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I so adore Judith.
(A small thread of select pieces of her awesome.)
Her town’s besieged, they cut off the water supply. She hears how the town leaders handled it, think it’s a bad move, yells at them about it, and then is like, imma go handle it. Don’t ask questions.
(A small thread of select pieces of her awesome.)
Her town’s besieged, they cut off the water supply. She hears how the town leaders handled it, think it’s a bad move, yells at them about it, and then is like, imma go handle it. Don’t ask questions.
She prays to God about her plan to defeat the enemy army:
CRUSH THEIR ARROGANCE BY THE HAND OF A WOMAN
CRUSH THEIR ARROGANCE BY THE HAND OF A WOMAN
She dresses up pretty, lies her way into the enemy camp, plays all the men falling over her for her looks, gets in with the general Holofernes, but brings her own food bc she keeps kosher obvs.
Eventually she’s invited to party with them bc they want to seduce her. She gets everyone out of Holofernes’ chamber, gets him passed out drunk and BAM
Into the food bag.
Into the food bag.
And she lies about going to pray when she’s sneaking out with their LEADER’S HEAD IN HER FOOD BAG!
Everybody gets all “spoils of war!” But Judith, who actually did the thing, gives away the stuff she’s handed. Doesn’t want it. Nuh-uh.
She never married again though she had plenty of offers. Why would she want those headaches? She’s good. It’s cool. She set her maid free. Liberation for everyone.
My all-time favorite Judith painting is Artemisia Gentileschi, Judith and Holofernes, bc Gentileschi depicted Holofernes with THE FACE OF HER RAPIST.
I had the very intense pleasure of learning today (as I occasionally get to) with the great Dr. Tamara Cohn Eskenazi; there was some good stuff.
Before Judith goes out to Holofernes, she prays to God for the strength to avenge Dina (who was raped in Gen 34).
Before Judith goes out to Holofernes, she prays to God for the strength to avenge Dina (who was raped in Gen 34).
It's a foreshadowing, because Holofernes' whole idea is to get her drunk and rape her, and it also shows us that she's *super* clear on what she's doing, and also my God, the oldest commentary we have on Dina is 2nd c. and pretty damn feminist.
There are lots of levels--when she says to Holofernes, eg "I shall speak no word of a lie to my lord tonight." she could be talking to him (implying to us she'll lie some other time) or saying to Holofernes that she won't lie to God (tho obvs he hears himself, misses "tonight")
The toxic masculinity is so real. "We shall be disgraced if we let a woman like this go without seducing her. If we do not seduce her, everyone will laugh at us!'" You could hear that in a frat house today. Or SCOTUS chambers I guess.
We started talking about parallels between Esther and Judith and it is FASCINATING. A feminist textual latke-hametasch debate, if you will.
Two women valued for their beauty. A widow (sexually experienced, the most free) vs a virgin (the least free). One keeps kosher and prays. One, not so much. One sleeps w/the non-Jew, one doesn't. Both save people--one by sword, another by strategy.
It's the assimilation in Diaspora vs firm boundaries/not being conquered on our home turf thing that comes up again and again in so many places, jumping off the pages of these books.
Though fascinatingly the Septuagint version of Esther has her keeping kosher (somehow) & complaining about sleeping with Achashverosh, dressing in sackcloth and dung when she doesn't have to be in court. Also inverse of Judith, who took off the sackcloth to get dressed to kill.
Someone wasn't comfortable with the assimilated version of Esther and wanted to draw some sharper lines around what she was doing there.
There are a lot of reasons why Judith could have been in the Hebrew Bible--great heroine story, she's pious, doesn't even sleep with the guy, prolly contemporaneous with Daniel. So why isn't she?
If you hold that the Hebrew Bible wasn't canonized until late-ish, well, Dr. Cohn Eskenazi's theory is that the strategies in Judith were dangerous for a Jewish community under Roman rule, esp if these decisions happened after the disaster of the Bar Kokhba revolt.
The violent, direct attack of the Maccabees and of Judith wouldn't be helpful to a community living in the threat of the Romans. Esther offers more a useable past-- strategizing, more working within the system, more congenial--more useful in post-Temple destruction era.
This is not unrelated to how the Rabbis of the Talmud shelved the Maccabee story & brought in this whole tale of finding oil, by the way. Whether that was to propagate certain attitudes or to not get caught celebrating the violent overthrow of a foreign govt I don't know.
But Esther is a Diaspora text, and post-destruction of the Temple (and super-duper post-Bar Kokhba--again, there's debate about when, but either way) there was more thinking about how to survive in Diaspora. We lost the home turf already.
But I wonder, if we think about these two revolutionary women who modeled fierce resistance in their own ways, we might be able to remember that sometimes we need to be mighty wielders of swords and sometimes savvy diplomats.
Sometimes we have to cut off the head of injustice and sometimes we need to bend injustice to what's right. And sometimes we need both approaches at the same time, in different ways. Policy and protest.
May we all take inspiration from these two heroines, both of whom risked their life to save their people. May we know when to raise the sword, and when to get it done around the banquet table. May we all merit a little of their bravery.
2nd c. BCE y'all
https://twitter.com/TheRaDR/status/1068340087224705024
(I am glad there's no edit button unless I want to edit something.)
https://twitter.com/TheRaDR/status/1068340087224705024
(I am glad there's no edit button unless I want to edit something.)
Ah, this piece is a nice overview of Judith-related things. Also 15/10 would kill (pun intended) for a Judith-themed Hanukah menorah. https://www.thetorah.com/article/judith-a-chanukah-heroine?fbclid=IwAR2pIw-I1AkV9CNpxefpj_FcnTRtcPlVLCxAHnXgRNRTr3jmrO1AM5r60z4
And hey, I put together this abridged version of the Book of Judith this year for a teaching, so sharing here because y'all should enjoy as well. (Yes, I cut some good stuff, best to go read the whole thing if you're able.) https://www.sefaria.org/sheets/284590?lang=bi
And hey, here’s @DrShariEllen’s delightful rendition of the Judith story in song. https://twitter.com/drshariellen/status/1339386178332573696
And hey, here's a poem. https://poetryarchive.org/poem/judith/
