Community Blog

Shabbat Shalom! This week’s Torah portion is Parashat Tetzaveh, which mostly focuses on the garments and accroutrements of the Priests serving in the Mishkan. This is also Shabbat Zachor, the Shabbat immediately preceding Purim, which includes a special extra Torah reading from Deuteronomy, which tells us to “remember [zachor] Amalek, and wipe his memory from existence!” Which, I always find the wording kind of funny, remember to forget that jerk! But really, I get it, remember this awful thing - how the Amalekites attacked the Israelites while they were passing through the wilderness - and ensure that such a terrible thing never happens again. The Israelites win their battle against Amalek in the desert, but the reminder of that fight in Deuteronomy 25 comes to teach us that even if Amalek the man is dead, even if that group of Amalekites are subdued, we must be vigilant to overcome Amalekish behavior whenever and wherever we may encounter it. 

Shabbat Zachor, this time right before Purim, reminds us of this call against Amalek because tradition tells us that Haman was an Amalekite, and his violent and hateful instincts are another Amalek that needed to be rooted and booted from society. Though I usually associate modern-day Amaleks with those who express genocidal ideas, this year I am thinking a little more broadly about the villains of these stories, and the other kinds of violence that we still need to stomp out after all these years. 

This Shabbat is International Sex Workers Rights Day, and this year in the lead up to Purim I’ve seen a lot more talk about how Esther was trafficked and sold into sex slavery. I’ve spoken before about Vashti being the victim of a #MeToo moment, and joked about Esther being basically pimped out by Mordecai, a joke I now realize is actually pretty gross and not funny. But I’m not sure I’ve ever really thought deeply about, let alone taught about, Esther’s victimhood. 

Dr. Melissa Ditmore, a professor, consultant, and author of Sex Work, Trafficking: Understanding the Difference says, “The trafficking of women and children into sexual slavery is undeniably a gross abuse of human rights. Like all trafficking, it involves coercion or trickery or both.... By the same token, treating sex work as if it is the same as sex trafficking both ignores the realities of sex work and endangers those engaged in it. Sex workers include men and women and transgendered persons who offer sexual services in exchange for money.... Sex workers engage in this for many reasons, but the key distinction here is that they do it voluntarily. They are not coerced or tricked into staying in the business but have chosen this from among the options available to them... A national anti-trafficking law enacted in 2000 recognizes ‘severe forms of trafficking’ as a modern form of slavery that involves a broad spectrum of workers and industries. In this interpretation, trafficking is clearly distinguished from voluntary sex work and thus avoids the absurdity of equating the fear and suffering of a trafficked person with the typical working conditions of voluntary sex workers. These conditions are often far from ideal, but nevertheless they are far removed from debt bondage or enslavement.”

When I was in Nicaragua and El Salvador with American Jewish World Service several years ago, we met with a sex workers collective. Nearly all the women had been trafficked into sex work at a young age, but then chose to stay in sex work after they were free for a variety of reasons. They spoke about the stigma of having been seen as prostitutes and the difficulty getting other work. They spoke about having their childhoods stolen and not having the opportunity to think about or learn about other trades and careers for their futures. They spoke about needing work they could do from home and with flexible hours to accommodate their childcare needs. They stressed the distinction between between sex trafficking and consensual sex work and the need to decriminalize the latter, but they also stressed that one tends to feed into the other and removing certain stigmas around consensual and adult sex work may actually help to enforce anti-trafficking laws more effectively. 

When we meet Esther in the Purim story, she is a very passive character. She is brought into the palace by her male care-taker and left there in the harem awaiting her turn to be deflowered by the king. Her consent is immaterial to the men in the story and to the author of the book. The coercive way the King holds power over all the women in Persia and the way Mordecai gives over his charge removes any possibility for true informed and affirmative consent from Esther. Yet after she is chosen to be Queen, she plays the part well. The text is written very suggestively when she enters the kings throne room and he extends his scepter toward her. Again this often played for laughs at typical joyful, raunchy, drunken Purim parties and megillah readings, but when read through a more real world perspective of Esther’s life, it has darker overtones of her using her sexuality as the only option available to her to survive. Which isn't to say we can't or shouldn't still have our joyful, raunchy, drunken Purim parties and megillah readings, seeing as dark humor as a cornerstone of Jewish culture is at least as old as the Book of Esther itself. However, in moments of quiet reflection, it is still important to also look at the flip sides of these stories and traditions. 

Today, human trafficking continues. Men, women, and children are kidnapped or lured away from their homes and families, smuggled into foreign countries - including this one - where their labor and their bodies are exploited for others' gains. Meanwhile self-employed sex workers continue to face disproportionate violence from both their clients and the police as their work is stigmatized and criminalized without other services or opportunities being offered to them. The Book of Esther gives us an opportunity to examine these dynamics of choice and agency, power dynamics, oppression and resistance, and resourcefulness in difficult situations. However after Esther takes agency over her sexuality and uses it for her own advantage, she is silent for the rest of the book as Mordecai becomes the hero of the story. This Shabbat Zachor and this Purim, let us stomp out all modern day Amaleks, from the genocidal maniacs to the coercive rapists to the self-serving facilitators of exploitation. Let us lift up the voices of the marginalized and champion bodily autonomy, agency, and safety for all. And may we find light and gladness, happiness and honor, equity and honesty, for all. Amen and Shabbat Shalom.