Given traditional Judaism's view on physical beauty, I find the idea of an upcoming Jewish swimsuit calendar a wierd sort of disconnect.
By
Cobra Baghdad
on November 16, 2008
Traditional Jewish thought has always placed a low value on physical beauty for its own sake. The fact that the book of Esther begins with the title character winning a beauty pageant (for all intents and purposes) is taken by most of the commentaries I've read as a sign of what a bad Jewess she is.
Now, admittedly, Heeb magazine (the publisher of the calander) is pretty far removed from traditional Jewish religious views. But, even so.
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Esther is remarkably well respected, so I'm a bit confused and surprised to hear her claimed to be a bad Jewess. I don't care for her, but that's because all she does is what she's told to do.
She's not remarkably well respected within the context of Torah scholarship. She's popular among the liberal feminist Jewish crowd (of which I consider myself one) but so's Lilith. Her A) winning a beauty pageant, B) not mentioning G-d ever in the book named after her, C) not bringing her own food to the castle when she lived with king Herod, and D) not doing anything to protect the Jews until Mordechai blackmailed her into it are all considered pretty clear signs that she's a lousy Jew, hero or no.
Feminists like her? She sucks from a feminist viewpoint - at least, I think so. The woman she replaced is far, far better.
Interesting though. On a side note, do you happen to know what the name Mordechai means? I've wondered for a long time, but whenever I look it up, all I get is a reference to the story. The name had to come from somewhere or else the Mordechai in the story wouldn't have had it.