Rabbi's Sermon
Several things come to mind when the
holiday of Purim peeks though the maze of calendar days and
dates. For example, there is the understanding that it is unique
in the Jewish experience. Nowhere else in our celebrations do we
commemorate victory with merriment. In fact, we are taught that
we have a duty, an obligation, to not rejoice over the
misfortune of others. Yet, here we are, rejoicing over the
demise of villains determined to destroy us.
A Midrash describes the salvation of the
Israelites from the clutches of Pharaoh when they are cornered
at the Sea. There is nowhere to turn, no retreat, and only death
in front. The Bible tells us that Moses lifted his hands over
the water, and it parted. The Israelites are spared but the
Egyptians drown in pursuit. Then the angels cry out to God as to
why there should not be celebrating and rejoicing to which God
replies that the Egyptians are also His children-certainly, no
cause for jubilation.
While many think of ourselves as different,
none went so far as to wish us harm for that reason alone. When
Pharoah decided to enslave the Hebrews, it was because he feared
that we were becoming too numerous and lived in the most fertile
part of the Nile delta. When the Israelites journeyed to their
promised land, Amalek did not want us to falter because of our
belief in One God, but because he was concerned about the
survival of his people by being overwhelmed by our numbers.
Even when the mighty Roman Empire destroyed
the lands of Judea and Samaria, it was because of insurrection
and rebellion. The Romans had a great deal of respect for our
culture and religious practices. History tells us that many
Roman soldiers converted to Judaism for its element of
connection and the value of life. It was our own hate for one
another that contributed to our destruction. The Talmud
describes it as “Sinus Chinum.”
The equation changed when the Nazis
systematically designed a “final solution,” which included the
indiscriminate murder of the Jewish people wherever they were
located because they were Jewish. The agenda was short, simple,
and direct. There was no pretense of the Jews being “too
numerous” or too strong.
Haman’s remarks in his diatribe to the
Persian King of “a certain people scattered about and dispersed
among other peoples...” is an invitation to resent people who
are different. How many times have we seen hatred surface when
we do not understand someone or find that person or persons so
different that it frightens us? Also, Purim gives us an
opportunity to escape from reality. We dress differently; we
masquerade as someone else, all in a frenzy to elude the
terrible misfortune that awaited us as Haman and his cohorts
developed a scheme to rid themselves of the Jewish presence, not
the Jewish people as such.
However, the most unique aspect of Purim is
the dialogue we have regarding the absence of God in the
narrative. Maimonides debates this in his Guide to the Perplexed
and in his Mishnah Torah. He talks about good and evil, and the
part played by God in both.
Purim is a holiday, the last in the Jewish
sequence that allows us to examine our role in accepting that
which happens or making the effort to extract from the
experience the ability to allow goodness to dominate our lives.
Purim is a holiday that enables us to understand that we must
take control of our destiny. Purim is a holiday that helps us
comprehend the meaning of freedom as fully described in a
holiday that follows just four weeks later – Passover, the
ultimate expression of self-determination.
Rabbi Irwin Wiener, D.D