Shushan Rhapsody

By Ted Roberts

A pagan king. A Jewish queen. Are they married? Living together? Or what? The 9 year-old wants to know -- now!

I didn't get very far the first time I told my granddaughter the Purim story. She was 9 -- the perfect age. What 9 year-old wouldn't be fascinated by a story of love and deliverance,I thought. And wasn't I an expert on pre-adolescent females? Had I not guided a daughter, the mother of this wonderfully attentive child, through the white water rapids of adolescence -- and even beyond?

So, in the telling of the Megillah, I planned to accent the love theme. You know, Esther and the king. I was casting Achashverosh as a sultry Tom Cruise-type who suddenly lost interest in his shapely, but shleppy Shushanite harem when he met Mordechai's favorite niece --- the Rose of Yaakov.

I had carefully set the stage.

Even though I knew the love angle would grab my grandaughter's interest, I was also aware that her attention span was measured in nanoseconds. Therefore, I banished her mother and younger sister to the local movie house to see a story nowhere near as spellbinding as my version of Purim.

So there we were at the kitchen table. Me and Sarah -- the granddaughter -- with a bowl of chocolate chip ice cream (a little insurance to keep her at the table). And unknowingly to my audience of one, I had turned off that ultimate distraction -- the phone; a tactic I used on her mother 20 years ago to assure her attention.

"So when Vashti wouldn't respond to the king's request the king got very angry," I began.

"Why?" responded this inquisitive 9 year-old with a spoonful of ice cream midway to her mouth. "Mama doesn't come when you call her. Uncle Dan never comes when Aunt Sarah hollers for him unless it's suppertime. And Bubbe tells you to go fly a kite. I didn't know you liked to fly kites."

I explained that times have changed. And that Queen Vashti was a rebel before her time and that 9 year-old modernists were lucky to live in an era when grandpas told stories and dished out chocolate chip ice cream. She paused to think about that. Talking advantage of the silence, I continued:

"So the word went out that Vashti had been laid off, so to speak and the king was looking for new companionship." And without interuption, I got to the part where Esther moved into the royal digs.

"Wait a minute -- just a minute," says the social critic. "Are they married?"

"Well, no. Maybe not. I'm not sure."

"Then why would a nice Jewish girl move in with him?"

My salesman's gift of double-speak helped my frail narrative kayak to dodge this midstream boulder.

"Lemme explain. Nobody's moving in with anybody·"(You think I want the plot of this Biblical tale thrown into my face 10 years from now?)

"The castle's kind of like a huge apartment complex. She just moves in so if she and the king want to have a meal together, it's convienient."

It's 350 BCE, I remind Miss Manners, and public transportation is non-existent.

Finally I get to the part -- big drumroll here -- where young, sultry King Achashveirosh sets a golden crown on the alabaster brow of Esther. Here, the granddaughter revolts again.

"But they're not married how can she be queen? And beside that," she goes on, "I didn't think he's Jewish."

WELL, this is difficult. I seem to be impaled on the horns of a dilemma created by the Talmudic mind of this exceptional 9 year-old granddaughter. I certainly don't want to promulgate the concept of living in the castle -- wearing the queen's crown and performing all those queenly duties without a sturdy, respectable marriage under a chuppah followed by a nice delicatessen reception.

On the other hand, the king -- a decent sort even though he had a brief ethical lapse and signed a proclamation okaying the destruction of a couple of neighboring states -- seems to be as pagan as a big rock. So how can he and Esther stand together under a chuppah, the blue sky above, or the castle chandelier?

After all, eight years hence I don't want the megillah of Esther entered into evidence as a defense of intermarriage. They're either illegally cohabitating in the castle, or Esther has strayed from her tribal roots.

"They're real good friends," I counter. "Now let's read about Isaac and Rebecca."