QUEERKEIT▽COVEN

e.g., Ruth/Naomi, David/Jonathan, etc.

Now that it’s the month of Adar, Purim is coming up in less than two weeks! The book of Esther has one of my favourite verses in the whole TaNaKh:

“And who knows — perhaps it was for a moment like this that you became a queen?”

Let me try to explain why I love this verse so much. The book of Esther is the only book in the Bible where the name of G!d does not appear even once. The story is entirely driven by humans, their actions, and their choices. The Jews in Persia face annihilation under the decree of the wicked Haman (boo) and Esther has to make the difficult choice of risking her life in order to try to save her people. This moment in the story (4:14), pretty much right in the middle, is the turning point. Esther makes her decision, reverses the trajectory of destruction, saves the Jewish people… and the rest is history.

But at this moment she doesn’t know that! She decides to step forward and change the course of the narrative, not knowing whether she would survive. “If I perish,” she says, “I perish.” It is that attitude of courage, I think, that carries us through a world where we don’t know if we will manage to save the day — but we do know that if we don’t step forward, no-one else will. This verse is my mantra: “perhaps it was for THIS moment that I became a queen!” Maybe this is the moment that I have been waiting for.

As a queer Jew, there is something especially empowering about the language of ‘queen-ness’. That while we all may wear a variety of masks and disguises in our day-to-day, we are, in fact, royalty. We are queens! A term that I have chosen to wear with pride. And maybe there’s a purpose — maybe I have become a queen just in order to reach this moment. That my life has given me the tools to prepare me, precisely for a moment like this.

“And who knows — perhaps it was for a moment like this that you became a queen?”

Happy Adar!

Calligraphy by me — see more at my website!

queerkeitcoven:

Yes! I love the Tsene-Rene. As Adam Kirsch writes, it’s an important source for all kinds of Yiddish folklore, from the shamir and Abraham’s magic sword to avoiding the Evil Eye and the Angel of Death. It’s available in English, but in an Artscroll translation, so I can’t vouch for its accuracy or scholarly value. Here’s a little taste of its style, from the beginning of Genesis:

אין ערשטין בשעפינעש פון הימל און ערד איז גיווען די ערד וויסט און לער און דר כסא הכבוד פון גוט האט גישוועבט אין דער לופטין איבער דעם וואשער… ווייל די תורה האט דא גיוויזין אויף דעם בית המקדש דרום ווייזט זיא אונז אויך וויא דר בית המקדש וועט חרוב ווערין. דרום זאגט ער והארץ היתה תוהו ובוהו, די ערד וועט זיין פאר ווישט דען די שכינה וועט זיך אין חורבן אפ טאן. און דרום זאגט ער ורוח א—להים מרחפת על פני המים, דאש ווינט אונז אפילו ווען מיר וועלן שוין זיין אין גלות וועט דאך דיא תורה פון אונז ניט ווערן אפ גיטאן. און דרום זאגט ער אויך .ויאמר א—להים יהי אור, דאש ווייזט אונז אז נאך דעם גלות וועט אונז הקבה ליכטיג מאכין און וועט אונז שיקין משיח דען עש שטייט בייא אים קומי אורי כי בא אורך דאש איז טייטש שטייא אויף און דר לייכט אונז דען ליכט איז געקומען.

“In the beginning of the creation of heaven and earth, the earth was desolate and empty, and the Throne of the Glory of G!d floated in the air above the water… Because the Torah speaks of the Temple, it also tells us how the Temple will be destroyed. Thus it says, the earth was desolate and empty. The earth will be desolate, and then the Shekhina will turn from us in the hurban [destruction]. Thus it says, and the spirit of G!d hovered over the waters. This wind [is] for us; even if we want to be in golus [exile], it will not turn the Torah away from us. And thus it says also, and G!d said, let there be light. This shows us that after the golus, the Holy Blessed One will make us radiant and will send us moshiakh as it is written [Is. 60:1], arise, shine, for your light is come, which in taytsch [Yiddish] means, ‘rise up and shine light on us, because light has come.’”