Why Was This Purim Different? On Reflection |
It’s always been an interesting distinction that Purim is one of only two Jewish holidays (Chanuka the other) that is mandated in perpetuity. Though we don’t have a real understanding of what the “end of days” will look like, we do know that it will include Purim.
At its heart is community. Marked by the gifting of food and acts of charity played out against a backdrop of raucous celebration, it’s a rare moment on the Jewish calendar that lets us — no, enjoins us — to express unmitigated joy as a people. But it’s the annual re-telling of the Esther story that underpins Purim. With a plot line that recounts events more mundane than holy, Megillat Esther could easily have been a Hollywood screenwriter’s concoction. Palace debauchery and intrigue, a queen’s summary execution, and the ensuing in-gathering of the kingdom’s fairest maidens in the first-ever beauty pageant —with details specific enough to include the maidens’ supply of cosmetics! And that’s just the opening.
From there emerges a cast of characters who demonstrate every variety of human foible. Hubris, hunger for power, treachery. Minor players take on major roles, action veers between the palace and the street, and when all seems lost… the unexpected, tables-turned climax in which the powerless defeat the powerful.
It’s a hold-your-breath saga that lands somewhere between fairy tale and history. The reluctant queen turned pivotal “behind the scenes” negotiator. Deals made in the quiet places that ripple through a people and their destiny. The seat of power no one saw collapsing, and a new seat of power no one saw coming.
The outsize revelry that Purim has summoned through the ages speaks to a script that delivers on hope in the face of despair. And in the face of what seems like the inevitability of history.
In defiance of its rootedness in the past, history seems to have morphed into what we are living in this moment. Around us, in front of us. It’s what the ancient Persians lived also, but didn’t know till they reflected back. As such, this year’s Purim strayed from all the others in its eerily close confluence with current events. Even with players recognizable in the geo-politics of today. Even with the Megillah’s embedded hints at the Nuremberg trials and the hanging of ten convicted Nazis that make the story more contemporary than anyone could have foretold — Julius Streicher’s last words as he faced the gallows were “Purimfest 1946!” With all that, when in the annals of history have we seen world powers upload onto the global psyche such a perverse obsession with our tiny population?
Just as G-d’s name never appears in the Purim story but leaves it only to a fool to dismiss the architect, aren’t we witnessing the unfolding of a miracle that is a latter-day Purim story? The minor actor working undercover to vouchsafe the future of his people. The surprise success of an underestimated character and her behind- closed -doors diplomacy. And not to be ignored, the crude and narcissistic empire builder who shamelessly flaunts lunacy and debauchery even as he demonstrates outsize courage in places that will prove to matter.
Is the claim that “History always repeats itself,” just another way of saying, “G-d returns to the same playbook?”
I listened more carefully to the Megillah this year, took in more of the details, heard more loudly the voices of the players, the wives and counselors in their bids for power or simply in their bids for favor. It leaves me to deduce that Shakespeare, notwithstanding Shylock, was a great student and admirer of Megillat Esther. The covert as a character. Plot twists with surprise endings. And most compelling of all, the sweet taste of malevolence brought to its knees… of a character’s sins getting their comeuppance.
As a young person, not unlike a young nation, I experienced events in isolation and apart from any cohesive plan. But as I’ve reached an age where I’ve marked personal and global epics — from the tedium of young parenting years to an understanding of how deliciously innocent they were; from the common sense-ness of keeping my children safe to releasing them into the crosshairs of a tech behemoth; from the certainty of a post- Shoah safe- harbour America to its surrender to the old hate that propelled us here — life seems to be lived in a moment that time, if given the chance, upends.
In Israel I’m told the dog runs straight for the shelter at the sound of the siren. My young niece begins her ad-hoc camp for still younger nieces with a prayer for the IDF, the once rag-tag “tzanchanim” supplanted by fighter pilots and soldiers who employ the most sophisticated intelligence and technology known to man.
The haphazard disorganized living I did has been re-shaped by these defining epics. Mostly by the surprise of them. And this year, listening once again to the Purim story as I do more gratefully with every passing year, I appreciated more than ever its mystery and its delicious denouement.
As we make our way through this unsettled time to Pesach, we look ahead to the re-telling of another saga, what is essentially the origin story of the Jewish people. Splashier, bigger, even, than Megillat Esther. Nothing less than the dawning of a nation. And yet it is our itty bitty minor holiday with no deep spiritual context, no curtailing of work, no jaw-dropping miracle or drum-roll moment of divine revelation that unleashes the rarest of gifts — pure joy and hope. (Plus the legitimacy of cosmetics.)
It’s that default to joy, even in the most cruel darkness, that defines the people whose birth we are about to celebrate. The people who endure the relentless rise and fall of enemies and find reason to sing. Reason to believe even when G-d seems absent.
Because the miracle is still unfolding.