy and survival, and proximity to power, with Mordechai and Esther outmaneuvering Haman in a game of court politics. It is a tale that exposes the dangers of despotism, the ripple effects of a mercurial king’s impulsive decrees, and the realpolitik of navigating power within an autocratic system.

If the text of Esther carries a not-so-subtle political subtext, then, as in any great work of literature, its central characters embody different approaches to navigating such a world. The protagonists represent a range of tactical choices – how to engage with power, manage vulnerability, balance loyalty and integrity, and weigh self-interest against survival. This morning, I focus on the two primary women of the Esther story (with a nod to a third), as they represent distinct points on a continuum of leadership as to how to negotiate the delicate balance between principle and pragmatism, both in their time and our own.

Our first leadership model comes in the first chapter in the person of Queen Vashti. The king provides a feast for all his ministers and courtiers, extravagant in its wealth, wine, and wantonness. Vashti is summoned to present herself wearing her royal diadem, and she refuses to appear. The reasons for her refusal are never made explicit; we can only deduce that her defiance was born of unflinching adherence to principle. There was something so noxious about Ahasuerus’s summons that acceding to it would either compromise her moral core or be understood as legitimizing a debased court. Vashti’s principled stand comes at a steep price. She keeps her integrity but loses her crown and perhaps even her life, exiting the stage and story to be remembered only by future generations. As the great women’s suffragist Elizabeth Cady Stanton wrote, “Rising to the heights of self-consciousness and self-respect, [Vashti] takes her soul into her own keeping, and though her position as wife and as queen are jeopardized, she is true to her Divine aspirations of her nature.” (The Woman’s Bible, 1895).

Our second leadership model is, of course, Queen Esther. If Vashti’s exit from the royal court came through her refusal to reveal, Esther’s entrance comes through her willingness to conceal. Her very name – Esther – derives from the Hebrew root meaning “to hide.” She suppresses her Jewish identity in order to gain access to the royal court. Ancient and modern commentators alike wrestle with Esther’s moral compromises: hiding her Jewishness, marrying a non-Jewish king, and complying with the very patriarchy Vashti defied. Whatever her gains, the reader cannot ignore how much she compromised in the process. We have our qualms, but in retrospect, thank goodness Esther did what she did! Are we not all relieved that she remained in the king’s harem? After all, when the hammer of Haman’s evil designs was about to fall, it was Esther’s proximity to power that enabled her to defend her people. The point is not merely that Esther saved the Jews. The point is that Esther was only able to save the Jews because she was stationed in the royal court. Contrary to Vashti, Esther’s heroism came by way of her willingness to function in a deeply imperfect context, to compromise and be complicit in the system, so that when it mattered most, she could assert her power for noble purpose.

Vashti and Esther. Two exemplary heroines – for women, for men, for all of us. Two leadership ideals, very different – if not diametrically opposed – approaches, each one worthy of study, remembrance, and emulation. If measured by how we dress our daughters on Purim, Esther clearly has the edge. By the metric of recent feminist literature, Vashti’s stock is on the rise, getting the nod for her bold refusal and principled stance. And yet Vashti’s role is a cameo: she exits the stage, and the news cycle moves on. Vashti’s refusal is remembered more as a statement of conscience than anything else. Nor, for that matter, are Esther’s choices straightforward. The leveraging of her sexuality, the compromises she makes – for all of Esther’s heroism, her choice of bedfellows is, literally and figuratively, problematic. Esther’s legacy, deservedly celebrated, is not without its complications.

When it comes to applying these paradigms of leadership to our own lives, the complexities remain just as daunting. We, too, live in a time that defies simple truths and clean alliances. We, too, wrestle with how best to deploy our limited but valuable political and personal capital. Whatever our ideological leanings may be, I would venture that many of us feel caught betwixt and between our political homes, aligned on some issues, at odds on others.

The Vashti-Esther dilemma speaks directly to us. Is this a time to stand firm or to compromise? To think short-term or long-term? Setting aside our internal debates over what the best interest of the Jewish people may be, how do we balance this self-interest with our other values? To put it plainly, if the return of the hostages and the security of Israel and the Jewish people is our paramount concern, then what becomes of the hundred other issues that also matter to us? Shall the rest of our value system be compromised, and if so, at what point have we betrayed the core of our being or enabled – or appeared to enable – people and positions that contradict our deeply held principles? I often return to philosopher Avishai Margalit’s colorful framing of the question: Is it a cockroach in the soup or a fly in the ointment? A cockroach spoils the entire soup. A fly in the ointment, though distasteful, only partially taints it. Vashti refused to sip the soup. Esther applied the ointment. Where do we stand? What will we do?

This dilemma, like all such dilemmas, is not easy to resolve. There are members of the community with whom I have spoken, who, like Vashti, would not and will not engage with the past administration or the present one for fear that in doing so their presence will be – or will be perceived to be – legitimizing that leadership. “We cannot,” as Audre Lorde wrote, “dismantle the master’s house with the master’s tools.” Genuine change only comes by asserting one’s conscience, not merely tweaking existing power structures. “Be careful,” the saying goes, “when shaking hands with the Devil – you may legitimize his power.” The stance is a principled one, even heroic, the refusal to compromise and the critique of those who deign to do so.

So too, there are members of the community with whom I have spoken, who, like Esther, insist on engaging with the administration – past or present– regardless of what their overall judgment of it may be. This is, they claim, the nature of politics, setting aside differences in order to work together on issues of common cause. It may not have been the administration one wanted, but it is the administration one has, and the Jewish people don’t have the luxury of moral absolutes or the option of sitting out a round. In the words of Hyman Roth of “Godfather” fame, “It’s not personal, its business.” It is more important to be in the room where it happens than out. As the saying goes, “If you are not sitting at the table, then they will eat you for lunch.” I am reminded of Churchill’s defense of his 1941 Anglo-Soviet alliance with Stalin again Hitler. “I have only one purpose, the destruction of Hitler. . . . If Hitler invaded Hell, I would make at least a favourable reference to the Devil in the House of Commons.” The stance is a principled one, even heroic: setting aside of differences in service of a greater purpose.

I can do this all day, going back and forth. Both positions are defensible, both stances subject to critique. People I know and respect refuse to sit on panels with certain people for fear their presence legitimizes that person, and people I know and respect insist that we must do so. People who refuse to teach on certain campuses and those who insist on doing so. People who refuse to clap at any point in a State of the Union address and people who will do so. And because both sides have a leg to stand on, one must be careful not to assign ill will if someone makes a different choice than you do. We are living in a radioactive political environment, where the stakes are high and politics have taken on the fervor of religious orthodoxy. We would do well to remember that while we need not agree with everyone, we must affirm everyone’s right to express their views and make their choices. Above all, we must reject ad hominem attacks and the assumption of bad faith simply because someone believes and behaves differently than we do as to how to secure the well-being of our people.

As for me, given the choices – if anyone cares to know and if there is any doubt – I guess I identify more with Esther’s pragmatism than with Vashti’s defiance. It is why, when I was invited to represent our community at the dedication of the Embassy in Jerusalem under President Trump, I went. It is why, when I was invited to light Hanukkah candles at the White House under President Biden, I went. It is why the democratically elected officials of one party are just as welcome in this sanctuary as those of the other party. Business is business. I am in the business of defending the interests of the Jewish people, and I believe I can do so better – not to mention moving the needle on other issues – when I am in the room than out of the room. There may come a time when a room becomes so noxious that it becomes morally uninhabitable. There may be a time when one must acknowledge that one’s presence lacks sufficient influence to be meaningful or that one’s presence or pulpit is merely being used to launder the shortcomings of others. There is a third woman in the Esther story, Haman’s wife Zeresh, who represents an uncritical embrace of power, advocating for its maximization without ethical restraint, a sin to which we must never fall prey. The choice to lead like Esther is not an easy one. It requires constant self-auditing and ongoing recalibration. It means being brutally honest with oneself as to whether one’s presence helps or hurts the cause of one’s people. It is cleaner to live like Vashti; the attacks come once and from one side. Living like Esther means being subjected to critique from both sides every step of the way. It is not easy, but as you may have noticed, I won’t have it any other way.

Ours is not a simple time – we are all finding our way. For lack of easy answers, we take comfort in the knowledge that we are not the first to be so tested. David Ben Gurion, when the Jewish community in then Palestine had to balance their support for Britain against Nazi Germany and, at the same time, resist the British White paper restrictions on immigration, famously said, “We shall fight the war as if there were no White Paper, and we shall fight the White Paper as if there were no war.” The challenge then, the challenge now is whether we can we hold multiple and sometimes contradictory ideas and ideals at one and the same time in service of the defense of our people and not tear each other apart in the process. Only time will tell. May we, like Esther, rise up to the leadership challenge of our time.

Churchill, Winston. The Grand Alliance. (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1950).

Lorde, Audre. “The Master's Tools Will Never Dismantle the Master's House.” In Sister Outsider: Essays and Speeches. (Berkeley, California: The Crossing Press, 1984).

Margalit, Avishai. On Compromise and Rotten Compromises. (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2009).

Stanton, Elizabeth Cady, et. al. The Women’s Bible. (1895).