Did Ahashveirosh Have Short Hands? Sexual Insecurities in Megillat Esther and its Midrashim

[On Esth. 1:1}

“Who reigned” (Esther 1:1). Rav said: He reigned on his own, [without having inherited the throne]. Some say this to his credit, and some say it to his disgrace. Some say this to his credit, that there was no other man as fit as him to be king. And some say it to his disgrace, that he was not fit to be king, but he distributed large amounts of money, and in that way rose to the throne.

[On Esth. 1:2-3]

“In those days when the king sat [on the throne of his kingdom]” (Esth. 1:2); and afterward it is written: “In the third year of his reign” (Esth. 1:3). Rava said: [There is no contradiction.] What is “when he sat” [keshevet]? After his mind was settled [shenityasheva], and he overcame his anxiety and worry with regard to the redemption of the Jewish people. He said: Belshazzar calculated and erred with regard to the Jewish people’s redemption. I too will calculate, but I will not err.

[On Esth. 1:3-5]

“And when these days were fulfilled, [the king made a feast for all the people that were present in Shushan the capital]” (Esther 1:5). Rav and Shmuel: one said: he was a clever king, and one said: he was a foolish king. The one who said he was a clever king maintains that he acted well when he first brought close those distant as he could appease the residents of his city whenever he wished. And the one who said he was foolish maintains that he should have invited the residents of his city first, so that if those [faraway subjects} rebelled against him, these would have stood with him.

Rabbi Shmuel bar Naḥmani introduced this passage with an introduction from here: “Instead of the thorn shall the cypress come up, and instead of the nettle shall the myrtle come up; (Isa. 55:13). ... “And instead of the nettle [sirpad],” -- instead of the wicked Vashti, the daughter of the son of the wicked Nebuchadnezzar, who burned the ceiling [saraf refidat] of the House of God, as it is written: “Its top [refidato] of gold” (Song 3:10).

[On Esth. 1:12]

“Therefore the king was very wrathful, [and his anger burned in him]” (Esth. 1:12). Why did his anger burn in him so greatly? Rava said: she sent him a message: You, son of my father’s stableman [ahuriyyarei]. My father, drank wine against a thousand men and did not become inebriated, [see Dan. 5:1: “Belshazzar the king made a great feast to a thousand of his lords, and drank wine before the thousand”} and that man, [Ahasuerus] has become senseless from his wine. Immediately “his anger burned in him” (Esth. 1:12).

So too, at the feast of that wicked man, Ahasuerus, some men said: The Median women are beautiful, while others said: The Persian women are beautiful. Ahasuerus said to them: The vessel that I use is neither Median nor Persian, but Chaldean. Do you wish to see her?

R' Shimon said, the practice of the Medean kings was that, when they ate and drank, they brought their wives, with their genitalia exposed, to play and dance, to see the beauty of their figures. And when the wine went to Ahashveirosh's head, he proposed to do the same with Queen Vashti. But she was the daughter of kings, and he asked that she come before him naked. But she sent word to him: You foolish and drunken man! If I come before you naked, and they see me exposed, they will scorn you at your own table. And if they see that I am indeed beautiful, one of the courtiers will kill you at the time of the wine. When the king heard her words, he ordered that she be killed.

[On Esth. 1:9.]

“Also Vashti the queen made a feast for the women, in the royal house, (Esther 1:9). It should have said, the women’s house. Rava said: The two of them had sinful intentions. This explains the folk saying that people say: He with large pumpkins and his wife with small pumpkins.

With small pumpkins: Small squash. Meaning to say, with the same exact variety, he commits adultery and she commits adultery. He wants to show her beauty and she intended that [as well] - that they gaze at her beauty.

The royal house. It should have said the women's house, etc. The women's house was a private place, where men did not normally go. But she made a feast in the royal house, a place where the king was, and where men normally went, in order to show her beauty. She intended to sin, as Rashi says.

(1) Some time afterward, when the anger of King Ahasuerus subsided, he thought of Vashti and what she had done and what had been decreed against her.

And it was so when the king saw Esther the queen. R' Yohanan said: Three ministering angels were appointed to help her at that moment; one to make her head erect, a second to endow her with charm and a third to stretch the golden sceptre. How much [was it stretched]? — R' Yirmiah said: It was two cubits long and he made it twelve cubits — Some say, sixteen, and some again twenty-four. In a Baraitha it was stated, sixty.... Rabbah bar ‘Ofran said in the name of R' Elazar who had it from his teacher, who had it from his teacher, [that the sceptre was stretched] two hundred [cubits].

[On Esth. 5:4]

"Let the king and Haman come this day to the banquet." The Sages taught: What did Esther see to invite Haman? ... As it is taught: Rabbi Eliezer HaModa’i says: She made the king jealous of him and she made the ministers jealous of him.

[On Esth. 6:1]

A thought occurred to him and he said to himself: What is this before us that Esther has invited Haman? Perhaps they are conspiring against that man [i.e., against me], to kill him. He said again: If this is so, is there no man who loves me and would inform me? He said again: Perhaps there is some man who has done a favor for me and I have not rewarded him, and due to that, people refrain from revealing to me. Immediately: “And he commanded the book of remembrances of the chronicles to be brought” (Esther 6:1).

(8) And you may further write with regard to the Jews as you see fit. [Write it] in the king’s name and seal it with the king’s signet, for an edict that has been written in the king’s name and sealed with the king’s signet may not be revoked.”