Our Gemara on Amud Beis uses an evocative phrase, “the Satan danced between them.” In our Gemara it is used to refer to what transpired subsequent to Achashveirosh assuming the Jewish prophecy of return had not been fulfilled. He celebrated and used the utensils from the Beis Hamikdash. The Gemara tells us, Satan came and danced between them, and vashti was killed.

It is an interesting choice of words, “Satan danced”. It could have just said, …and Vashti was killed as a punishment. What does it really mean, Satan danced?

The Gemara uses this phrase elsewhere. For example, the Gemara (Berachos 33a and Pesachim 112b) uses it to refer to a black ox during the month of Nisan. “Satan is dancing between its horns.” This implies a dangerous and chaotic energy, the ox could charge at any time randomly and unprovoked. Rashi in Berachos explains, the vegetation is in fresh bloom and the ox becomes arrogant and filled with desire. It is interesting to note, that Rashbam in Pesachim makes an explicit point that it is really a figure of speech. That is to say, the Ox cannot really have a Yetzer Hara or be some manifestation of Satan. Rather, it means the ox is simply out of control, he uses the word, “meshuga”, whose meaning has largely stayed the same through the millennia.

Bamidbar Rabbbah (20) uses this phrase as well:

For when someone is going to sin, Satan dances before him until he completes the transgression. As soon as he has transgressed, he returns to inform Him.

Here, we see that the term Satan dancing implies the temptation and disorder that is the state of mind prior to, and at the beginning of the sin.

The Kli Yakkar (Bereishis 26:19) uses this phrase to describe the vulnerability that ensues as a result of needless quarrels and hatred amongst people. (The Responsa of Noda Beyhuda YD  I:1 uses the phrase in a similar manner, warning about the dangers of communal discord and infighting.) Shalah (Aseres Hadibros, Yoma, derech Chayyim) uses this phrase to refer to the temptations of the yetzer hara that come from indulging in excess of appetite, such as eating too much. Thus, so far we see a linguistic meaning of Satan dancing, that is not so much the sin itself but an improper, spiritually dangerous, and chaotic state that will lead to sin and eventually destruction. 

If it said, “God punished Achashveirosh by killing Vashti” there would be no confusion about what happened; God punished Achashveirosh with the death of Vashti. Here, Satan dancing, implies chaos and disorder of danger. From that chaos and disorder, came the death of Vashti. It was a two-part process. Ben Yehoyada explains that they got drunk, and started to compare their wives. It went from bacchanalia to sexual liscentiousness. Once those boundaries were broken, it even led to death.

Like everything else in the Megillah, nothing was direct from God. All the events came about through indirect activities, that only looking at them in retrospect, show a pattern and divine plan. Here too, Achashveirosh was not directly punished. His lack of regard for the Utensils of the Beis HaMikdash led to arrogance, a lack of regard for his wife and the other women, and ultimately a lack of regard for life itself.

I do not believe it is an accident that it starts with lack of regard for the Beis HaMikdash. When there is a lack of regard for what is holy, that is God’s sacred spaces, then there will be a lack of regard for the institution where humanity’s holiness shows the most, that is between husband and wife. And once that happens, death gets into the picture too. In Vashti’s time it was execution. In our time, it’s child-abuse and abortion.

Translations Courtesy of Sefaria, except when, sometimes, I disagree with the translation

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