Dr. Susan Block

In the Chatroom

9 Comments

  1. Alansie23@aol.com
    03 · 9 · 06 @ 5:03 pm

    Hello. The Ritual That Vashti Refused To Perform Was The “Dance Of Seven Veils” That Originated From Venus/Inanna Descending Into The Underworld. On Her Journey She Had To Divest Herself Of An Article Of Clothing At Each Of Seven Stations, Subsequently Arriving At The Last Stark Naked To Be Judged As To Her State Of Beauty And Virginity.Obviously, As You Say, Esther Was An Extrovert And Wont To Show Off Her Pure Body.Her Title Comes From The Chaldean E’stur, And The Persian form E’ster, for “The Star” In The Definitive: namely Venus. As One Of The “Stars” Of Venus Is A Pentacle, And The Other The Sanskrit Svasti (Vashti), You Will See In This That The Pentacle Became Dominant Over The Cross Through The Deposing Of Vashti By Venus.Warmest Regards From Across The Rippling With Pleasure Pond. Alan.

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  2. Kate
    03 · 6 · 06 @ 9:25 pm

    I LOVE your version of the story of Queen Esther. Very close to how I think of that great woman.

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  3. Little Shiva
    03 · 4 · 06 @ 11:37 pm

    Love the story of Esther. Thanx for reminding us that history was sexy. Jenn and I watched an interesting show last night on the history channel called “Roman Vice”, which covered the period starting just before Tiberius and through Nero, with an interesting sideline into the story of Messalina, a famous Roman empress with a voracious appetite for men. We learned about Tiberius and his minnows – kids he used as sex slaves and later threw off cliffs when he tired of them, the notorious and demented Caligula who had been one of Tiberius’ minnows himself and later drowned all the surviving kiddie sex slaves, among other insane cruelties, saw really explicit and beautiful bathouse mosaics that were blurred for TV but which I want to explore further, and heard about the hedoniostic and often cruel exploits of this line of Roman rulers. The concluding thought from one of the commentators was great: she said “although we look back now and call it vice, it’s clear from studying the Roman texts that much of this behaviour was not considered vice in its time, but was in fact consistent with Roman virtue.” Well, I hope not the bits about throwing kids off cliffs or disembowling pregnant sisters/wives.lovers, but still, it was an interesting perspective on the prudish morality of our own society.

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  4. Norman
    03 · 4 · 06 @ 3:02 pm

    Esther was nothing more than a pawn in Mordecai’s grand scheme of things. The truth of the matter was she told King of the plot against his life, as reported by Mordecai. (That is a pretty big IOU-1, in my book). Mordecai knew this and used Esther to get to the King. In the end Mordecai got what he wanted. He played King Ahasuerus and used Esther to do it.

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  5. MB1991
    03 · 4 · 06 @ 1:25 pm

    A classic. Reading your Esther: How a Sexy Young Woman Used the Power of Seduction to Save Her People from Genocide has become a Purim tradition at our house.

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  6. Carlo from Portofino
    03 · 4 · 06 @ 7:20 am

    I’m a nice Catholic boy but I have always dated Jewish girls and have always been a fan of Queen Esther. Thanks for the great story, Dr. Suzy.Carlo

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  7. Minette Grace
    03 · 4 · 06 @ 7:03 am

    Queen Esther is a great sexual role model, especially the way you describe her. This is how we have to deal with our men! Thank you for this sexy, moving interpretation.MG

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  8. Michael Skoruppa
    03 · 4 · 06 @ 6:56 am

    Dear Dr.Block,There is just another twist in the Esther/Purim story. When I have read a biblical story I always take a look into Barbara G. Walker’s “The Women’s Encyclopedia of Myths and Secrets” to find the preceding pagan, mostly matriarchal, myth to the biblical one. (I can’t give a page number since I use the German translation. But that’s no problem because the topics are in alphabetical order. Quite an interesting book!) In the case of Esther the predecessor is the goddess Ishtar, and for the corresponding fete of Purim a king was drawn in a lottery to be the lover of the goddess (resp. her deputy, the high priestess) for one night. After that he was killed. Well, it surely was a festival full of sensual pleasures from all we know about matriarchal times. But it had this little disadvantage for the particular king concerned for which I am sorry because I happen to be a man. He was also eaten in the end. As I read the Jews had substituted this human sacrifice with a kind of cookie. But to be clear, patriarchal customs were and are a lot more cruel for more people. Perhaps women also would have invented some ersatz for the human sacrifice. So, there is no wonder, that a pagan goddess or her high priestess were strong, seductive women. All the women must have been prouder and stronger at that time due to their higher regard in society. This myth found, a little patriarchally distorted, for some reason or other, its way into the bible and makes such strange, but also exciting reading.YoursMichael Skoruppa, Germany

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  9. Renee Dupont
    03 · 4 · 06 @ 6:54 am

    YOU ROCK!!!! FABULOUS writing! Simply loved it!!!!xo, Rd

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