Erev erev Purim,
And its all about queens and ladies and women in the margins
and at the center
And women again, and slaves, and the little guy, the
criminals, the freaks and dreamers, and the great rabbis and poets too,
reorienting periphery and center, all happening at Stern College
In my Inquisition course we read a tightly conceived essay
by Emily Colbert Cairns about the figure of Esther among the conversos; with my
course on Jewish Travelers we read about women in the Geniza through the
letters between women and their husbands, sons, brothers, business partners and
rabbis. I did not plan to have these two gender-heavy classes on the same date
but I enjoyed the synergy between both classes and I hope to tap some of that
energy in this brief post.
Lope de Vega, the most prolific, popular and accomplished
dramatist of the Spanish Golden Age put on a play inspired by the story of the
Biblical Esther in Madrid in 1610, La hermosa
Ester. Emily Colbert Cairns led us through the transformation of the Jewish
heroine from a quiet, obedient and objectified woman, conforming to the ideals
of femininity put forth by the great ethicists of the day- Luis Vives and Luis
de León (yes they are both well known conversos! But what of it?) – into a
heroine who courageously upturns the social order, dares to speak up, reveals
her Judaism and saves her people.
The basic Christological reading of the Book of Esther sees
the Hebrew queen as a victorious Mary crushing the temptation of the satanic
Haman. See the resplendent Virgin Mother crushing the serpent underfoot in this
panting by Tiepolo:
Or in this not too subtle detail from a fleshy statue:
Surely much of Lope’s audience saw that standard narrative
unfold in his play, but could they have missed the dangerous identity games at
the heart of the story, the need for secrecy and the subversive assertion of
Jewish identity at a moment where Spain’s Jews have been long converted or expelled,
where just a year earlier the Moriscos were expelled from Aragón and Valencia,
where blood purity statutes were still the norm? Lope de Vega himself was a
“familiar” of the Inquisition, a lay spy in service of the Holy Office. In
general it is hard to describe Lope as a radical playwright and yet his art in
this instance gives voice to a polyvocal celebration of the many Spains- the deeply Catholic, the
Triumphant Global Empire as well as the multi-cultural substratum that pulses
under everything from flamenco guitar to paella.
The essay counterposes the Canonical Ester as reworked in
its early modern Spanish cast with the Esther of the Marranos, the underground
Esther, specifically with her image and allure within the intense religiosity
of Isabel de Carvajal as recorded in her Inquisitorial trial. Colbert weaves
diverse practices together to show how Isabel and her wider circle of conversa
women in Mexico used the model of Esther, the pious, prayerful and heroic woman
in their own secret religious life.[3]
A student commented that she was happy to be reminded of the
centrality of Esther as the heroine of the story because for her the holiday is
so male-focused? I foolishly responded with surprise- how is Purim a man’s
holiday? After all woman are obligated in the mitzvoth of the day- “Af Hem Hayu
be Oto Ha Nes”! “In my house my father and my brothers exchange divrei torah
and drink at the table while the women serve them” I am still shaken by this
image which should not surprise me. I
hope Isabel de Carvajal and Vega’s La
Hermosa Ester can offer an alternative path to an empowered and energizing
Purim!
In my course on Jewish travellers we read a variety of
sources such as the rather fantastical text of Eldad HaDani, the short, dark
skinned member of the tribe of Dan who wends his way to Tunis in the 9th
century and regaled his fellow Israelites with tales of his fierce and free
fellow tribesmen living beyond the Sambatyon river to the more fact heavy
account of Benjamin of Tudela who
described his journey from Northern Spain to the Middle East. We also took some
generic detours. We spent two wonderful classes on Yehuda HaLevi’s poems about
his dreams of pilgrimage and his actual journey to the land of Israel.
Yesterday we used Joel Kraemer’s engaging and comprehensive essay “Women Speak for themselves”” to rescue the voices of
travellers and those they left behind as traced in the letters of the Cairo Geniza.
It is hard to really appreciate the intellectual, psychic and cultural loss
Jewish Mediterranean society incurred by deciding to not educate their
daughters. For the most part Jewish women were illiterate while most men were
not. (I pointed out that the situation was not the same in Ashkenaz where women
worked along side their husbands and had to keep business records and thus
could read and write. This also carried over to a concern for religious literacy.)The
letters we have from women and to women were always mediated by a scribe and a
reader- they could dictate and be read to and thus it is a small miracle to
find expressions of intimacy in these exchanges between husbands and wives. A
merchant far from home writes his wife: “the most difficult thing for me is
every Friday night when I light the candle and put it on whatever table God
provides, then think of you. God only knows what comes over me”
The texts are brimming with psychological and social details
that bring the day to day life of the past into relief: mothers complaining
about their sons' neglect –“you never write”, women seeking the aid of great
rabbis to protect them from deadbeat or abusive husbands; passive-aggressive
litanies of sacrifices made for the other, the challenges of medieval travel-
pirates, storms, bad food, boredom.
I asked the students why I would have chosen this collection
of texts for a class on travel? A sharp-witted student in the back quipped- “So
we don’t feel left out?” It got a laugh and it opened up a good discussion. I
was asking about how these letters fit into the genre of travel literature but
she picked up on the more overt reality of a class of bright women reading
about their past and not hearing of a single woman until today.
We talked about the treasure that is the Geniza and the way
it allows us to find out about the everyday lives of so many of the people of
the past that we would never have the faintest trace of without this bizarre
and miraculous collection.
The Geniza gives us access to the details of the lives of
the little people- not only the “Great Men” of history- the scholars, the
leaders, the heroic scoundrels and false messiahs. We see what type of business
contracts people made, their shopping lists and account books, and of course
their letters! We can even capture some of their unadorned, colloquial voices
as recorded without the artifice of refined pens. The study of women’s
history is not just about women, just like the study of Jewish history is not
just about Jews; whenever we engage the periphery, the center comes into better
focus, all things are interconnected. I did not choose Kraemer’s article
because I was teaching at Stern; I chose it because I want us to get as much of
the picture as we can and I think the best way to do that is to enrich and
complicate and decenter our narratives. In this dynamic reordering we can
rethink our assumptions and see more clearly.
And on that note, Purim Alegre! May we tap into the sea of
clarity and confusion that is this carnival we call life.
[2] https://www.museodelprado.es/en/the-collection/art-work/the-immaculate-conception/8da40987-dd6b-4bb3-ab0e-4210ecb6495e?searchid=8f65637c-cebb-11b8-25f0-f200066f6046
[3]
See Emily Colbert’s new book: Esther in
Early Modern Iberia and the Sephardic Diaspora: Queen of the Conversas https://www.palgrave.com/us/book/9783319578668
