This week is the Fast of Esther and the holiday of Purim. There is a joke that our holidays consist of, “They tried to kill us, they did not succeed, let’s eat.” It’s interesting that of all the holidays which commemorate our salvation, only on Purim do we fast on the day we were supposed to be killed. On Chanukah, we celebrate our victory, but we do not fast and pray before the holiday to commemorate the fact that we were threatened by the Greeks. On Passover, we do not fast to commemorate the threats that Pharaoh made against us. On Purim, we celebrate on the 14th of Adar when we vanquished our enemies—but why on Purim do we fast on the 13th, the day on which Haman plotted to kill us, if the whole point is that in the end he did not? If anything, we should celebrate that day.   

The Megillah writes that the holiday of Purim got its name from the lots that Haman cast to decide on which day to exterminate the Jews, which turned out to be the 13th of Adar. It is a strange etymology, to name the holiday after the tool used to decide the death of the Jewish people—a lottery. If anything, we should call it Esther or Salvation or something of that sort.   

Sometimes life and history feel like a lottery. I could have been born anywhere, and yet I am born to caring parents who are in the top 20% of the wealthiest people in the world, with indoor plumbing, health care, more than enough food and religious freedom. How bizarre it is to be born a human being, to exist for this particular period of time and then to fade back into the mists of oblivion for a million generations.    

I think Purim, with its seemingly arbitrary plot of genocide, so much so that “randomness” is its name, stirs up for us more anxiety than most holidays. Thus, we not only celebrate our salvation but we must deal with the day of the “Purim,” the lottery, the random and seemingly unmotivated homicidal plot which almost came to fruition, if not for a God who was oh so hidden, but present nonetheless in the matrix of the universe.