Chabakuk Elisha: Vashti's Tail and other tales.

The Gemara tells us that Vashti didn't come when Achashverosh caller her because she was embarrassed – she had A) broken out in pimples, or B) sprouted a tail. This ultimately led her death for refusing the king. A couple days ago a fellow asked me what I thought about Vashti's tail – did I believe that she really sprouted this appendage?

"Well," I said, "if I believe G-d can do things like create the universe or split the Yam Suf, is it so crazy for him to provide some Babylonian/Persian frau a tail?" "It's just too far fetched to me," he said.
I responded, "You know it doesn't say that it was an alligator-tail or a shaggy-dog-tail or even a rat tail; for all we know, the "tail" could have been a small protrusion where a tail would be." "Good point," he said, "I can live with that."

But it got me thinking – I hadn't had a problem with the tail story, and I didn't think that the tail was such an incredible concept, but I began to wonder what Meforshim may say about this tail. The internet provided me with a couple articles on the subject:

1. A teacher who described her theory and method for teaching midrashim – a thoughtful piece but I wasn't so taken by it.
2. An article by R' Adlerstein . This one was compelling: First of all, quoting the Maharal carries some weight – if HE doesn't accept Vashti's tail as literal, he has my attention. So, by the end of this essay I was a new member to the club of those who don't necessarily take the literal view of Vashti's tail.

Then I tried it out when I got home:

I asked my wife about Vashti's tail, and she gave me one of "you better not start with your enlightened views again" look. But my fourteen year old son was walking by and said, "Everyone knows she grew a tail, what's the problem?"
My 11 year old daughter piped up, "Of course she had a tail!" So I had three of them staring me down and I say, "But don't we say that the miracles of Purim were hidden?"
Silence (I knew I had 'em beat then).
"Thats a good question" my son says.
So, I proceed to tell them that the Maharal makes the point, and in that moment I had 'em running from the literal interpretation like they had never considered it to be a real tail.

So, why am I troubled? Well, because I'm a bit torn here. Maybe I'm wrong about this, but even if less literal interpretations of Chazal work for me, what about the future? The chareidi & chassidishe view on Chazal is to err on the literal side. And this is for good reason – there is a real risk of eroding the basic emunas chachomim and emunas haTorah when we open Chazal up for debate. The message it sends is that we are the arbiters that decide which chalakim of our mesora to accept of reject, which is a risky business. It seems pretty clear to me that the simple fact is that the more rationalist view is less successful in maintaining a strong Yiddishkeit – which is essential to the future of Klal Yisroel. The battles between the haskola and the chareidi worlds clearly show that the more we open up mesora for dissection & reevaluation, the more we doom ourselves to a slide away from Torah. Most maskilim were frumme Yidden, but their path was a ticket to eventual assimilation, while the "small-minded, Pesi Ya'amin lechl dovor" chareidim maintained a kedusha and yiddishkeit that we can only wax nostalgic about.

There is no end to this; once we open everything up we are left wondering about everything in Yiddishkeit. Did Purim happen? Did Pesach happen? If we put everything under the spotlight, we end up going around in circles in the dark, ultimately leading nowhere. So, what is the right balance?

In Yiddishkeit we have lists of stories (from recent to ancient), midrashim and bits of information that are dubious, even our dating of history is almost surely wrong, so where do we stand? To me it seems that we need to split the difference. I take the position that we take Chazal and our mesora – our version of yiddishkeit – with a presumed benefit of the doubt. Then we need to work on a case to case basis: If we are faced with an irreconcilable conflict, we may take a different view than main-stream Yiddishkeit; if we have gedolei olam (the Maharal for example) that take a non-literal view, than we can adopt that position – but not on our own.

Basically it comes down to the famous Chazal where Moshe Rabbeinu sees Rabbi Akiva teaching the secrets of the crowns on the Osios haTorah. Moshe becomes overwhelmed and asks R' Akiva, "Where do you know this from?!" To which R' Akiva says, "Everything comes from our Master Moshe" – and Moshe Rabbeinu is placated. Why is he placated? Not because Moshe Rabbeinu needs to feel proud that he gets credit, rather it's because R' Akiva is saying, "I do not rely on myself to interpret; I base it on the giants that came before me.