Esther and the Rabbis of Sasanian Babylonia
Esther - Kristin Joachimsen
Cecilia Haendler [+]
Alexander Marcus [+]
Franklin & Marshall College
Description
This chapter explores the role of the Esther Scroll, and the character of Esther, among rabbinic Jewish communities in Sasanian Babylonia during the foundational era in which the Babylonian Talmud was produced. We demonstrate that the figure of Esther and the biblical text bearing her name were of special significance for the Babylonian rabbis. These communities traced their history to the Babylonian Exile a millennium prior, and to those Jews who remained in their exilic homes in the Mesopotamian heartland of the Achaemenid Empire during the subsequent Hellenistic, Parthian, and Sasanian periods. The story of Esther’s diasporic triumph over Haman was thus a foundational tale for Babylonian rabbinic Jewry, with both Esther and Mordecai imagined as proto-rabbis. We demonstrate how Babylonian depictions of Esther in particular, as a markedly female heroine, along with prior Palestinian motifs regarding the meaning of exile, were mobilized to construct a distinctive sense of Babylonian rabbinic self-understanding. We argue that the Babylonian rabbis identified with Esther as quintessentially rabbinic. They juxtaposed their shared diasporic dynamics with metaphors of femininity in their retelling of her narrative. This served to reinforce their own centrality within communal Jewish life and within the longue durée of Jewish history.