“If you’re driving through a Jewish area this Saturday night or Sunday, don’t be surprised if you see lots of children in the streets wearing fancy dress and masks, or people going from house to house delivering presents of food and drink. The reason is that we’ll be celebrating Purim, the most boisterous and exuberant of all Jewish festivals.”
Purim
By Rav. Jonathan Sacks.
Which is actually very odd indeed, because Purim commemorates the story told in the book of Esther, when Haman, a senior official of the Persian Empire, persuaded the king to issue a decree to annihilate all Jews, young and old, men, women and children, on one day: a warrant for genocide. Thanks to the vigilance of Mordechai and the courage of Esther, the decree was not carried out, and ever since, we’ve celebrated by reading the story, having parties, giving to the poor and sharing gifts of food with friends.
I used to be very puzzled by this. Why such exhilaration at merely surviving a tragedy that was only narrowly averted? Relief, I can understand. But to turn the day into a carnival? Just because we’re still here to tell the story?
Slowly, though, I began to understand how much pain there has been in Jewish history, how many massacres and pogroms throughout the ages. Jews had to learn how to live with the past without being traumatised by it. So they turned the day when they faced and then escaped the greatest danger of all into a festival of unconfined joy, a day of dressing up and drinking a bit too much, to exorcise the fear, live through it and beyond it, and then come back to life, unhaunted by the ghosts of memory.
Purim is the Jewish answer to one of the great questions of history: how do you live with the past without being held captive by the past? Ours is a religion of memory, because if you forget the past, you’ll find yourself repeating it. Yet it’s also a future oriented faith. To be a Jew is to answer the question, Has the messiah come?, with the words, Not yet.
There are so many parts of the world today where ancient grievances are still being played out, as if history were a hamster wheel in which however fast we run we find ourselves back where we started. Purim is a way of saying, remember the past, but then look at the children, celebrate with them, and for their sake, put the past behind you and build a better future.
May I take this opportunity to wish you and your family a Chag Purim Sameach.
IDF
[youtube=youtu.be/WiZ99qPY5i8&w=520&h=315]
The Reveal – Lipa Schmeltzer feat. Ari Lesser
[youtube=youtu.be/jznFfro3HJw&w=520&h=315]
By Rabbi Adin Even-Israel Steinsaltz
The Festival of Purim incorporates two aspects that do not appear to be in harmony with one another.
On the one hand, the days of Purim seem to be ranked lower than the other festivals, since the various laws and customs are of Rabbinic origin. On a deeper level, the miracle of Purim is also incomparable to the miracles in the Torah in that nothing about it transcends nature: the course of events seems plausible, credible, and natural, and the intervention of Providence is far from apparent.
On the other hand, our Sages go to great lengths in their praise of the festival of Purim, to the point of saying that in the future, all the Prophetic Books and the Writings will cease to be used except Megillat Esther (Jerusalem Talmud, Tractate Megilla 1:5), and that even if all the festivals are abrogated, Hanukkah and Purim will never be nullified (the Midrash on Proverbs, 9). An additional aspect of Purim that requires clarification is the nature of its laws, some of which are astonishing. Although the Torah obligates us to rejoice on all the festivals, on no other holiday is there a mitzvah, as on ” to become intoxicated until one does not know” (Megilla 7b).
What is it about Purim that justifies this special and anomalous rejoicing? It must be that Purim has a deeper significance, more than meets the eye; it is not simply the festival of Israel’s deliverance from impending physical danger. In order to understand the full meaning of the exalted illumination that was and is revealed on the days of Purim, we must compare it to the revelation of the “first redemption during the Exodus from Egypt.
What is it about Purim that justifies this special and anomalous rejoicing ? It must mean that Purim has a deeper significance, more then meets the eye..
The Divine revelation of the Exodus began with the ten plagues, continued with the great revelation at the splitting of the Red Sea, and concluded with the most sublime revelation of all, the Giving of the Torah on Mount Sinai, which was exalted and out of all proportion to the Jewish peoples spiritual level at the time.
Egypt (Mitzrayim) was not just physical exile afflicting the bodies of the Jewish People: Egypt was spiritual distress (meitzar) and narrow straits, where the Jewish People was on such a low level that they resembled the Egyptians in almost everything (Vayikra Rabba 21). The only thing that distinguished them in that period was their deep and boundless faith fundamental and essential, but not conscious. In Egypt, a Jew could be a believer without his faith contradicting, in his mind, the idolatry he imbibed from his surroundings. Nevertheless, the Jews in Egypt possessed the readiness and ability to receive the outpouring of God’s benevolence whenever it would come. And the outpouring indeed came. The miracles of Egypt did not occur in the ordinary course of nature. Not only was the Red Sea split before the people of Israel, but all worlds were opened up, revealing the whole dimension of mystery and hiddenness.
When God descended to take His people out of Egypt, the Divine light, which cannot be perceived or appreciated, was revealed on earth, and everyone was privileged to reach the level of prophecy.
In the time of Persia and Media, the state of things was entirely different. Then, too, the majority of the Jewish people lived in exile, which always constitutes a lower level of Jewish existence, and there, too, came a moment of illumination and awakening. However, it was an awakening of an entirely different sort. The verse, “I will utterly hide my face”, (Deuteronomy 31:18) became a full-fledged reality, and this was the tie of the greatest test.
The decrees of Haman and Ahasuerus were designed to bring about not only the Jewish People’s physical annihilation but also their spiritual annihilation. This was the war of the descendants of Amalek against the spirit of the Jewish nation. the verse “I will utterly hide my face” (Deuteronomy 31:18) became a full-fledged reality, and this was the time of the greatest test. As opposed to the light of the revelation at the time of the Exodus, here there was redoubled darkness, uncertainty and inability to act against the decree. Precisely at the time, the inner spark that is, ” Truly apart of God from on high” in the soul of the Jew intensified. Suddenly, Amalek had no place in the Jewish soul, the Jews rejected the temptation by Haman to become like him, and were ready to give up everything even their very lives to maintain their Judaism.
The Torah given at the revelation at Sinai, was re-accepted wholeheartedly under the shadow of Haman.
The people’s willingness to give up their lives rather than renounce God is described in Megillah at Esther thus, “the Jews confirmed and accepted (Esther 9:27) they confirmed anew what they had accepted at Sinai (Shabbat 88a). The Torah, given at the revelation at Sinai, was reaccepted wholeheartedly under the shadow of Haman. This inner commitment of all members of the Jewish People constituted an awakening from below and correspondingly a profound and exalted revelation came down from above.
This new revelation, more exalted than the revelation at Sinai, was a revelation of such scope that it could be revealed both supernaturally and within physical nature, and thus the miracles which brought about Israel’s redemption occurred within nature itself. Because of these revelations within Jewish souls and in supernal worlds, the joy on Purim is greater than that of all of the other holidays and festivals.
This essay appears in the book entitled, Change & Renewal: The Essence of the Jewish Holidays, Festivals & Days of Remembrance.
For more information about this book and visit http://www.korenpub.com/
