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Every time a scandal erupts around the sexual behavior of a powerful man, someone seems to ask, "Well, why didn't she say no?" It so happens that the Book of Esther begins with the story of a woman who "says no," and it demonstrates that the consequences of "saying no" can be severe: Queen Vashti lost the queenship. As Purim approaches, I find myself wondering whether Vashti - that doomed queen who is gone by the first chapter of the Megillah because she refused to let Ahasuerus show her off - was a #MeToo heroine or, at the very least, a pioneer in the language of refusal.
To be fair, I had a bit of prior experience with the idea of Vashti as a role model. Not long ago, my then-4-year-old niece refused to be Esther in the nursery school Purim play, simply because playing Esther meant being at a party with Haman. At the time, I was charmed by my niece's refusal to play the usual heroine, and moved by her willingness to buck the usual narrative. When I was a child, Esther was portrayed as a flawless-skinned beauty, while Vashti was often drawn on the board as pimply; no one wanted to be Vashti.
But times had apparently changed.
My niece insisted on playing Vashti, and the highlight of her inspired performance at her Hebrew-speaking nursery school came when the boisterous 5-year-old Ahasuerus - in a costume resembling that of a mall Santa, complete with a pillow attached to his stomach with a thick belt - asked her to attend the lavish party he had planned.
"Lo va'lol" she exclaimed.
No and no, as I understood it.
"No, no!" as my mother understood it, pointing out that it was an idiomatic statement in Hebrew, making the "and" unnecessary in translation.
Or in my niece's intonation, no and NO.
I was so...