Queen Esther: the legal thriller
The biblical Purim story recalls FBI efforts to infiltrate mob law firms in John Grisham’s popular novels.
“And you have been chosen. If you decline, then you can go on your way and make plenty of money and in general be a successful lawyer. But we will keep trying. We’ll wait for the next new associate and try to pick him off. And if that doesn’t work, we’ll move in on one of the older associates. One with courage and morals and guts to do what’s right. We’ll find our man one day, Mitch, and when that happens we’ll indict you along with all the rest and ship your rich and successful ass off to prison. It will happen, son, believe me.”
So F. Denton Voyles, FBI director, tells young lawyer Mitchell Y. McDeere in John Grisham’s “The Firm” (1991). The passage has long reminded me of Esther 4:10-14, wherein Mordecai informs the queen of Haman’s plot to murder all the Jews in Ahasuerus’ empire—including Mordecai and Esther. The latter talk via intermediary, for Mordecai refuses to swap mourning clothes for palace-appropriate attire.
Esther’s page, Hasakh, relays to Mordecai that everyone in the kingdom knows one initiates audiences with the king on pain of death, unless the king mercifully extends his scepter. And, Hasakh adds, it’s been 30 days since Esther was last summoned.
Mordecai responds (in my not-entirely literal translation): “Don’t worry about your own skin nor believe your presence in the palace will insulate you from your people’s fate. For if you remain silent now, another Jewish savior will arrive from elsewhere, decimating you and your father’s house. For who knows if it wasn’t for this moment precisely that you were destined to become queen?”
This operatic moment, which is essentially a plea for (or threat of) carpe diem, weds tension and danger with optimism. Esther—or Mitch—is charged with a unique calling, and the drama of the moment is heightened by the distance between Mordecai and Esther. Instead of speaking face-to-face, they send messages back and forth. Both can allow themselves a more aggressive (or passive aggressive) tone, because they aren’t addressing one another directly.
Many of us know the feeling. It’s the difference between firing off an email or text and picking up the phone. Luckily, Esther’s and Mordecai’s words fall on attentive ears, and they team up to save their people. But the choreography is one reason I think the National Gallery of Art (D.C.) mischaracterizes Hendrick van Steenwijk the Younger’s painting “Esther and Mordecai” (1616).
The work, the National Gallery tells us, captures the very moment described above. “This haunting nocturnal scene depicts a drama from the Book of Esther in which the Old Testament figure Mordecai, a Jew, speaks to his cousin Esther about a conspiracy to massacre the Jews,” per the gallery’s website. “He begs Esther, who is the wife of the Persian King Ahasuerus to use her influence to stop plot. Esther agrees and later pleads with her husband to spare her people. He grants her this favor, and, thus, the Jews are saved.” (The gallery forgets to inform that Esther too is Jewish, or to note that Esther has no choice in marrying the king after winning a beauty contest that was essentially mass rape.)
The gallery adds that Steenwijk, “a master of ambiance and perspective,” sets the scene “in a gothic-styled stone structure dimly lit by a single light source, a candle held by Mordecai. One can almost sense the hushed tones in which Esther and Mordecai converse as they stand together in the dark, vaulted room. To underscore Esther’s importance, Steenwijk situates her at the composition’s vanishing point. He also effectively used pockets of light to enhance the scene’s pictorial drama. Light from Mordecai’s hidden candle illuminates the foreground wall, floor, and archway, while a dim secondary light source allows the viewer’s eye to wander back to the deep recesses of the space.”
This, of course, is nonsense. Mordecai doesn’t relate this message to Esther in person, and he isn’t dressed in finery. He is sitting in the street in sackcloth mourning the fate of his people. Perhaps the work portrays Hasakh and Esther, but that’s highly unlikely. Perhaps the artist didn’t care about the text, but that’s also a stretch. We know of many examples of religious northern artists and patrons being quite careful and nuanced biblical readers.
My money is on the scene portraying Esther 2:10 and 2:20, in which we learn that Esther keeps her Jewish faith private, because Mordecai instructed her to do so—presumably for her own security. Perhaps the National Gallery description also hushes up Esther’s faith to keep her safe, but I think this painting depicts Mordecai telling Esther to keep religious identity to herself. That a candle piercing part of the night might symbolize faith is quite appealing and would respond to prior art historical traditions of light being symbolized in that manner.
This scene could also have particular religious and political significance in 17th century Holland, when Catholics (and to some extent Jews) were permitted to worship privately, but not to be too conspicuous in the public square. Non-Protestants could worship as they pleased if they knew their place. The Flemish Steenwijk (1580-1649), who was in his mid-30s when he painted this work, moved the following year to London. He didn’t arrive in Holland for another 30 years, but he would have certainly been aware of Protestant iconoclasm and destruction of Catholic churches, most notably Cathedral of Our Lady in Antwerp, which he appears to have painted.
I don’t have evidence Steenwijk meant anything philo-Semitic or pro-Catholic in mind when he painted this, but if my explanation of the scene is correct, I think it’s a far more ambitious and interesting painting—and one that speaks to deeper aspects of the Purim holiday—than the National Gallery gives it credit for.
For those celebrating the holiday tonight and tomorrow, ah freilichen Purim!
Another terrific essay!!