Esau, the Second Son & Vashti

Esau gets a bum rap. Boy-oh-boy, do Chazal just love to pick on him! I heard an interesting dvar Torah once in which the speaker said that the Tanakh's two posterchildren for ADD/ADHD are Esau and David (who happen to be the only two personalities explicitly referred to as having ruddy complexions/being redheads). Esau, the man of the field (as opposed to his twin brother Jacob, the quiet man who dwelt in tents), is all restless action. The story of him, the lentil pottage & selling his birthright is very telling, ADD/ADHD-wise. Esau says, "'Behold, I am at the point to die; and what profit shall the birthright do to me?'" He was not about to die. Exaggeration & the use of superlatives in speech is characteristic of ADD/ADHD. Esau shows no regard for the future & is focused solely on gratifying his (exaggerated) need of the moment. Genesis 25:34 ("and he did eat and drink, and rose up, and went his way. So Esau despised his birthright") loses something in the translation. In Hebrew, the five verbs here immediately follow eachother ("...vayachal, vayesht, vayakom, vayalech vayabez..."). Esau ate and drank until he was satiated, then rose and left. He was all verbs. It hit me a while back that his threat to kill Jacob (two chapters later) may have been/probably was his ADD/ADHD-typical florid speech, which he did not mean literally, but which Rebecca took literally, with all the fateful consequences. Our Sages, in the midrashic literature, love to come down on and demonize Esau. I wonder if the obvious rabbinical animus toward Esau is no more than the inability of our Sages, who were themselves quiet men who dwelled in tents, to understand this "man of the field." And what one cannot understand, one dumps on, of course. Which leads me to...

Chazal also love to beat up on the Second Son at the Seder, the so-called "Wicked Son". I'm more convinced than ever that he also gets a bad (and undeserved) rap, that the author of the Hagadah mapil alav tik (is framing him) as the Hebrew slang goes. I do not think that based on his question one can conclude with any degree of certainty that he is excluding himself from the whole. To do so, I think, is to assume facts not in evidence, and reflects more onn the baggage of the one doing the accusing. He asks a personal, intimate and out-of-the-box question that riles some people, the author of the Hagadah for one, who utterly misunderstand him and, of course, what one does not understand...(see above)

So, with any further ado...
_____

This is what you hurl at me?
I am not satisfied.
You neither understand nor see
and presume to be my guide?

Perchance I do not fit your mold
But that does not wicked make.
Nor does it cast me from the fold
My faith Hashem will take.

Set my teeth on edge you would?
Your stock phrases have no bite.
Complacent and untried you've stood
too long; will it end tonight?

I know what's on the pages
Please don't read it back
And neither quote the Sages
Take a different tack.

"What mean you by this service?"
My intention do not skew!
(Or do I make you nervous?)
The one excluded might be you.

Hamster-like, do you run the wheel
because it's all you know to do?
Tell me what you love and feel;
what does the service mean to you?

Which leads me to...
 
To complete the dumped-on trilogy, we've got Vashti, the malicious, evil bitch according to Artscroll, Aish Hatorah (at least their website), etc. I should add: Vashti, the monochrome, made-out-of-cardboard, malicious, evil bitch. (It always gets me about how certain folk, usually of the more orthodox/haredi bent, see the Tanakh as an adult version of a first grade reader, i.e. with everything and everyone simple & simplistic, and with shallow, uncomplex characters, who are more caricature than character. The Tanakh is the Book of Life & real life just isn't like that.) So...

Dance naked before a rabble of drunks

I said "Get lost!" the lousy skunks!

My "tail" was fine, that's what they wanted to see

I wouldn't be his toy, I wanted to be me.

 

What you see with me is what you get

I am an equal, not a pet

Daughter of kings, I won't be shut

Within the palace, that gilded hut.

But for some that's not cool

So they made me a freak, they made me a ghoul

With tzara'at, green skin, warts and a tail.

I want to scream, I want to wail!

Esther's their queen: Passive, demure

Manipulative, that's for sure.

She led Achash' with bit and bridle,

herself the perfect matinee idol.

They called me brazen, but that's absurd,

just because I won't follow the herd;

The scorned sister of the misunderstood son,

Why deal with a challenge you'd rather shun?

 

Do not consign me to the fringe

In your nice pat world, let me impinge

My heart is open to the One who sees,

I am Vashti; hear me please.

I think it's also characteristic of midrash that Chazal have to knock the "bad guys" (Esau, the Second Son, Vashti) in order to note the contrast with the "good guys" (Jacob, the Wise Son & Esther). This, of course, aside from being grossly unfair to the "bad guys" does no justice to the "good guys."

 

nb