Purim 2022
This week we celebrate the holiday of Purim. The Torah has messages for every time and generation. There are many lessons we can learn from Purim for our lives today.
On a theological level we can learn about the invisible hand of Providence guiding the events of history, which is perhaps why the megillah, which tells the story of Purim, is called “Megilat Esther” from the root words “ligalot” meaning “to reveal” and “hester'' which means “hidden”.
We can learn about the eternal endurance of the Jewish people even when threatened by genocide-that no matter how bad things seem-there is always hope, even if we do not see it coming.
We can learn about taking action into our own hands, as Mordechai says to Esther in the megillah: “If you keep silent at this time, relief and deliverance will come to the Jews from another place, and you and your father’s house will perish; and who knows, perhaps you have attained to royal position for just such a moment as this.”
The world is in the midst of witnessing a war waged by Russia against Ukraine. We are surprised by this, even shocked. We were lulled into thinking the world had changed. It is by now cliche that what we had thought of as liberal democracy’s “end of history”, was only the beginning. The ideologies of others are vastly different from our own and are deeply held. As with Haman, we can not always understand the motives of others, especially dictators, unless we are able to look through their glasses, and see the world as they do.
The Megillah makes clear that megalomania is the prime motivation for dangerous leaders. Haman’s hatred of the Jews is bound up with this, as we see in the Megillah:
“Some time afterward, King Ahasuerus promoted Haman son of Hammedatha the Agagite; he advanced him and seated him higher than any of his fellow officials. All the king’s courtiers in the palace gate knelt and bowed low to Haman, for such was the king’s order concerning him; but Mordecai would not kneel or bow low…When Haman saw that Mordecai would not kneel or bow low to him, Haman was filled with rage…having been told who Mordecai’s people were, Haman plotted to do away with all the Jews, Mordecai’s people, throughout the kingdom of Ahasuerus…Haman then said to King Ahasuerus, “There is a certain people, scattered and dispersed among the other peoples in all the provinces of your realm, whose laws are different from those of any other people and who do not obey the king’s laws; and it is not in Your Majesty’s interest to tolerate them…Haman sent for his friends and his wife Zeresh, and Haman told them about his great wealth and his many sons, and all about how the king had promoted him and advanced him above the officials and the king’s courtiers…Yet all this means nothing to me every time I see that Jew Mordecai sitting in the palace gate.”
It does not seem that Haman was previously a hater of Jews, in fact the only thing we know about Haman is that he seems to be concerned with his own aggrandizement, his own royalty, and sees the Jews as not real Persians, in his eyes they are integrated into Persian society but are fundamentally separate. There will always be Hamans who wish to blame the Jews and use Jewish hatred for their own power and gain. We need to be aware and alert and not take our safety at any moment in history, for granted.
This Purim we are witnessing a man obsessed with his own power, the leader of a country, taking over others by force in service of his own fantasy of restoring an imagined imperialistic glory with him at the head. We should care for and assist those he is targeting, but we should also be wary and on edge, since such things often come with hatred of, or blame toward the Jews. When things do not go Hamans' way he blames the Jews. Look closely and you will see that the head of the country which this Purim is trying to reestablish its empire also has a current of anti-semitism running through him and his advisors.
