Artists and Esther: Prophets, Clothed in Holiness
by Olivia Devorah Tucker, Strategic Advancement Associate, Alumni and Partnerships
Before we leave the Purim spirit entirely, starting on the road to Passover, I’d like to share with you the learning journey I’ve been on for about a year now: researching and searching for Shekhina, The Divine (Feminine) Presence, and Ruach HaKodesh, The Holy Spirit; the patchwork of texts which has deepened my belief that artists are prophets. (This journey exists in much more detail, with texts, translations, and artistic revelations in this linked packette ✨)
Last March, I was invited to join a cohort of artists who were designing holiday programs inspired by “Louise Silk: A Patchwork Life,” a gallery installation with the Heinz History Center in my home of Pittsburgh, PA (Haudenosaunee land), celebrating the creativity and career of feminist Jewish quiltmaker, Louise Silk. (Check out her art and writing at her website, BubbeWisdom). The centerpiece of the gallery has been “The Witness Quilt” – eight brilliant panels, each over six feet tall on both sides, arranged in an arc more than 14 feet long. The quilt is made of over 1000 detachable patches, meaningful fabrics donated by the community, embroidered with wisdom: “Build Bridges, Not Walls,” “Add Your Love,” “Be Your Prayer,” “Joyful.” As these pieces have been gifted to museum-goers, the underlayer of the quilt has been revealed: an embroidered “Ahavnu,” a positive counterpart of the “Ashamnu,” an alphabetical acrostic of sins from the Yom Kippur liturgy, refocused on the ways we have improved the world in the past year. (Find many images of the process on Louise Silk’s blog with the tag search #witnessquilt).
When our artist cohort discussed me taking on Purim, a favourite midrash came to mind: a yarn which led me to a tapestry of interwoven teachings, many more than can fit in this installment of Hot Off the Shtender. I have been blessed to learned these texts in chevruta with Kohenet Molly Block, and as a teacher with Shel Maala. These experiences allowed me to turn the lessons over enough times to stitch them together into one of my favourite source sheets to date, which I presented last week, in the gallery, standing before The Witness Quilt.
The Midrash
First, here’s the midrash that inspired it all, part of Talmud Masechet Megillah, where the Rabbis are having a grand old time adding scenes into the Book of Esther (translations throughout are mine):
אֶסְתֵּר — דִּכְתִיב: ״וַיְהִי בַּיּוֹם הַשְּׁלִישִׁי וַתִּלְבַּשׁ אֶסְתֵּר מַלְכוּת״,
בִּגְדֵי מַלְכוּת מִיבְּעֵי לֵיהּ!
אֶלָּא שֶׁלְּבָשַׁתָּה רוּחַ הַקֹּדֶשׁ,
כְּתִיב הָכָא: ״וַתִּלְבַּשׁ״, וּכְתִיב הָתָם: ״וְרוּחַ לָבְשָׁה אֶת עֲמָשַׂי וְגוֹ׳״.
Esther [was a prophetess] – as it is written: “And it was on the third day [of fasting] that Esther dressed/put on royalty” (Esther 5:1).
[The gemara interjects] “Royal garments,” the verse should have said!
Rather [the odd grammar teaches us] that SHE, Ruach HaKodesh (The Holy Wind/Breath/Spirit) clothed her.
[To give evidence to their claim, they connect this cryptic verse to another more explicit one:] it is written here: “And she dressed,” and it is written there: “And The Spirit, she dressed Amasai” (I Chronicles 12:19).
I love how the sages use what could otherwise be treated as a typo as an opportunity to elevate Esther, a key player in a book which never explicitly mentions G🖊D to the level of a prophetess! When I brought this text to Shel Maala, Co-Rosh Yeshiva Binya Kóatz blessed us with a new midrash: she said, Those forty days when Moses is on Mount Sinai receiving Torah from G📜D, we have a whole midrash about how it took so long because G👑D was having Moses tie crowns onto the letters, so that thousands of years later Rabbi Akiva could make interpretations based on them. BUT it also took forty days to give the Torah because G🕳D was removing words and letters, tzim’tzum/contracting the Torah to make more room for our interpretation.
So, Esther gets dressed in Ruach HaKodesh, The Holy Spirit, the Divine power which inspires (in-spirits, even) prophets, before she goes to the King to plead for her life and the lives of all the Jews in Persia. A very precarious moment, because if she goes to the King uninvited, she can be offed just for that! But right before she arrives at the King, we get a huge twist!:
״וַתַּעֲמֹד בַּחֲצַר בֵּית הַמֶּלֶךְ הַפְּנִימִית״. אָמַר רַבִּי לֵוִי: כֵּיוָן שֶׁהִגִּיעָה לְבֵית הַצְּלָמִים, נִסְתַּלְּקָה הֵימֶנָּה שְׁכִינָה.
“And she stood in the inner courtyard of the palace” (Esther 5:1). Rabbi Levi said: As soon as Esther arrived at the Hall of the Idols, Shekhina arose/was removed from her!
אָמְרָה: ״אֵלִי אֵלִי לָמָה עֲזַבְתָּנִי?!״”
She (Esther) said: “My God, my God, why have You abandoned me?” (Psalms 22:2).
In a fascinating Talmudic sleight of hand, the Rabbis have made Ruach HaKodesh and Shekhina synonymous. They also draw out the drama of the scene, saying that Esther went to the King with no Divine assurance. For fellow etymology enthusiasts, Shekhina שְׁכִינָה comes from the root שכנ shakhan meaning “to dwell, rest, sit, nest,” and becomes a very special noun meaning like “the Dwelling-ness of the Divine,” often translated as “Divine Presence.” The concept of Shekhina seems to come from Exodus 25:8, when G🧵D requests, וְעָשׂוּ לִי מִקְדָּשׁ וְשָׁכַנְתִּי בְּתוֹכָם And they will make for me a sanctuary (mikdash), and I will dwell (v’sha’chan’ti) among them. Understanding that when The Eternal dwells with us, it’s as Shekhina. A bit of dei-morphism, to use a word I learned from poet Joy Ladin. And I only know about Her because Shekhina was recovered as “a living symbol of Jewish women’s empowerment” by the Jewish Renewal movement and second-wave feminism, starting in the 1970s. In each age we have found new names for HaShem and new ways to understand the ones we inherit. The tradition is not “understand G🗯D in this specific way” – the tradition is “re-understand G🌈D in the ways that are spiritually nourishing for you!”
My sister, Margo, was in the gallery when I taught this text last week and asked, “Are you saying that ‘rest’ left Esther? And so she was left with only the raw energy of needing to go forward?”Jaw drop. I replied, “Well, that sure is what I’m saying now!” These moments are why I love love love learning texts all over again with new people. So, even though Esther responds to being left with a cry from Psalm 22, one of profound sadness and loneliness, perhaps Shekhina knew exactly what She was doing by coming and going when she did, like a parent letting go of their child’s bike when they know the learner is ready to balance.
When else does Shekhina dwell with us? In this next section, from the Talmud volume about Pesach, the Rabbis are discussing Hallel, a collection of joyful praise psalms which we sing on Passover. The sages segue into Psalms generally, and they start making drashes/ interpretations based on how the Psalms are introduced:
לְדָוִד מִזְמוֹר מְלַמֵּד שֶׁשָּׁרְתָה עָלָיו שְׁכִינָה וְאַחַר כָּךְ אָמַר שִׁירָה
[When a Psalm starts with] “l’David Mizmor” (“To/For/Of David a Psalm, from the root זמר “to tingle, make music”), it teaches that Shekhina rested/steeped upon him, and after that he spoke the song.
מִזְמוֹר לְדָוִד מְלַמֵּד שֶׁאָמַר שִׁירָה וְאַחַר כָּךְ שָׁרְתָה עָלָיו שְׁכִינָה
[When a Psalm starts with] “Mizmor l’David” (A Psalm To/For/Of David), it teaches that he spoke the song, and afterward Shekhina rested/steeped upon him.
For example, the psalm that Esther lamented from when Shekhina left her (on Megillah 15b) was Psalm 22 – and it is in fact a מִזְמוֹר לְדָוִד Psalm, which makes sense for a psalm that starts from feelings of abandonment but ends with hope.
I’m extra stoked on this text, because of what we’ve learned from Megillah 14a/b about Esther: being dressed in Ruach HaKodesh/Shekhina can transform one into a prophetess. And here we have this sweeping statement about Shekhina’s involvement in the creation of poetry, as well as her experience of being drawn into relationship through the creation of poetry! Artists! Your creation is powerful beyond what so many people believe. Your art is prophecy. 🌄
And by “prophecy” I don’t mean “premonitions,” although I’ve certainly seen artists with a keen sense of the future. By “prophecy” I mean the kinds of prophecy that our Biblical Prophets left for us: the calls to justice and repentance, the reminders of consequences, the cathartic laments, the much needed comforts/nechemtas. The way that Science Fiction authors with a story set in the far future are really writing about right now. Prophecy prophecy.
Reflections
I followed all of these leads because even though I knew the midrash about Esther being Dressed in Ruach HaKodesh, I honestly had no confident understanding of what that meant! How does one feel Divine Presence? Is it so overwhelming that you can’t help but burst with prophecy? Or are we so immersed in Shekhina that we’re like a fish that doesn’t know it’s in water? I wrote a little poetry about it too~ I bring a text to teach because I have endless questions about it; I hope for a beit midrash full of even more fascinating questions that I ever considered. And that is exactly what I’ve been blessed with in this journey.
In the gallery, after learning and questioning these texts together, I invited people to find a chevruta, and choose squares from The Witness Quilt to learn together, drawing from Talmud, Berakhot 6a: שְׁנַיִם שֶׁיּוֹשְׁבִין וְעוֹסְקִין בַּתּוֹרָה שֶׁשְּׁכִינָה עִמָּהֶם “When two sit/dwell and engage with Torah, Shekhina is with them.” They draped quilts over each other and felt the weight and release of the creative energies. A theater friend, Nick, recently taught me that the thu in enthusiasm comes from “theos” meaning G✨D; to be “en-G!D-ed” – I hope that’s what our crew was able to feel.
So after all of this, where have I been feeling Shekhina? As it turns out, it’s in my improv theatre class that I feel most dressed in Ruach HaKodesh! After a year of de-rusting the improv muscles, I’ve started to trust more the ideas which seem to come from the ether, rather than trying to edit them into something more clever. When my team is flowing together, listening and reacting and present as a whole, it all starts to feel transcendent. Unrepeatable. Magical. Divine.
Where do you feel the Divine Presence? What does the Ruach feel like for you? What does She enable you to do, both in presence and absence?
May I merit to stay open enough to co-create these beautiful empowering experiences.
Further Study
The full packette has a full 5 pages on Bat Kol “The Divine Voice/That Which is Capable of Being Voiced,” the same one which SVARAniks who learned Eruvin 13b in the 2024 Summer Day Camps have heard the call of! There are also some excellent excerpts from Tree Of Souls: The Mythology Of Judaism, edited by folklorist Howard Schwartz (2004) & The Hebrew Goddess, by anthropologist Raphael Patai (3rd Edition! 1990), which illustrates how Shekhina and the Kabbalist mystics influenced each other – plus lots and lots of art connected to these themes. Enjoy! And feel free to write to me with any insights the learning brings up for you 🍵
