Shabbat Tzav 15 Adar II 5768,Mar 22, 2008

Efrat, Israel – There’s more to Purim than meets the eye — or tongue. One of the year’s most festive days, Purim not only captures the universal seriousness of good triumphing over evil, but for one day a year, the rela¬tively strict attitudes of Judaism are replaced with a carnival-like atmosphere of parades, drinking and masks. The Talmud even commands us to get so drunk “... that we cannot tell the difference between cursing Haman and blessing Mordechai.” (B.T Megilla 7B).

But who is the real hero of Purim? Is it the great Jewish beauty who wins the king’s heart, and finds herself becoming the voice of the Jews as she pleads before the one man who has the power to save or destroy her people?

Or is the hero the king himself who, despite being surrounded by evil men — most notably Haman — is able to rise above the prejudices toward Jews, who are scattered and dispersed across the land, keeping their own laws? When he withdraws the edict, the king demonstrates the kind of wise sovereignty select mon¬archs have had toward their Jewish subjects throughout the ages.

Or is Mordechai the hero — humble, saintly, self-effacing — whom Divine Providence put in the right place at the right time, allowing him to overhear the mutinous plot of two of Ahashverosh’ ministers, thereby saving the king’s life? Or perhaps he’s the hero because he never forgets he is a Jew, refusing to bow down to Haman no matter what the consequences are.

To better understand who the real hero might be, we should pay close attention to the paradoxical dictum to get so drunk “that we cannot tell the difference between cursing Haman or blessing Mordechai.”

Shushan, the capital of Ahashverosh’ kingdom, may have very well been like New York City or any other great melting pot. This historical period of the Book of Esther is dated 485-465 BCE. Yet, in 538 BCE, Cyrus had already granted the Jews permission to return to Israel and rebuild the Temple. Most Jews didn’t return. Economically and socially, the Jews in Shushan had it good, the overwhelming majority opt¬ing against the poverty and military insecurity of Israel. The Book of Esther may very well be the first work to describe what happens to a Jewish commu¬nity in the Diaspora, a pattern which will repeat itself for the next 2,500 years.

The Jews were the cream of Shushan society. PJY’s (Per¬sian Jewish Yuppies) were busy breaking into the media, law and medi¬cine, spending their free nights at parties, no end to the champagne and wine accompanying seven-course feasts. Indeed, the Scroll of Esther opens with the king’s invitation to the Jewish community, with no mention of kosher caterers. Even intermarriage seems so deeply entrenched that when the niece of the leading religious Jew of the city marries the king, the text only says that “. . . she was taken?” (Esther 2:8) There is no indication she put up a fight, shaved her head in an attempt to make herself ugly during the year of primping in the king’s harem.

Perhaps G-d’s name does not appear because in Shushan these Jews were cut off from G-d. They simply had made no room for Him. Nonetheless, his¬tory tells us that the Creator had other plans for His people. In effect, G-d was saying: “Either you will remember that you’re Jews on your own, or I’ll have to remind you.”

Haman isn’t the first figure who wants to destroy the Jewish people. In the beginning of the Book of Esther, the Midrash tells us that the Jews had crept so far they had penetrated to the 49 depths of impurity. “….And the children of Israel were fruitful, increased like crawling creatures, multiplied, waxed exceedingly mighty and the land was filled with them?” (Exodus 1:7) The Midrash picks up on the comparison of the Jews to impure reptiles (vayishretzu), concluding that in saturating the land of Egypt, they indulged in every forbidden practice, completing their assimilation.

And then what happens? “There arose a new king over Egypt?’ (Exodus 1:8) The party is over. Edicts begin, death is in the air and pogroms occur. Male children go off to the army at the age of eight.

When Jews forget that they are Jews, a Gentile will remind them. His name is Pharaoh, his name is Haman, his name is Stalin, his name is Hitler.

Mordechai, in sackcloth and ashes, appears before the palace gates where it is forbidden to wear such mourning clothes, and the message is heard wherever Jews live. A great mourning cry rises. Mordechai bids Esther to plead for her Jewishness.

Esther (whose name means “hidden”) can no longer hide her Jewishness. When she steps out of the closet, declaring to the king that Haman’s edict is directed against her people, she risks everything. At that moment, she becomes, very possibly, the first baalat teshuva.

On Purim, we are commanded to drink so much because we are in a quandary. Without Haman, the tide of assimilation might not have stopped. And if, in a twisted way, we owe our continued existence to this classic anti-Semite, then understanding this paradox of the survival of the Jewish people requires that we drink so much that we cannot tell the difference between blessing one and cursing the other. Look at what I’m celebrating. Thanks to Haman, we’re still alive. If we think about what that means, we have to drink because sober…it is a shocking idea. I can’t grasp it, much less celebrate it. But this is the legacy of exile: The anti-hero, this personification of evil, forces us to remember that we are Jews. That’s why one day a year we fathom the unfathomable — the cursed blessing of Haman, the anti-Semite.

Shabbat Shalom
Shlomo Riskin
Chancellor Ohr Torah Stone
Chief Rabbi - Efrat Israel