Purim Sameach!!!

Welcome back.  We've taken almost a week off so as not to compete for you attention with the other school blog - Whyaa-NOT, in the Swamp, the Purim issue of the Source.  Now that you've had a long weekend to read it, we're back full time, and with progress reports to be written, I'm confident that we'll have teachers looking for productive ways to be unproductive.

As I started talking about with some of you, I'm fascinated in the discrepancies, more big picture than factual, between the megilla itself and the Torah sheb'aal  peh that goes along with it (Masechet Megilla and the Midrash, primarily).  We've discussed at length in the past the difference in the role of obvious ניסים in the story, with 'יד ד hidden in the מגילה but quite prominent in the same story in תורה שבעל פה.

One question interests me some this year, is the fate of Vashti.  While the מדרש makes it clear that she is executed by Achashverosh, the simple peshat seems just as evident that she was simply banished.  Remember, even though it says that the next morning he regretted what he had done, Achashverosh could not bring her back, because his decree could not be undone - see the end of the Megilla.  More than the question as to what happened historically, I wonder why it was important to Chazal that she had been killed (unless the answer is, because that's what actually happened).

You know where to send your thoughts, I'm looking forward to discussing it.  Have a happy (& SAFE!) Purim.