Word: esther
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...speeches to religious groups, Elizabeth Dole tells the story of Esther, the Old Testament heroine confronted with a harrowing choice. When Esther, the wife of the Persian King Xerxes, learns of a plot to kill all the Jews in the kingdom, she has a decision to make: To try to save her people, should she risk her life by revealing to the king that she is a Jewess? Or should she remain silent, deny her faith and preserve her wifely prestige and power? After much soul searching, Esther chooses faith...
...Like Esther, Mrs. Dole says, "there came a time when I had to confront what commitment to God is all about." Dole's identification with Esther is curious. Some parallels are obvious. Esther revels in her proximity to the King. She is one of the shrewdest and most political women in the Bible. But what has Elizabeth Dole risked compared with Esther? What has this two-time Cabinet Secretary, this former high-level White House aide, this $200,000-a-year president of the American Red Cross, this potential First Lady, sacrificed in her own life...
...hold to help her husband's. She has modified her more moderate views on issues like affirmative action to complement her husband's more conservative ones. She may even have given up having children to pursue larger political ambitions. But none of these represent Elizabeth Dole's sacrifice. Like Esther, she tells religious audiences, there came a time 14 years ago when "my life was threatened with spiritual starvation," when she confronted her own choice between worldly ambition and spiritual devotion...
...European Cup in mid-May. But last week Youth and Sports Minister Guy Drut ruled amid a growing controversy over the piece that all allusions to the Holocaust had to be excised. The French Swimming Federation, which runs the sport nationally, was crushed. Synchronized swimming sounds like something Esther Williams might like to dabble in, but it is an exacting athletic skill, and the swimmers had been practicing this particular ballet for months. Said a federation official: "The program was created to denounce not only the Holocaust in particular, but all forms of racism and intolerance that we see rising...
...holiday of Purim itself embodies this sort of juxtaposition. As the book of Esther tells us, the day upon which the massacre was to have occurred "was turned from sorrow to joy, and from mourning to holiday." The day before Purim is traditionally observed as a fast day, which serves to remind us of the terribly real danger that the Jews faced, and of how narrowly the massacre was averted. Purim is not merely a celebration; it is a transformation of great sorrow into...