The Fast of Esther (& Music)

Rabbi Irwin Keller

Today is Ta’anit Ester in the Jewish world – the Fast of Esther. It is a fast day (sunset to sunset) in which we recall a 3-day public fast retold in Chapter 4 of the Book of Esther. Faced with the certainty of the death of the Jews at the hand of the regime on the one hand, and the risk of her own death if she were to go to the king unbidden to speak out for her people on the other, Esther issues this request:

Go, assemble all the Jews who live in Shushan, and fast on my behalf; do not eat or drink for three days, night or day. I and my maidens will observe the same fast. Then I shall go to the king, though it is contrary to the law; and if I perish, I perish.

This is an interesting and unusual fast – it is not like the fast of the people of Nineveh in the Book of Jonah. It is not contrition or atonement for the people’s own wrongdoing. Instead, it is a fast of solidarity. A community-wide act so that when Esther takes her brave steps she is not alone. The whole community is with her; they are linked through shared peril, practice, and resolution. When Esther enters the king’s throne room, scripture says vatilbash malkhut, which is translated as “she wore royal garments,” but literally meaning “she wore kingship.” Malkhut means “kingdom” or “kingship” and, in Jewish mystical teaching, it also means the immanent God – the Divine Presence that can be experienced on this earthly plane. After three days of community-wide fasting, Esther enters the king’s chamber wrapped in Divinity itself. It is the Divine Presence itself that was invoked and invited through the fast.

On such fast days, the Jewish tradition adds special supplicatory prayers to the daily liturgy. Here is one such prayer, with music written and performed by Rabbi Deborah Sacks Mintz, released today to carry us through this day of fasting and determination.