Iranian Jews similarly mark the holiday, but for centuries have also made a pilgrimage–throughout the year, but especially on Purim — to a shrine in the city of Hamadan where, according to tradition, Esther and Mordecai are buried. The origins and contents of this shrine are cloaked in legend and mystery.

Hamadan, known in antiquity as Ecbatana, is in the Kurdish region of Iran. Mount Alvand, which overlooks the city proper, hosted the summer residence of Persian royalty of the Achaemenid Empire (the period when the Purim story is believed to have happened). Tradition has it that Esther and Mordecai — after spending their final years at the royal resort — were buried in the city, next to one another, with a shrine constructed over their graves.

While the original shrine’s date of construction is unknown, its date of destruction, at the hands of Mongol invaders, purportedly occurred in the 14th century. Historian Ernst Herzfeld contends that the current structure may actually belong to Shushan Dokht, the Jewish queen of King Yazdagerd I (ca. 399-420 CE), who is credited with securing permission for Jews to live in Hamadan.

Herzfeld dates the current structure to 1602 CE, partly on account of its traditional Persian architectural style (known as Emamzadeh), which was ubiquitous amongst the shrines of Muslim religious leaders built in that era. In most cases, these buildings include an entry hall and a main square hall with a domed ceiling that surrounds the sarcophagus (stone coffin).

Earliest Reports

For centuries, Iranian Jews, Muslims, and Christians, particularly women praying for fertility, venerated the modest brick shrine. The first detailed accounts in the historical record are from Christian tourists in the 1800s and early 1900s. These records, which include outstanding illustrations, descriptions, and even photographs, were recently digitized–and provide a rare glimpse into the condition of the shrine in the past and the particular observances once held there.

One 19th-century visitor describes a marble plaque on the interior dome walls claiming that the structure was dedicated in the year 714 CE by “the two benevolent brothers Elias and Samuel, sons of Ismail Kachan.” Other visitors describe rooms covered in pilgrims’ graffiti in various languages as well as darkened by candle smoke; a stork’s nest sitting atop the shrine’s dome; and a prayer area within that was designed to enable worshippers to face the tombs and Jerusalem at same time.

They also recount that notes in Hebrew script were placed near the tombs, similar to how Jewish worshippers often tuck prayer notes into the stones of Jerusalem’s Western Wall. For Iranian Jews, who could reach Jerusalem only with great difficulty, the shrine served as a stand-in place at which to pray and weep.

Renovation

Until the 1970s, the shrine was hidden away in a crowded part of Hamadan, surrounded by houses, and accessible only through a narrow dirt alley. But in 1971, in honor of a national celebration of 2,500 years of Iranian monarchy, the Iranian Jewish Society commissioned architect Yassi (Elias) Gabbay to undertake a renovation.

Houses around the tomb were purchased and demolished, making the shrine accessible from the main street via a bridge Gabbay constructed over the new courtyard and a partially-underground synagogue chapel he also built, to complete the shrine complex. The subterranean chapel has a skylight in the shape of a Star of David that can be seen in Google Earth, quite possible making the Islamic Republic in Iran home to the only Jewish star visible from space.

The renovation did not significantly alter the shrine itself, or the grave stones cluttering the plaza outside the old shrine. (Some prominent local Jews had in the past secured burial plots outside the shrine, which they considered holier than plots in the main Jewish cemetery in Hamadan.)

One of the old structure’s remarkable features that Gabbay preserved is its front door, a massive piece of granite with a hidden lock. Less than four feet high, the stunted doorframe forces visitors to bow as they enter, in deference to the site’s holy occupants.

An outer chamber holds tombs of famous rabbis and provides access by means of an archway to the interior chamber. The interior chamber features Hebrew writing along the walls and holds two carved sarcophagi, supposedly marking the burial spots of Esther and Mordecai. This chamber also houses a cabinet with a 300-year-old Torah scroll.

The Contemporary Shrine

Today, Esther’s Tomb has lost some of its former splendor. Iranian authorities, for example, have removed an ornamented gate Gabbay had erected along the sidewalk using a geometric motif common in many mosques. The problem? Part of the classic motif forms a Jewish star — a fact regime officials apparently considered intolerable (unlike the fence, the Star of David skylight is not visible from street level). Gabbay himself lives in exile, having fled after the Islamic Revolution and restarted his architectural practice in Los Angeles, though he dreams of returning to see the site he transformed.

The question of whether the shrine actually marks the resting place of Esther and her uncle remains unanswered, and is perhaps unanswerable.  But one 19th-century Christian pilgrim offered her own insight on the effectual significance of the tomb and the 2,700-year-old Persian Jewish community that guards it:

“Beside the tomb of Esther the lowly race she saved have kept loving watch through all the weary ages. More wonderful than any ancient monument are these Jews themselves, lineal descendants, in blood and faith, of the tribes of Israel, and the only vestige of the truly olden time which entirely defies decay and dissolution.”

This article is dedicated to Sylvia Guberman ZT”L, a woman of valor in the spirit of Esther.

Reprinted with permission from the Diarna Project.

Diarna, “Our Homes” in Judeo-Arabic, is a project dedicated to digitally preserving Mizrahi (“Eastern”) Jewish history through the lens of physical location. Satellite imagery, photographs, videos, oral histories, panoramas, and even three-dimensional models, offer a unique digital window onto sites and communities disappearing before our very eyes. To begin your free trip — no passport or airfare required — explore Diarna’s website (http://www.diarna.org). Diarna wishes to thank Iranian-Jewish scholar Orly R. Rahimiyan for her careful and helpful reading of this article in draft form. 

The post Are Esther and Mordechai Buried in This Iranian Tomb? appeared first on My Jewish Learning.

As we encounter Vashti in chapter one, we learn the following about her: She is beautiful and headstrong. She throws a good party. She refuses to have her appearances before the king regulated solely by his desires. For this last offense, Vashti pays dearly, losing her crown and incurring perpetual banishment from the king’s presence. At the close of chapter one it is clear that a woman in Ahasuerus’s court would do well to be dutiful and to come before the king as he commands. The essentiality of female obedience is further confirmed by the final verse of the chapter in which a missive is sent to all of Ahasuerus’s subjects reminding them in no uncertain terms that “every man must rule in his household.”

By contrast, Esther is presented at first as the perfect foil to Vashti. Whereas Vashti was willful and independent, Esther is passive and submissive. The reflexive use of the Hebrew word “LaKaKH” is constantly applied to her. She is “taken” in by Mordechai as a foster daughter, “taken” to the king’s harem, and “taken” before the king. She does not reveal her identity at the palace, “for Mordechai had commanded her not to tell.” She requests nothing at the harem, only accepting whatever Hagai, the king’s eunuch, chooses to give her. Even after she is crowned queen, we are told that Esther continues to obey the commands of Mordechai as she had done under his care. It is no surprise that Ahasuerus loves Esther. She is the model of docility, an exact antidote to Vashti.

Esther understands very well her role as Ahasuerus’s queen. When Mordechai commands her to appear before the king and intercede on behalf of the Jews, Esther responds that everyone knows that those who appear before the king unbidden are condemned to die. She has learned from her predecessor’s fate that the queen’s job is to come when she is called. Mordechai insists to Esther that it is her responsibility to plead for her nation.

This is a moment of crisis for Esther. She is caught between conflicting obediences to her foster father and husband. In addition, to come before the king unsummoned is an abnegation of her role as Vashti’s replacement. She was chosen to be queen since she represented the antithesis of Vashti’s persona. Esther’s position, her identity and quite possibly her life are all closely tied to her obedience to the king.

In this moment of fate, Esther looks into her mirror and discovers that she does not look quite so different from Vashti after all. She takes matters into her own hands and stands up to both sources of authority. Esther assumes control of Mordechai’s plan, changing and amending as she sees fit. Like Vashti, she will appear before the king only when she decides that the time is right–in this case after three days of fasting. Instead of following Mordechai’s suggestion and simply making her petition, she will throw a series of parties as Vashti did. In order to succeed, Esther realizes that she must take on aspects of the repudiated former queen.

Of course, we do not actually know why Vashti refused to appear before the King. It could have been out of modesty as the Midrash in Esther Rabbah suggests. Or as the Babylonian Talmud describes, she may simply have been unhappy with her appearance that day (a sudden case of leprosy according to Rabbi Yossi bar Chanina or the surprise sprouting of a tail according to a beraita). Perhaps she was being capricious. Perhaps she was a proto-feminist fighting for a sense of independent integrity. In any event, Vashti’s disobedience brings her career to an abrupt end and her fate is quite deliberately meant to serve as an object lesson to women everywhere.

As Esther marshals her strength to save her nation, she must revisit the experiences of her shunned predecessor and learn from them. Esther is more calculated, more subtle, (more divinely inspired) and ultimately far more successful than Vashti. Yet, in order to triumph, Esther must confront the image of Vashti and incorporate (or perhaps discover) the attributes of Vashti in herself.

As Orthodox feminists, we are constantly confronted with taboo images of dangerous women from whom we are told to distance ourselves. A is too radical, B has gone too far, C has made too many enemies. We struggle to draw our borders, to be open and yet traditional, free and yet constrained within halacha. Purim is a holiday in which we explore and challenge our boundaries. We dress up as other people. Some of us drink to the point where differences become blurred. In the spirit of this holiday and following the legacy of our ancestor Esther, I encourage us to reexamine whom we emulate and from whom we shy away. We may discover as Esther did that we are not so different from those whom we fear and that the most important lessons can be learned from the unlikeliest of teachers.

The post Vashti and Esther: A Feminist Perspective appeared first on My Jewish Learning.

Ostensibly a commemoration of national deliverance from danger, we should have expected solemn ceremonies of thanksgiving such as characterize Passover and Hanukkah. The victory over Haman is, however, distinguished by a unique mood of high-spirited frivolity, colored by high alcoholic content and a general tendency to make light of matters which would be treated more reverently at other seasons.

Original Solemnity

The earliest descriptions of Purim celebrations, from the Second Temple and Mishnaic eras, offer no indication of the irreverence that we associate with the festival. The emphasis is on the formal reading of the Scroll of Esther, which was to be conducted with great care and seriousness.

To the best of my knowledge none of the familiar themes of drinking, parody, etc., are mentioned in Talmudic sources emanating from the Land of Israel. In fact the chief Palestinian rabbinic exposition of Esther, the midrash Esther Rabbah, seems to take every possible opportunity to emphasize the dangers of wine, incorporating a lengthy tract on the virtues of temperance.

The events of the Megillah are interpreted as reflections of the religious behavior of the Jews of the time, and within the context of broader historical themes, especially the destruction of the First Temple and the beginnings of the building of the Second (which the Rabbis believed was delayed by Ahashverosh and Vashti).

It was the Jews of Babylonia who seem to have introduced some of the more frivolous customs into the observance of Purim. Two main factors can be traced to the Babylonian Talmud: “Purim-Torah” and the encouragement of drunkenness.

In the Babylonian Talmud

An exceptional passage in the Bavli (Babylonian Talmud, Hullin 139b) serves as a model for subsequent “Purim-Torah”–that is, playfully using some of the far-fetched methods of talmudic logic and Biblical exegesis in order to reach absurd conclusions.

The passage in question relates how a visiting rabbi was challenged to find references to Mordecai, Esther, Haman, and Moses (!) in the Pentateuch. The sage responds to the riddles with audacious, clever puns. For example, ignoring the traditional vocalization, he finds an allusion to Haman in Genesis 3:11: “Is it from (hamin) the tree…” (also hinting at the villain’s hanging); and to Esther in Deuteronomy 31:18, where God says, “I will surely hide (haster ‘astir) my face” (recalling Esther’s refusal to disclose her origins to the king).

Typically, some of the later commentators approached the talmudic passage without full appreciation of its humorous intent. Thus Rashi gravely tries to justify the need to find an “allusion” to Moses’ name in the Torah.

Or to take another example, the later custom of donning masks and costumes on Purim–a practice which is first reported in Provence in the early 14th century, and later achieved popularity under the influence of the German Fastnacht celebration and the Italian carnivals–was afterwards tied to the idea of God’s “hiding his face” as found in the Talmud!

In contrast to the approach taken by the Palestinian sources, the Babylonian Talmud records the famous dictum of the noted sage Rava (Megillah 7b): “A man is obligated to get drunk on Purim to the point where he can no longer distinguish between ‘Cursed is Haman’ and ‘Blessed is Mordecai.'”

Here, too, later authorities had trouble accepting the ruling at face value. For an arch-rationalist like Maimonides it was unimaginable that the halacha [Jewish law] could be condoning such actions; hence he re-interpreted the ruling to refer to drinking only enough to fall asleep. Some authorities understood that the statement was rejected by the Talmud, a view which it indicates by juxtaposing to it an incident wherein Rabbah slaughters Rabbi Zera while under the influence. (Rabbah is able to revive his colleague, though the latter politely refuses an invitation to the next year’s festivities).

Medieval Parodies

From these Talmudic beginnings we can trace the development of a whole genre of Purim parodies, wherein Jews would affectionately poke fun at the world of Talmud and halacha. From the 12th century, Jews in Italy, southern France (Provence) and elsewhere were producing parodies on the Talmud, liturgy ,and other familiar pillars of Jewish life.

A typical “Purim Tractate” (Masekhet Purim) might follow the form of the Tractate Pesahim which deals with the regulations of Passover, except that all the stringent laws concerning the removal of leaven are now applied to water and non-alcoholic beverages, which are not to be tolerated on the holiday.

A special roster of biblical and rabbinic authorities populates these works. Alongside such drunkards as Noah and Lot we might encounter the prophet Habakbuk (“the Bottle”); as well as Rabbi Shakhra (“Drunkard”), or the commentary of Rasha (“Wicked”). In modern times especially, the format has been used to satirize a variety of social phenomena, from American Judaism to Israeli politics

It might be my imagination, but I have noted that in recent years it has become almost impossible to find these parodies, which used to be routinely reprinted before Purim. This might be indicative of an excessively defensive mood that has overtaken religious Jewry.

Particularly among German Jews there also developed the institution of the “Purim-shpiel,” a rowdy play on the Megillah story (or other theme) traditionally performed on Purim. Absorbing a number of different traditions, from the German theater as well as from Jewish exegesis, these productions took great liberties with plot and characterization, such that Mordecai might appear as a pathetic buffoon, Haman as a tragic figure, and so on. Such irreverence could of course be tolerated only at Purim time.

To German Jewry we also owe the adoption of the Hamantasch, an adaptation of the German mahn-tash (“poppy-pocket”) pastry, given a new meaning for the occasion.

Our custom of sounding noisemakers at the mention of Haman’s name is also a version of an old practice, which took on different forms through the generations. The earliest sources (from the writings of the Babylonian Ge’onim) speak of burning effigies of Haman on a bonfire. In medieval Europe children would write Haman’s name on stones or wood blocks, and bang them until the name was erased.

In our observance of Purim we are thus drawing from a long line of historical precedents and developments.

Reprinted with permission of the author.

The post A History of Purim appeared first on My Jewish Learning.

Fasting was also commonly practiced among Jews whenever they prepared for battle (as with the Persians who had been instructed to massacre them), in remembrance that their strength and victory would come from God.

The fast on Adar 13 became the custom well after other observances were adopted for Purim, possibly as an adaptation of the periodic Monday and Thursday fasts the Jews followed. While it carries less obligation than the fasts ordained in the Tanach[the Hebrew Bible] and others in the Talmud, some Jews , particularly the Persian (Iranian) Jews, have kept it as faithfully, reciting special selichot (penitential) prayers and selections of Torah recited on all other fast days. [The same is true for traditional Jews outside of Iran as well.]

Excerpted with permission from Celebrate! The Complete Jewish Holiday Handbook (Jason Aronson Inc.).

The post The Fast of Esther appeared first on My Jewish Learning.

In the case of Purim, hester panim’s importance is also intimated by the name of the heroine of the central narrative of the festival, Esther. The Babylonian Talmud tractate Hullin 139B states, “From where does the Torah bring the name Esther? From the verse ‘But I [God] will surely conceal my face [“haster astir panai“] on that day for all of the ill that they have done — for they turned to other gods. (Deuteronomy 31:18).'” The name Esther is interpreted as an extension of the phrase for a “concealed God.”

Discussing the verse in Deuteronomy, the medieval commentator Abraham ibn Ezra suggests that the term “turned to” or panah should actually be read as “whored with” or zanah. Here, the blame for the broken relationship between God and Israel lies squarely with Israel’s assimilation and worship amongst the gods of the nations, a circumstance apparent in the story of Purim as well. There seems to be no distinction between Esther or Mordechai and the non-Jewish Persians until the Jews themselves reveal who they are.

Furthermore, Esther’s moniker is doubly ironic, because her name is a Hebraization of the name of the Near Eastern goddess Ishtar, and her Uncle Mordechai’s name is a Hebrew version of the name of the Near Eastern god Marduk. Through the lens of a nitty-gritty melodrama of sex, deception, and violence, the Book of Esther openly critiques the possibility of a “secular” world of blind fate and challenges the nature of assimilated Jewish life. Without God at its center, Jewish life and Jewish heroes merely become a poor imitation of the world around them. The Diaspora Jews depicted at Purim’s core can be seen as a fulfillment of biblical prophecy of divine abandonment resulting from Jewish assimilation to the cultural norms counter to a Jewish center.

Esther as Commentary

The Book of Esther as a whole may be a kind of midrash or meditation on the verse in Deuteronomy cited above. This meditation is far from simple, much closer to a hall of mirrors than an opportunity for focusing reflection on any one proper identity or image. Culturally in the Book of Esther, Jews mirror non-Jews, going so far as to popularize the names of foreign gods for their own elite. This is a dramatic turn for a Jewish people told to be a nation holy like God throughout the period of their growth in the desert (Leviticus 19: 1-2) or for that matter, for humanity as a whole, which is said to be created in the image of God in the first chapters of Genesis.

Yet despite God’s vow in Deuteronomy, it is not clear if the Jewish disconnect with the divine in Esther is the result of God’s withdrawal from protection of Jewish religious sanctity during the destruction of the First Temple–from which Mordechai and Esther’s ancestors as said to have fled–or if God withdraws from the Jews only gradually because of their assimilation in Persia. Whether God or the Jewish people initiate the break in this relationship, the result is that the Jews can no longer mirror God because God is no longer a face to be experienced and reflected upon. The world of the Jews of the Purim story is one of physical and spiritual exile.

Purim and the Day of Atonement

Amidst practices of drinking and bawdy entertainment, Purim contains a serious undercurrent that carries the responsibility of repentance to mend a broken relationship with the divine. Jewish teachers note that etymologically, Purim is partnered with Yom HaKippurim, the Day of Atonement. Yom HaKippurim is said to be a day k’purim — a day like Purim. This linguistic and thematic connection reflects on the tone of both days, Yom Kippur giving a sense of life’s random absurdity and Purim a feeling that even the most outrageous celebrants are in fact approaching the work of reconciliation with God. The terminology of the hurt and concealed face provides a particularly strong link between these two festivals.

The concept of the concealed face appears initially when Adam and Eve hide themselves “from the face of God” after eating from the Tree of Knowledge (Genesis 3:8). Then, as part of his punishment following Cain’s murder of his brother Abel, God asks Cain, “Why has your face fallen?” (Genesis 4:6). Having admitted his guilt, Cain summarizes his punishment: “Here, you drive me away from the face of the soil, and from your face must I conceal myself” (Genesis 4:14). The concealed face represents a violent rift between people and God, a burden of great wrong that is an ancient, shared vocabulary of pain and disappointment.

Furthering the link between repentance, God’s concealed face, and Purim, another medieval commentator, Nachmanides, notes that the curse of God’s concealed face in Deuteronomy — to which Esther is most likely related — is a burden of the sin of idolatry punishable by exile, not relieved until the Jewish people demonstrate profound remorse through vidui [confession] and teshuvah [repentance]. These are terms essential to the ritual process of reconciliation between people and the divine on Yom HaKippurim. While Purim theology is by its nature at turns serious and ridiculous, the link between Purim and unfulfilled atonement makes thematic sense.

As social commentary on the cause of the concealed face of God, the Book of Esther challenges both Jewish and divine identity from numerous directions. Purim can be understood as a ritualized celebration of breaking down day-to-day persona and identity by questioning the old and trying on the new. The festival also presents the deeper conflict of Jews who do not know who they really are in relation to their own culture, the surrounding culture, or their Creator. Indeed, even the identity of God, certainly the hero of the Hebrew Bible, is challenged. God does not make even a cameo appearance in the Book of Esther — at least not in a form to which the text cares to give a name.

While it is not clear that Esther and Mordechai fully internalize the lessons of transforming danger and fear into a productive model for a lasting partnership with God, there are indications of a move towards a kind resolution — or at least resolve — as the narrative concludes. Esther’s decree to establish permanent feasting, gifts to the poor, and the sending of portions to neighbors to commemorate the events of her day (Esther 9:22) is done in a language of commandment generally reserved for the divine. This may indicate her desire for reestablishment of a commandment-based community, thus inviting God to reconnect with the Jews on terms God can understand. It may also suggest that Jewish leadership has matured enough to take on the mantel of providing religious commandments and political and social balance for the Jewish people in a period of God’s lasting absence.

The post The Concealed Face of God appeared first on My Jewish Learning.

History of Purim

Did the events described in the Book of Esther actually happen? Historians have looked in vain for extra-biblical corroboration of the events of the story. However, the threat of antisemitism (and the awareness that sometimes it does result in bloody massacre) has remained with the Jewish community throughout countless centuries, so the story continues to resonate. What is certain is that Jews have celebrated the holiday of Purim for thousands of years. 

Learn more about the history of Purim.

The Book of Esther

The Purim story purports to take place during a time when many Jews were living in Persia. A young Jewish woman, Esther, serendipitously rises to be queen of Persia, though she manages to keep her Jewish identity hidden from the king The reason for this soon becomes clear: The Jews have enemies, and in short order a man named Haman is appointed grand vizier and uses his newfound power to plot the Jews’ destruction. Even though Esther has hidden her Jewish identity from all, her guardian Mordecai prevails on her to risk her life by revealing her true identity to the king in the hopes of foiling Haman’s evil plan. When Esther reveals herself and denounces Haman, the king is unable to reverse the decree but the Jews are given license to defend themselves and end up killing the enemies who had risen up to slaughter them. For thousands of years, the story has offered hope to minority Jewish populations, often living in hostile majority cultures.

Famously, God is never explicitly evoked in the Book of Esther. However, in Tractate Megillah, the talmudic tractate devoted to Purim observances, Rabbi Akiva declares the Book of Esther to be divinely inspired. Some commentators believe this eventually led to the inclusion of Esther in the Hebrew Bible, despite the omission of God from the book.

How to Celebrate Purim

The sages assigned four mitzvot, commandments, to Purim: (1) hearing the megillah, (2) giving gifts to the poor (matanot l’evyonim), (3) giving gifts to friends (mishloach manot) and (4) feasting. 

The centerpiece of the communal celebration is the reading of the Scroll of Esther, the megillah, in the synagogue. This is a raucous affair, with participants dressing in costume and whoops, hollers and sundry noise being made every time that Haman’s name is mentioned. While clapping and stamping work to drown out the name of the genocidal villain, many people also use noise-makers called graggers. Another synagogue tradition is the Purim shpiel, or play, during which fun is poked at community leaders and members. Purim has often been called the Jewish carnival, and taking part in an actual carnival can heighten the levity of the day. In addition, this is the one holiday on which heavy drinking, usually discouraged by Jewish tradition, is recommended.

At home, Jews traditionally hold a feast on Purim called a seudah. This is an extra large and festive meal and upon reciting Birkat Hamazon, the Grace After Meals, it is traditional to add the prayer thanking God for miracles, Al HaNissim, which is also added on Hanukkah. Any delicious foods can be part of this meal, but many Jews eat traditional cookies called hamantaschen which are triangular in shape and hold a sweet filling. In addition, on Purim Jews send food gifts to one another, called mishloach manot, and give charitable donations.

How to Prepare for Purim

If Purim is approaching, here are a few things you might want to do to prepare:

• Figure out how you will hear the megillah. Synagogues everywhere host megillah readings, and you can also find them online. 
• Plan your costume. You can dress up as a character from the Purim story or your favorite superhero. Or you can just grab a silly hat.
• Learn to bake hamantaschen. If you are culinarily-inclined, locate a great hamantaschen recipe. If that’s not your thing, many grocery stores in Jewish areas carry them this time of year.
• Shop for your mishloach manot and Purim seudah. Time to hit the grocery store or dive deep into your cupboards.
• Donate to your favorite charities. Purim is a time of celebrating Jewish good fortune and giving tzedakah to those less fortunate. 

Learn more about Purim

You can learn more about Purim by exploring other articles on our website. For example:

• Find out why Jerusalem celebrates Purim a day later than other Jewish communities.
• Learn about the Jewish fast held on the day before Purim.
• Get pro-tips for folding hamantaschen.
• Learn to make your own gragger.
• Explore a Kurdish Jewish women’s holiday held right before Purim.
• Discover the secret connection between Purim and Yom Kippur.
• Check out the tomb where Esther and Mordechai are purported to be buried.

Happy Purim!

The post Purim 101 appeared first on My Jewish Learning.

The Jewish calendar highlights the eternal struggle between good and evil as Purim approaches. It is taught that from the first day of the month of Adar in anticipation of Purim “joy is multiplied” (Babylonian Talmud, Ta’anit 29a). Even so, the Torah reading on the Shabbat immediately following the beginning of this joyful cycle (Parashat Zachor) enshrines the memory of Amalek, destined since biblical times to strike at the Jewish people in every generation.

In its paradoxical style, the Book of Esther does not settle for a simple narrative of the Jews under the leadership of Mordecai and Esther–descendants of the same King Saul who failed to eliminate the threat of Amalek previously (1 Samuel 15:1-38)–outwitting Amalek’s genocidal descendant Haman. Even though the “good” Jews are clear winners over “evil” Haman, deeper engagement with this narrative actually inspires the much more complex and profound theological question of whether blind fate or the hidden hand of God holds humanity in its sway.

The Hebrew word purim is the plural form of pur, meaning lot. In the Book of Esther, the “luck of the draw” prevails and God is notably absent. Although it is one of the two biblical books that do not refer directly to God, a midrashic reading of its heroine’s name “Esther” recalls the divine vow “haster astir panai,” or “I [God] surely will hide My face.” More important for the Jewish acceptance of the holiness of the book is Mordecai’s reference to help coming “from another place” (Esther 4:14), which Jewish tradition interprets as an oblique reference to God. Ultimately, however, it is the book’s giving of hope to an oppressed and scattered people that they will prevail, no matter how desperate their circumstances, that has made the Book of Esther so beloved in the Jewish community.

Within this tension between a hidden God and a story seemingly driven by arbitrary fate, a number of other fascinating themes emerge. A comparison with the Exodus from Egypt — commemorated just a few weeks later at Passover — produces striking parallels and very different conclusions. In both stories, a hateful tyrant threatens to destroy the Jews. While the stateless Israelite slaves flee Egypt to find freedom under God‘s protecting care, the established Jews of Persia use their political connections and skill to reassert themselves within their host community. If the triumph of the Israelites in Egypt is explicitly determined by the exercise of divine authority, the story of Purim is characterized by human deception, sexual manipulation, and bloodshed.

In simple terms, the theology of Passover celebrates God’s determination to lead the Jews from exile to their own land, while Purim reflects the situation of a people in the Diaspora surviving by their own wiles within a world of moral uncertainty.

Fluidity of Jewish identity is another key aspect of Purim as. Esther — apparently unobservant of Jewish custom within the court — is more “assimilated” the further she moves up the Persian hierarchy. Her Uncle Mordecai’s supposed piousness notwithstanding, when she is finally called upon to serve her people, it is her very assimilation that allows her access to the king and serves all Jews so well.

Purim and its customs of drinking, dressing-up, and mockery provide the natural opportunity for challenging the standard religious system. People are invited to relinquish normal modes of behavior for one day, embracing behavior otherwise viewed with suspicion. Controlled and institutionalized chaos affirms the greater structure of Jewish custom and law by forming an outlet for a healthy questioning and challenge from within. At the same time, consequences of losing control are further balanced by traditions of giving extra tzedakah (charity) and special gifts to friends and neighbors (mishloach manot) on Purim. Even in its antinomianism (breaking the rules), the tradition has one eye focused on communal balance.

It is taught that in messianic times, only the festival of Purim will continue to be celebrated. Despite efforts to untangle its rich weave of paradoxes, no simple analysis suffices to explain this most unusual and dynamic of the Jewish holidays. It is fitting that Purim’s deepest mysteries and effects, like the face behind the mask, are most potent when unrevealed, and that the great jester of Jewish festivals offers theological defiance while raising a glass and tilting a smile.

The post Purim Themes and Theology appeared first on My Jewish Learning.

Megillat Esther tells the story of the salvation of the Jews of the Persian Empire. The Scroll of Esther is universally known as the Megillah, not because it is the most important of the five scrolls, but due to its immense popularity, the prominence that is given to its public reading, and the fact that it is the only one that is still generally read from a parchment scroll. At one time, it was normative for every Jewish household to possess a Megillah, and much time and skill were devoted to the production of beautifully illuminated texts and elaborate wooden and silver cases that would house the scroll.

The primary synagogue observance connected with Purim is the reading of the Book of Esther, called the Megillah (“scroll”). It is traditionally read twice: in the evening, after the Amidah prayer of the Maariv service and before the Aleinu, and in the morning after the Torah reading.

The Megillah is read from a parchment scroll that is written the same way a Torah is written — by hand, with a goose quill. If there is no such scroll available, the congregation may read the Book of Esther from a printed text, without the accompanying benedictions.

The Book of Esther is chanted according to a special cantillation used only in the reading of the Book of Esther. [This cantillation parodies the tropes used for reading at other times of the year.] If no one is present who knows this cantillation, it may be read without the cantillation, as long as it is read correctly. According to the Code of Jewish Law (Orach Chayim 690:9), it may be read in the language of the land. In practice, however, the usual custom is to chant the Megillah from the scroll in its original Hebrew.

Before the reading, the custom is to unroll the scroll and fold it so that it looks like a letter of dispatch, thus further recalling the story of the great deliverance.

Customs for Reading of the Megillah

• The Megillah must be read standing and from the scroll, not by heart. During the reading, there are four special verses, called “verses of redemption” (pesukei ge’ulah) that are [traditionally] said aloud by the congregation and then repeated by the reader. [Esther 2:5, 8:15-16, 10:3]
• At certain key points in the Book of Esther, it is a custom for the reader to raise his or her voice, adding drama to the story. [Esther 1:22, 2:4, 2:17, 4:14, 5:4, 6:1. In this last verse the king cannot sleep and commands that the book of records of chronicles be read to him. This is considered to be the turning point in the Esther story.]
• Another interesting part of the chanting of the Book of Esther is the four verses (Esther 9: 7-10) enumerating the 10 sons of Haman. The custom, already mentioned in the Talmud (Megillah 16b), is for the reader to chant the names of Haman’s sons in one single breath, in order to signify that they died together. Another reasons for this custom is the fact that we should avoid the appearance of gloating over their fate, even though it was deserved.

Congregational Participation

It is a widespread custom for the listeners at the Megillah reading to make noise, usually with special noisemakers called graggers, or in Hebrew ra’ashanim, whenever Haman’s name is mentioned. Some congregations also encourage the use of wind and percussion instruments as noisemakers.

The custom of blotting out the name of Haman appears to be the outgrowth of a custom once prevalent in France and Provence, where the children wrote the name of Haman on smooth stones, then struck them together whenever Haman was mentioned in the reading so as to rub it off, as suggested by the verse “the name of the wicked shall rot” (Proverbs 10:7).

Many modern-day congregations today are known to hold concurrent readings of the Megillah, each reading specially tailored to a particular age group or level of understanding. The singing of Purim songs during the reading of the Megillah, dressing up in costume, and other acts of frivolity are also part of today’s modern Megillah-reading festivities.

Excerpted with permission from Every Person’s Guide to Purim (Jason Aronson).

The post Reading the Megillah appeared first on My Jewish Learning.

It may be possible to buy a large wooden gragger (much noisier than the metal ones) that is just like one of those that were used in the old country. These often disguise themselves as “police rattles” (which were used to call other policemen) and hide out in antique stores.

If you are a bit more ambitious, you might want to make a Franklin Gragger [designed by Leon Franklin, member, JCC, Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania]. This was another of the crafts projects undertaken at the Wilkes-Barre Jewish Community Center under the direction of Sy Hefter.

Tools Needed

Electric drill with 1/2″ and 1/16″bits

Coping saw, jigsaw, or band saw to cut gear

Hammer, plane, sandpaper

Hand saw

Supplies Needed

One dowel 1/16″ x 1″ (for locking pin)

One tongue depressor 3/4″ x 6-1/4″ (available from doctor or drugstore)

One dowel 1/2″ x 5-1/2″ (for handle)

Two pieces soft white pine lath 9-3/4″ x 1-3/8″ x 1/4″

One block soft white pine 3-1/8″ x 1-3/8″ x 3/4″

Four brads

One hardwood wooden spool 1-1/2″ diameter and 3/4″ wide with a 1/2″ center hole (for gear). Available from shoe factory, usually discarded, called the center spool from a 3/4″ shoe gear.

Procedure for Making Franklin Gragger

1. Cut two pieces of lath to length.

2. Mark center line and drill 1/2″ hole through both lath pieces.

3. Mark spool and cut for eight teeth. Use jig, coping, or band saw.

4. Position spool on dowel and drill 1/16″ hole through both.

5. Insert 1/16″ dowel in hole to pin gear to 1/2″ dowel. Cut off excess.

6. Mark center on 1-3/8″ side of block and cut 1-1/2″ slot with hand saw (to hold depressor).

7. Insert tongue depressor into slot. Force fit. DO NOT NAIL.

8. Assemble:

a. Place lath pieces on both sides of gear through 1/2″ holes. Check for free movement. If too tight, ream 1/2″ hole.

b. Place block with tongue depressor between laths and adjust so that the gear will turn with the tongue depressor at its maximum.

(1) Be certain that tongue depressor is perfectly centered.

(2) Hold in this position and put 4 brads through each side into base block.

9. Finish by planing or cutting off excess wood edges, sand to fine finish, paint or stain. Design and colors can be as original as possible.

Reprinted with permission from The Jewish Catalogue: A Do-It-Yourself Kit, edited by Richard Siegel, Michael Strassfeld and Sharon Strassfeld, published by the Jewish Publication Society.

The post How To Make Your Own Gragger appeared first on My Jewish Learning.

Looking for Purim recipes? Click here or visit the Purim section on The Nosher, our food blog!

As a secular meal, it does not include a Kiddush (blessing over wine), except perhaps for a nonsense parody version, but nonetheless encourages partaking of plenty of wine. In fact, the most notable feature of the Purim seudah is the injunction, uncharacteristic among Jews, to drink until you don’t know (ad lo yada) the difference between barukh Mordekhai v’arur Haman (blessed be Mordecai and cursed be Haman).

This is not an invitation to drink uncontrollably, but a way to recognize your limit. Once you reach the point of confusion, stop. (You are responsible for any damage caused by merrymaking and intoxication!) You are not supposed to get rip-roaring drunk on Purim, but happily tipsy. Not only does wine add to frivolity, it highlights the theme of drinking and how it helped create the miracle, throughout the Purim story. The saga opens with a series of wine-infused banquets (Esther 1:1-9), Esther’s coronation is celebrated with a banquet (2:18), the Jews’ fate is sealed with a banquet between Ahasuerus and Haman (3:15), Esther hosts two banquets for the king and Haman (5:6, 6:7), and the book ends with the Jews celebrating and agreeing to annually celebrate with feasts (9:17-19).

But why imbibe ad lo yada? It seems to be a very strange notion in a religion that stresses remembering and making choices between different values. The formula may have been derived from a liturgical poem of talmudic times whose alternate verses ended “cursed…” and “blessed…” Only one who was sober could keep the rhymes straight. Another possibility is that since the gematria [numerical value of the Hebrew letters] of both phrases is 502, the two equal each other, and when you’re drunk you can no longer prove this.

The “same” means that God is to be praised equally for Haman’s downfall (cursed be Haman) and Mordecai’s elevation (blessed be Mordecai). Wine, according to Jewish thought, takes us away from petty distractions and gives us greater spiritual awareness. Under its influence, even when we can no longer distinguish the two benefits, we should continue praising God and His protection of us.

Reprinted with permission from Celebrate! The Complete Jewish Holiday Handbook (Jason Aronson).

The post The Purim Meal (Seudah) appeared first on My Jewish Learning.

1. Esther was a vegetarian (or at least a flexitarian).

According to midrash, while Queen Esther lived in the court of King Ahasuerus, she followed a vegetarian diet consisting largely of legumes so that she would not break the laws of kashrut (dietary laws). For this reason, there is a tradition of eating beans and peas on Purim. (After all, you’ll need something healthy after all the booze and hamantaschen.)

2. You’re supposed to find a go-between to deliver your mishloach manot, the gift baskets traditionally exchanged with friends and family on Purim.

The verse in the Book of Esther about mishloach manot stipulates that we should send gifts to one another, not just give gifts to one another. As a result, it’s better to send your packets of goodies to a friend via a messenger, than to just give them outright. Anyone can act as a go-between, so feel free to recruit the postal service or even that nice guy in the elevator to help you deliver your gifts.

3. The Book of Esther is one of just two biblical books that do not include God’s name.

The other is Song of Songs. The Book of Esther also makes no reference to the Temple, to prayer, or to Jewish practices such as kashrut [keeping kosher]. 

4. Hamantaschen might have been designed to symbolize Haman’s hat — or his ears or pockets. Or something a little more womanly.

Some say

these cookies represent Haman’s ears (the Hebrew name for them, oznei Haman, means just this), and refer to a custom of cutting off a criminal’s ears before his execution. Another theory is that the three corners represent the three patriarchs whose power weakened Haman and gave strength to Esther to save the Jews. Yet another theory: Because the German word tasche means “pouch” or “pocket,” the cookies could signify Haman’s pockets and the money he offered the king for permission to kill the Jews. Finally, in recent years, some feminists have suggested the cookies, which after all, are not dissimilar in appearance to female reproductive parts, were meant to be fertility symbols.

5. In 1945, a group of American GI’s held belated Purim services inside Nazi propagandist Joseph Goebbels’ confiscated castle.

According to JTA coverage at the time, the Jewish chaplain “carefully arranged the candles over a swastika-bedecked bookcase in Goebbels’ main dining room,” and Jewish soldiers explained to their Christian comrades in attendance  “about Haman and why it was so fitting that Purim services should be held in a castle belonging to Goebbels.”

6. The Book of Esther, which many scholars theorize is fictional, may be an adaptation of a Babylonian story.

Some scholars argue that the Book of Esther adapted stories about these pagan gods — Marduk becoming Mordecai and Ishtar transformed to Esther — to reflect the realities of its own Jewish authors in exile

7. The Jewish calendar has a regular leap year with two months of Adar (but only one Purim, which falls during the second Adar).

To ensure that the holidays remain in their mandated seasons, the Jewish calendar was ingeniously adjusted to accommodate the 11-day difference between the lunar and solar years. In the 4th century C.E., Hillel scheduled an extra month at the end of the biblical year, as necessary. The biblical year begins in spring with Nissan (Exodus 12:1-2) and ends with Adar. Hillel, in conjunction with the Sanhedrin (Jewish supreme court) chose to repeat Adar (Adar I and Adar II) every 3rd, 6th, 8th, 11th, 14th, 17th, and 19th year over a 19-year period.

8. Purim is celebrated one day later inside walled cities than it is everywhere else.

The Book of Esther differentiates between Jews who lived and fought their enemies for two days within the walled, capital city of Shushan and those who lived in unwalled towns, where only one day was needed to subdue the enemy. The Rabbis determined we should make that same distinction when memorializing the event. Accordingly, if a person lives in a city that has been walled since the days of Joshua (circa 1250 B.C.E.), as Shushan was, Purim is celebrated on the fifteenth of the month of Adar, a day referred to as “Shushan Purim.”

9. Just after the 1991 Gulf War, Israel’s most popular Purim costume was of the Israel Defense Forces spokesman whose face appeared on TV every time a Scud missile alert sounded — and people snacked on “Saddamtaschen” instead of hamantaschen.

Spokesman Nachman Shai’s “reassuring tones earned him the sobriquet ‘National Valium,’” while Israel was being pelted with Iraqi missiles, according to a JTA report at the time. That year, while many costume-makers avoided the temptation to make Saddam Hussein costumes (it would be like a Hitler costume, one vendor told JTA), bakeries hawked “Saddamtashen,” which “look and taste exactly like Hamantashen.”

The post 9 Things You Didn’t Know About Purim appeared first on My Jewish Learning.

From this historical event our rabbis teach that the Jewish people must send gifts of food to each other on the holiday of Purim. However, the question arises: What is the ultimate purpose of these gifts?

Countering the Accusations of Haman

One approach sees the mitzvah [commandment] of mishloach manot as counteracting the accusations of Haman. Haman accused the Jews of being “a scattered, and divided nation.” Thus, the Jewish people send gifts to each other in order to show that they are not divided, but rather are united. (Following this mitzvah can be understood as a positive reinterpretation of midah ke-neged midah — measure for measure.) The mishloach manot bring peace and harmony to an at times divisive and fractured Jewish community.

This explains why some maintain that one may fulfill the mitzvah of mishloach manot by sending not food, but words of Torah. Since the purpose of this mitzvah is to unite the Jewish people, one can fulfill the mitzvah with anything that achieves this goal. And what better method is there of achieving harmony amongst fellow Jews than by sharing words of Torah? (See Rabbi Yonah Metzger, Mi-Yam Ha-Halakhah, sec. 113.)

Ensuring Everyone Has a Festive Meal

A second explanation for the mitzvah appears in the Terumat Ha-Deshen (sec. 111) of Rabbi Israel Isserlein (15th century, Vienna), who writes: “It appears that the reason for this mitzvah is so that everyone can fulfill the mitzvah of eating a proper, festive meal on Purim.” In other words, the mitzvah intends to guarantee that rich and poor alike are provided for at the Purim meal. (It may also be taken as a symbol that both Jewish rich and poor. should recognize the universal aspect of redemption from the physical extinction of the entire nation).

This second approach raises another question. Indeed, there is already another mitzvah that assures that the poor are provided for on Purim, i.e. the mitzvah of mattanot le-evyonim (sending gifts to the poor). Why, then, is there a need for a second mitzvah of mishloach manot? So some suggest that the mitzvah of mishloach manot actually derives from the mitzvah of giving gifts to the poor on Purim. However, due to concern that the poor would feel ashamed that only they did not have sufficient means to provide for the Purim meal, the rabbis decreed that not only the poor, but all people should send and receive gifts on the holiday of Purim.

Thus, we see that the mitzvah of mishloach manot has two main functions — to instill harmony and love in the Jewish people, and to remind ourselves that as we celebrate the holiday of Purim, we can not forget about the needs of the less fortunate in our community.

Reprinted with permission of the author, whose website can be visited at www.rabbishmuel.com.

The post Why Do Jews Send Mishloach Manot on Purim? appeared first on My Jewish Learning.

Hamantaschen

Hamantaschen (Yiddish for “Haman’s pockets”) are the most famous Purim food. These triangular cookies are often filled with poppy seed, chocolate, jelly or other sweet flavors. Known as oznei haman (Haman’s ears) in Hebrew, hamantaschen are commonly included in mishloach manot or served as a snack at Purim parties. 

The tradition of eating hamantaschen on Purim began in late 18th-century Germany when pastries filled with poppy seeds were a popular treat. These cookies were called “mohntaschen” which translates to “poppy seed pockets.” In the early 19th century, German Jews started making them specifically for Purim and called them “hamantaschen” because the name of the Purim villain, Haman, sounds like “mohn.” Playing off the pun, it was said that the cookies stuffed with seeds represented Haman’s pockets stuffed with bribes.

Hamantaschen can be a tricky cookie to master. Learn how to make the perfect hamantaschen here.

More Purim Cookies

The sweets that are enjoyed by Jews during Purim aren’t limited to hamantaschen. Hadgi badah, an almond/cardamom cookie, are popular among Iraqi Jews, while ma’amoul stuffed with pistachios, dates or walnuts are often enjoyed by Jews from Lebanon, Egypt, Syria and other Arab countries (this cookie goes by other names, including kadeh for Kurdish Jews and kleicha for Iraqi Jews). In North Africa, Jewish communities celebrate Purim with debla: Strips of thin dough wrapped into the shape of a rose and deep-fried until golden, then soaked in a sugar syrup and covered in crushed nuts. The rolled shape symbolizes the megillah.

Like hamantaschen, other Purim cookies evoke Haman’s demise, like Haman’s Fingers, which are common among Sephardic Jews from Greece and Turkey. Phyllo dough is filled with chopped almonds and cinnamon, then rolled into a finger shape before being brushed with margarine and baked. In France, Jews enjoy palmiers, which are said to resemble Haman’s ears. 

Kreplach

Before enjoying triangular cookies, many Ashkenazi Jews eat the stuffed triangle soup dumplings that are commonly known as kreplach. While kreplach is traditionally stuffed with meat, vegetarians can opt for a mushroom filling.

Learn how to make both meaty and meatless kreplach here. 

Kulich/Keylitsch

In Russian Jewish communities, a special sweet challah accompanies the Purim meal. Unlike the challah that you’ll find at a Shabbat meal, this Purim challah — known as kulich or keylitsch — is so much sweeter that it’s practically cake. This challah is sometimes filled with raisins or candies to make it even sweeter. Unlike its Shabbat counterpart, kulich is made using longer strands, which symbolize the ropes that Haman intended to hang Mordechai with, but were ultimately used to hang Haman at the end of the Megillah instead.

In some communities, challah also makes an appearance during the Purim meal, but it is crown-shaped, and the strands are filled with poppy seeds before baking. Learn how to make it here.

Boyoja Ungola 

Also known as Ojos de Haman, Spanish for “Haman’s eyes,” this round bread is enjoyed during Purim by Moroccan Jews. Two hard-boiled eggs are placed in the middle of the bread, and then strips of pastry dough are placed over the eggs to form an X. The bread is baked, and before being eaten, the egg “eyes” are ripped out first. 

Stuffed Cabbage

While some Jews associate stuffed cabbage with Simchat Torah or Passover, stuffed cabbage is a traditional entree for Seudat Purim among Jews hailing from Lithuania, Poland and Hungary. Some say the stuffing represents the hidden miracles performed by God during the Purim story.

Anything Poppy Seed

Poppy seeds can be found in plenty of dishes on Purim menus, from rolled cookies in Israel to classic Hungarian pasta dishes. Some say consuming poppy seeds during Purim honors Esther, who is said to have eaten only poppy seeds during her three-day fast. Others trace the culinary custom to the word for poppy seed in German and Yiddish, mohn, being similar to the name Haman. Persian Jewish communities also utilize poppy seeds, especially in nan-e berenji, a small shortbread cookie topped with the black seeds in the middle to symbolize Haman’s fleas. 

Nuts and Legumes

At a Purim meal, it’s common to find appetizers, snacks and side-dishes that incorporate chickpeas, beans, lentils and a variety of nuts. These dishes honor the legend that Esther did not have access to kosher food while living in the palace and lived entirely on nuts, seeds and legumes so she would not violate the laws of kashrut. Fassoulyeh b’chuderah, a Syrian bean and tomato stew spiced with cinnamon, is one of the many dishes that honor this custom.

Purim Recipes from My Jewish Learning and The Nosher

Sweet Hamantaschen

Hamantaschen

Vegan Hamantaschen

Gluten-Free Hamantaschen

Cannoli Hamantaschen

Rocky Road Hamantaschen

Chocolate and Sprinkles Dipped Hamantaschen

Milk and Cereal Hamantaschen

Triple Chocolate Hamantaschen

Rosewater and Pistachio Hamantaschen

Tagalog Hamantaschen

Rice Krispies Treats Hamantaschen

Speculoos Hamantaschen

Coconut Cheesecake Hamantaschen

Chocolate Hamantaschen With Irish Creme Filling

Savory Hamantaschen

Three-Ingredient Pizza Hamantaschen

Pretzel Bagel Dog Hamantaschen

Feta and Leek Hamantaschen

Sushi Hamantaschen

Rosemary Hamantaschen with Balsamic Caramelized Jam

More Purim recipes

Cocido (Spanish Chickpea Stew)

Poppy Seed and Apple Cake

Stuffed Shishbarak

The post Purim Foods appeared first on My Jewish Learning.

The evening revolved around an event called khiyapit benatha, or the bath of the maidens. Mothers bathed their daughters in a beautification process that was supposed to make their daughters as beautiful and brave as Queen Esther, who also spent six months, along with the other maidens, bathing and anointing herself in the palace of the king before he chose her as his bride. At the river, Kurdish Jewish women danced, sang wedding songs, performed mock marriages between the girls, and decorated one another with henna. They also ate delicious date-filled cookies called kadeh (known in other parts of the Middle East as kleicha or ma’amoul).

This custom existed in Zaxo, Slemani, and Amedi — all cities in southern Kurdistan, now part of Iraq — but did not survive the rapid and tumultuous Jewish migration to Israel during the mid 20th-century. Unfortunately, all the resources we have surrounding this holiday are from Ashkenazi ethnographers, not from women talking directly about their own traditions. However, it is an important example of one of many Jewish women’s rituals found among Jewish communities of Islamic lands that have been largely forgotten. Another example is Eid El-Bnat, a Hanukkah celebration that literally means festival of the daughters.

Want to recapture some of the spirit of Leil Purim at home? We recommend you bake kadeh (here’s a recipe for ma’amoul, another name for this cookie), listen to Kurdish musicians (especially women!), and celebrate the powerful histories of Kurdish Jewish women such as Asenath Barzani, Ilana Eliya and Sabat Islambooly. Asenath, some would say, was the first woman rabbi, having been referred to as “our teacher” and “tannait” in her lifetime during the 16th century. Ilana Eliya is a modern day Kurdish Jewish feminist singer. Sabat Islambooly, a Jewish woman from Western Kurdistan, became one of the first women to become a licensed doctor in India after traveling to Pennsylvania for her medical education.

Plus, a bubble bath probably wouldn’t go amiss. Or a dip in the river — if you live somewhere warm enough.

The post Leil Purim: A Kurdish Jewish Women’s Holiday appeared first on My Jewish Learning.

In Diaspora, Purim celebrations tend to center on the synagogue, where Jews spend a few hours. They dress in costume, hold Purim spiels, host carnivals, give one another gifts, trade l’chaims, and make merry to celebrate an ancient Jewish escape from genocide. Purim celebrations in Israel, however, where in many places the majority of the population is Jewish, last all day (sometimes two days!) and spill out into the street. In major cities, it’s common for the streets to be filled with thousands of costumed partygoers from across the country who have traveled to celebrate with friends and family. These public celebrations start on the evening of Purim and stretch until the next evening.

Two Purims

Purim is celebrated by most Jews on 14 Adar. However, Jews in Jerusalem instead observe  Purim on 15 Adar, known as Shushan Purim. Shushan Purim is only celebrated in a city that has been walled since the days of Joshua (circa 1250 B.C.E.), and Jerusalem is the only place where Jewish authorities are confident that Shushan Purim should still be observed. 

Some Israelis, regardless of where they live, plan their Purim itinerary carefully so that they can celebrate both Purim and Shushan Purim. They will celebrate Purim on 14 Adar outside Jerusalem and then travel to Jerusalem in time to enjoy another 24 festive hours. 

Fun for Everyone

In many Diaspora Jewish communities, Purim celebrations are often family oriented: synagogue carnivals, costume parades and crafts can be just as prominent as adult-oriented Purim spiels and festive wine banquets (seudot). In Israel, the raucous, partying aspect of Purim is taken just as seriously by adults.

While Purim is not a day on which labor is prohibited, Jewish organizations in Diaspora do not usually close for this holiday, universities and some workplaces in Israel, however, are closed on Purim, and legally, Jewish Israelis can choose to take Purim off as a paid holiday. While most secular Israelis may skip other holidays, both secular and religious Jewish Israelis partake in traditional Purim observances like hearing the megillah, preparing mishloach manot, giving tzadekah and enjoying a festive meal.

The Adloyada

In Israel, Purim is also a common time for desert retreats, raves, circuses, music festivals, theater performances and other organized fun. The most notable widespread Purim celebration is the adloyada. Colloquially, this phrase refers to Purim parades, but the term actually comes from the talmudic commandment to drink “until one doesn’t know” (Aramaic; ad d’lo yada) — meaning one cannot distinguish between the name of Haman (the villain) and Mordechai (the hero).

The first adloyada was organized in Tel Aviv in 1912. Today, an adloyada is often organized by the local municipality and features colorful processions of dancers, musicians, cartoonish characters, street performers and kids donning their costumes.

Holon, a suburb of Tel Aviv, hosts the largest Purim parade each year — an estimated 4,500 people march in the adloyada, and more than 150,000 Israelis of all ages from across the country come to watch. 

The post How Purim is Celebrated in Israel appeared first on My Jewish Learning.

But though some might see Vashti as more plot device than character, both ancient and modern interpretations of Esther have given her a far more interesting back story. The Babylonian Talmud, for instance, paints her as an evil queen, who beats her Jewish maids and ultimately gets what she deserves — a kind of prelude to the triumphant ending of the book. Midrash Esther Rabbah, in contrast, imagines her as a noble and tragic heroine who had the only genuine claim to the throne. (That’s right! Vashti, not Ahasuerus, should have ruled Persia.) Some modern interpreters delight in her staunch refusal to be demeaned by the king and take her to be a feminist icon.

So who’s the real Vashti? In this piece, I offer a composite portrait based on the many different ancient Jewish interpretations. Capable of both evil deeds and tragically noble ambition, cunning but also outgunned, I suggest we read Vashti not as a feeble wife who made a fatal mistake when she opposed her odious husband’s demeaning demand, but a royal princess with the only true claim to the throne, navigating a hornet’s nest of regional politics in which male/female power dynamics are merely a smoke screen for a palace coup. She fails, of course, but not without putting up one heck of a fight.

“It happened in the days of Ahasuerus” (Esther 1:1)

The megillah opens with a display of rudeness: Why, the rabbis wonder, does the text fail to note the king’s title? Shouldn’t it have read: “It happened in the days of King Ahasuerus”? The reason, the rabbis infer, is because, technically, it was true. Ahasuerus was not yet king — he was merely angling to become the monarch of a newly-formed empire.

Ahasuerus, when we first meet him, is a man of war whose formidable tactics have just contributed to the formation of the Persian-Medean Empire, a now impressive 127 provinces in size. In the wake of this massive expansion, there is a power struggle for control of the new empire. Ahasuerus’ military successes render him a plausible candidate for ruler.

But someone else had a more legitimate claim to that throne. The new Persian-Median empire succeeds the old Persian Empire which had recently been ruled by Belshazzar, who is familiar to us from the Book of Daniel. Belshazzar ’s surviving heir is his granddaughter, Vashti. Both Megillah 10b and Esther Rabbah Peticha 11 identify Vashti as the granddaughter of Belshazzar which, incidentally, makes her also the great-great granddaughter of Nebuchadnezzar himself — the evil Assyrian king who destroyed the first Temple and sent the Jews into exile. This is one reason the rabbis read her as particularly punishing toward her Jewish servants.

Midrash and aggadah (rabbinic story-telling) explain how the beautiful and precocious young Vashti was spared by Darius the Mede on the night when Daniel read the proverbial “writing on the wall” (Daniel 5) and predicted the assassination of the corrupt King Belshazzar (her grandfather) by Medean spies. Darius used little Vashti to cement his own legacy by marrying her to one of his most faithful vassals, a promising young military man named Ahasuerus. But Xerxes, as his Greek enemies called him, was a better leader in wartime than in peace, and he bitterly resented his role as the queen’s consort. Unused as he was to domestic matters, he plotted to wrest control of the state away from his royal wife and consolidate all matters into his grasping hands.

In the third year of Ahasuerus’ reign, Ahasuerus put his plan into action (Esther 1:3). For six long months, he wined and dined the most important players in the empire: the military men of Persia and Medea, the wealthy patricians, and the regional governors. He greased palms and scratched backs in a splendid display of wealth and power. Then for seven days he threw the palace gardens wide open to every municipal worker in Shushan the capitol so that the lowliest secretaries and the janitors could drink at the open bar (Esther 1:8) of Ahasuerus. And on the seventh day, he made sure to drink enough wine that whatever happened next could be put down to the foibles of an inebriated but captivating monarch (Esther 1:10), rather than a carefully staged palace coup 187 days in the making.

“Vashti the Queen also made a feast for the women of the royal household of King Ahasuerus.” (Esther 1:9)

There are overt political overtones of Vashti’s parallel party. While Ahasuerus is drinking with the royal janitors, who hold the keys to the secret exits, and the royal secretaries, who know whether incriminating documents have been destroyed or merely filed away, Vashti only deigns to entertain the wealthiest and most noble ladies of Persia and Medea. Ahasuerus is betraying his plebeian origins; Vashti is affirming her royal blood. By doing so, she plays right into his scheme.

Midrash Esther Rabbah and Yalkut Me’am Loez imagine the queen, secure as she was in her blue-blooded superiority, was a ruthless tyrant and serial abuser of her underlings. Vashti beat her slaves mercilessly and, a descendent of the hateful king Nebuchadnezzar, was especially cruel to any girls she knew to be Jewish, taking their clothes and altering the duty rosters so they had to work on Shabbat, forcing them to desecrate the day of rest. According to the Talmud, Vashti left no legacy of kindness, social change or concern for any other woman who was not of her own color, class and breeding.

The midrash goes one step further to imagine that because she was cruel to women, Vashti’s downfall was indirectly brought about by other women. According to Esther Rabbah, it is really Ahasuerus’ minister Memuchan’s wife who suggests that Vashti be deposed and her estate be given “to her peer who is better than she is.” (Esther 1:16) Apparently, Memuchan’s wife was rudely disinvited from Vashti’s fabulous all-girl gala and, in any case, his ambitious daughter hoped to edge herself into the newly-vacant post of queen. When Ahasuerus sent out his seven messengers to spring his trap, not one serving woman or noblewoman in Vashti’s well-populated wing of the palace stepped forward to shield her.

Because, as we’ve already alluded, it turns out that the king’s summons was not a drunken whim, but a carefully laid trap. Here’s how it unfolded:

“On the seventh day, when the king was merry with wine, he ordered … the seven eunuchs in attendance to bring Vashti the Queen before them in the royal crown to display her beauty to the amassed hordes and the princes, for she was very lovely in appearance.” (Esther 1:10 – 11)

Bible scholar Adele Berlin scrutinizes the Greek records and explains that, according to their enemies the Greeks, the Persians were known to be drunken, predatory, womanizing louts, who wrote legislation at night when they were drunk and validated it (or tore it up in embarrassment) in the morning. Esther 1:19 corroborates this unflattering impression. The Greeks, who wrote epics and operas about their triumph in driving Xerxes (Ahasuerus) empty handed from their shores, found in their bibulous foes only one point of praise: Persian men drank separately from their spouses, so that their lady wives might not be exposed to debauchery. For Ahasuerus to summon his noble wife to a men’s drinking establishment was to treat her as a serving wench or a dancing girl, since the only women present at such a gathering were there to pleasure the male guests. As far as Berlin is concerned, Vashti could not have been more humiliated if Ahasuerus had asked her to appear naked. (According to the Talmud, that is quite literally what he did.)

“Queen Vashti refused to come before King Ahasuerus, whereupon he flew into a rage.” (Esther 1:12)

The trap has closed around Vashti with terrible finality: If Vashti obeys the summons, the rightful queen will become a laughingstock to every man and woman in Persia. If she refuses, the king can spin her naysaying into a crime of treason. Either way, she is living her last night as the ruling queen.

The Vashti of Midrash Esther Rabbah is noble, passionate and politically savvy. She recognizes her terrible position in the face of Ahasuerus’s coup. She appeals to the last corroded fragments of the king’s soul: his sense of masculinity, his own political savvy and, lastly, an appeal to his humanity and his love for her. All is in vain. The insidious Memuchan has made sure that King Ahasuerus has waived his right to reexamine in the morning the decree for her removal, and his men are free to do their worst.

“After these things, when King Ahasuerus’s wrath subsided, he remembered Vashti and what she had done and what had been decreed against her.” (Esther 2:1)

Though the text says that Ahasuerus remembered Vashti in the morning (presumably with some regret) the next verse moves swiftly to the search for a new queen, leaving us to ask: What actually happened to Vashti? Jewish children are usually taught the queen was banished to some backwater corner of the empire to live in ignominious retirement. However, a majority of the adult rabbinic commentators agree that Vashti was quietly taken out and beheaded. (The word for “decreed” (nigzar) is identical to the word for “cut off.”) The silence of the text is deafening, and readers are left to wonder.

Vashti in Modern Literature

Like ancient commentaries, modern versions are rife with opportunities for reimagining Vashti. Elizabeth Cady Stanton’s The Woman’s Bible cheers, “[Vashti] added new glory to [her] day and generation … by her disobedience; for resistance to tyrants is obedience to God.” In her short story Vashti and the Angel Gabriel, Rabbi Jill Hammer imagines the angel discovering the queen’s deeply spiritual side. Gabriel is so touched he removes the ineffable name of God from the Book of Esther and entrusts it to Vashti, who thus ascends to ineffable heights as she removes herself from Ahasuerus’ sight. Rebecca Kohn’s novel, The Gilded Chamber, imagines a Vashti is too powerful to assassinate. Readers are invited to glory in her triumphant return as Queen Mother as soon as Ahasuerus has drunk himself into an early grave. This triumph of feminine empowerment, however, does not diminish Vashti’s status as a grade A Disney-style villain. When Vashti returns, Esther must flee the palace, taking every faithful servant away from the dark queen’s clutches.

Conclusion

The Talmud (Chagigah 3b) describes a lesson taught by Rabbi Elazar ben Azaria in the great yeshivah at Yavneh. “Make your ears like a funnel,” he urged his students, “praise those who deem the matter pure, and those who reject it as impure. Acquire for yourself an understanding heart to listen both to those who validate and those who invalidate.” Rabbi Elazar assures us that we need not always feel compelled to choose sides. Vashti was a noble queen and a vicious antisemite; a traditional Persian princess and a proto-feminist agitator. Perhaps she was equally at home in sweeping ball gowns and low-rise comfy pants, and perhaps she was so in touch with her inner beauty that she would have walked the runway wearing nothing at all.

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The prayer opens with this line: “For the miracles and for the redemption and for the mighty deeds and for the victories and for the battles that You performed for our fathers in those days at this time.”

Reciting these words, we remember miracles from days of old — whether at Purim (when a plot to massacre the Jewish people was overturned) or at Hanukkah (when we remember the oil that lasted against all odds, keeping the eternal flame burning.)

But it’s also an invitation to remember our own human participation in those miracles. In the days of Ahashverosh, Esther bravely took her life in her hands to approach the king without being summoned. Her act of bravery was the first step toward saving her people.

In the days of Mattathias, those who rededicated the Temple made a leap of faith when they relit the ner tamid, and their act of faith and hope enabled the miracle of the oil to unfold.

Even as we thank God for doing miracles for our ancestors, we remember that we too played a role in bringing about those miracles. We are partners with God in making space for the miraculous. We must not expect God to perform miracles to redeem us while we sit back and wait.

Like our spiritual ancestors, we’re called to work toward redemption — our own, and that of all creation — in hope and trust that what we do here “below” will arouse the flow from “on high.”

When we speak truth to power, may we, like Esther, be blessed with a turning of the political tide. When we cultivate faith that we will be enough to bring light to darkness, may we, like the Hasmoneans, be blessed with the miracle of our own sufficiency, and the miracle of the light of justice banishing the darkness of bigotry, destruction, and hate.

Rabbi Rachel Barenblat, a founding builder at Bayit: Your Jewish Home, is the author of several volumes of poetry, among them 70 faces: Torah poems (Phoenicia, 2011), Open My Lips (Ben Yehuda, 2016), and Texts to the Holy (Ben Yehuda, 2018). Named by the Forward in 2016 as one of America’s most inspiring rabbis, she serves Congregation Beth Israel in North Adams, Massachusetts. Find her online at velveteenrabbi.com.

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A New Ritual

With the new ritual of waving Esther/Vashti Purim flags, we encourage our communities to celebrate and more deeply explore both of Purim’s stories. Purim thus becomes both a celebration of and reflection on Jewish pride and perseverance and an opportunity to honor women’s power in the face of those who fear it.

The central ritual of Purim is the reading of the megillah. During the megillah reading we call attention to Haman, the story’s villain, through the spinning of gragers intended to drown out his name. We highlight the role of Mordecai by joining with the entire congregation in reciting four verses of the megillah out loud. These verses introduce Mordecai (Esther 2:5), accentuate the moment of his parading before the king in royal apparel (8:15-16) and tell of his new role as deputy to the king at the conclusion of the story (10:3). These two customs–the gragger and the recitation of the four verses–serve to ritually emphasize the characters of Haman and Mordecai as the central actors of the story.

Currently, the rituals and symbols associated with Purim do not evoke either Esther or Vashti. At least symbolically, the fact that the grager and its noise are the prominent symbols and sounds of Purim serve to put Haman, hatred, and sometimes valorization of violent retribution at the center of communal celebrations of Purim. Even though the purpose of the gragger is to drown out Haman’s name, in actuality it reifies his presence in the sanctuary. Synagogue is a place where both children and adults are usually called to listen. Suddenly, on Purim we are allowed, even encouraged, to make so much noise that a certain word will not be heard.

The commandment on Purim is to listen to every word of the megillah, but the custom of the gragger often threatens that commandment, especially because the drowning out is more fun than the listening. Compared to the shofar (ram’s horn) which we are commanded to listen to on Rosh Hashanah and which serves as a symbol of awakening, gathering, and proclaiming freedom, the grager is a negative sound. It is the opposite of listening.

In contrast, the primary purpose of the Purim flag is to call attention to Esther and Vashti and make it fun to listen for their names. But the Purim flag offers us an opportunity to do more than balance our attention to men’s names with attention to women’s names; it does more than allow us an opportunity for some feminist fun. When we wave our flags at the mention of Vashti and Esther’s names we begin to shift the focus of Purim. No longer do we need to accept that the opposition of “blessed Mordecai” and “cursed Haman” encompasses the story of Purim or the story of Jewish experience. By focusing on Vashti and Esther, as well as Haman and Mordecai, we open up the possibility of telling a more complete and complex Purim story, a story that includes the experiences of women and a story that honors the possibility of potential alliances between Jews and non-Jews.

Beyond the Dichotomy

By placing Esther and Vashti on the same flag, we are also challenging ourselves to move beyond the dichotomy of bad queen/good queen (and good feminist/bad feminist) and embrace a wider spectrum of possibility for women’s leadership. For much of Jewish interpretive tradition, Vashti was the bad queen and Esther the good one. Then, in the early days of Jewish feminism, Vashti was resurrected and celebrated for her open defiance of the king and her powerful defense of her body and sexuality. Not surprisingly, as Vashti’s popularity grew, Esther fell out of favor. Feminists were not sure they could accept two different models of powerful women. For some, Esther suddenly became a negative symbol for all women who use their sexuality, enjoy their beauty, fear confrontation, and remain married to power. These interpretations of Esther minimized her courage in directly confronting both Ahasuerus and Haman, and in “coming out” as a Jew after years of hiding her identity. They also ignore Esther’s powerful role as an innovator of communal ritual action in her calling for a public fast.

With these Purim flags we hope to move away from the paradigms of good ‘girl’/bad ‘girl’ and good feminist/bad feminist to explore–through art and our experience of it–the relationship between Esther and Vashti and all that they have come to symbolize. Celebrating Vashti along with Esther also gives us a ritual-means to balance the antagonism inspired by Haman with a celebration of how much we have to gain by listening and not simply blotting out.

Vashti is not evil like Haman or a fool like Ahasuerus. She is a non-Jewish woman who because of her own suffering at the hands of the more powerful has much in common with both Mordecai and Esther and can therefore serve, on a narrative and symbolic level as a teacher, model and ally.

I began this essay by pointing out that Megillat Esther has been seen as a fantasy of Jewish power that emerged in a time of Jewish powerlessness. We who read the megillah in a time of unprecedented Jewish power both in the State of Israel and in the United States, are thus in need of ritual ways of wrestling with the megillah in order to figure out its meaning for our time. As feminists committed to honoring Esther’s leadership, we cannot ignore the fact that it is Esther who asks the king for an additional day on which the Jews can kill their enemies–“the armed force together with women and children” (Esther 8.11, 9.13). While we proudly wave a flag bearing her name, we must challenge ourselves to find a way to celebrate Esther’s power without necessarily endorsing the violence she authorizes. Perhaps this is another reason for our pairing of Esther and Vashti–once we link the stories of this Jewish and non-Jewish queen we are on the way to recognizing the linked fates of their peoples. When we unite Esther who ends up as a powerful queen with Vashti who by the end of the story is absent and therefore powerless, we can begin to grasp the necessity of balancing the need to exercise power with the need to share it.

It is time for us to make room in our myths and in our communities for more than one model of leadership. It is time for us to learn from both Esther and Vashti, from both the Jewish women in our texts and the non-Jewish women (and men). It is time to celebrate women’s power and to question the ways we have wielded it over others. And, with humor and deep conviction, it is time for us to take the holiday of Purim and, through new ritual, use it to tell our community a new story about who we are, what we value, and what we need to do to build a better world.

Reprinted from Ritualwell.org, a web resource sponsored by Kolot, The Center for Jewish Women’s and Gender Studies at RRC. Used by permission of the author.

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At the same time as it invites lighthearted fun, the Purim story contains within it a dark side, in which the oppressed seem to become the oppressor. Megillat Esther ends with the Jews carrying out a bloody battle, in which more than 75,000 people lose their lives, and in which fear of death prompts countless others to feign Jewishness.

It is easy to regard the ending of Megillat Esther only as an exaggerated parody not meant to be taken at face value. However, this dismissal negates the extent to which this story has sometimes been understood as a justification of violence against other enemies or supposed enemies of the Jews.

The ending of the Purim story can certainly be read as a legitimate battle of self-defense in which the Jews kill those who were instructed to destroy them; indeed, this is the way that most traditional Bible commentators have understood the episode. This understanding eases concerns about the nature of the violence, but does not fully respond either to the bloodiness of the battle or to the textual ambiguity about the identity of the victims.

A Historic Enemy

The issue of how we are to understanding the ending of the megillah is made more complex by the fact that on the Shabbat preceding Purim, Jews read parshat zakhor, the story of the defeat of Amalek, an early enemy of the Jews and the nation that produced Haman, the villain of the Purim story. This reading concludes with a command to wipe out Amalek in every generation. The juxtaposition of the reading of parshat zakhor with the reading of the megillah transforms the Purim story from a one-time event to a paradigm for using violence to respond to any opponent.

In recent years, some have likened the Palestinians to Amalek and, as such, have justified any violence against this people. It is no coincidence that Baruch Goldstein, a fanatical Jewish settler in the West Bank, chose Purim day to carry out his 1994 massacre of Palestinian worshipers in Hebron. When equated, by those of a certain political viewpoint, to the contemporary Jewish experience, the Purim story becomes an incitement to violence and not simply a satire about a distant time and place. The seriousness with which some have understood the megillah’s apparent sanction of mass murder demands that those of us bothered by the ending of the story offer an equally serious ethical response.

Seeking Explanations

A few details within the megillah challenge the traditional understanding of the battle as one of self-defense. First, the sheer number of deaths is shocking; surely, simple self-defense would not require the killing of such large numbers of people. Second, there is little suggestion elsewhere in the megillah that Haman’s feelings toward the Jews reflect the popular attitude. Indeed, the extent to which Jews appear to be assimilated into Persian society suggests quite the opposite. Even Haman’s hatred of the Jewish people is presented as an extension of his anger at Mordecai, who refuses to bow down to him, and not as abstract anti-Semitism. If other citizens of Shushan plan to participate in the slaying of the Jews, they will presumably do so out of obedience for the king’s order, and not primarily as a result of their own independent hatred of this people.

Accordingly, some commentators attempt to lessen the scale of the massacre or to restrict it to those actively involved in Haman’s plot.  Addressing the verse, “And the Jews smote all their enemies with the stroke of the sword, and with slaughter and destruction, and did as they wished to those who hated them” (Esther 9:5), Malbim–Rabbi Meir Leibush (1809-1879)–distinguishes between the “enemies” whom the Jews had permission to kill and the “haters” to whom the Jews only did “as they wished.”

He writes:

Of course, the Jews were not given permission to kill anyone they wished, for it was only written in the books that they could take revenge on their oppressors… they only killed their enemies whose animosity toward the Jews was public and who threatened evil against them, but not their haters (for the difference between an “enemy” and a “hater” is that an enemy’s hatred is evident, whereas a hater’s hatred is hidden), for they only did to their haters “as they wished,” that is–they were able to rob them and to degrade them.

With this distinction, Malbim reduces the scope of the massacre to those who actively plotted against the Jews, and not to those who simply harbored a passive dislike of the people. The Vilna Gaon–or G’ra (R. Elijah ben Solomon, 1720-1797)–also distinguishes between “enemies” and “haters,” saying that an “enemy” is one who “wants to do evil himself,” whereas a hater is a bystander–one who “is happy when evil is done but who doesn’t personally do anything.”

In contrast to Malbim, the G’ra considers the bystanders in the Purim story to have suffered the same fate as the “enemies.” This reading softens the impact of the story only by emphasizing the textual comment that the Jews did not take the spoils of their victims. This restraint, the G’ra explains, indicates that the Jews carried out their massacre only in fulfillment of the king’s orders, and not for any monetary gain. At the same time, the G’ra’s condemnation of bystanders–a category with which contemporary history has made us intimately familiar–challenges us to consider our own roles as observers, if not initiators, of the widespread violence of the world.

Without protesting against the murders in Megillat Esther, the Esh Kodesh (Rabbi Kalonimus Kalmish Shapiro, 1889-1943), writing against the backdrop of the Holocaust, suggests that this type of revenge may be specific to the Purim story, and should not be expected or desired at other moments in history. Thus, he writes, in the story of Hanukkah, the villains are not killed en masse, as God does only what is necessary to free the Jews and to restore the Temple. The massacre that concludes the Purim story, he suggests, is a necessary means of ensuring the security of the Jews, and not simply gratuitous revenge.

Purim & Amalek

As indicated earlier, the story of Purim becomes most ethically problematic when read in conjunction with the command to wipe out Amalek in every generation. To reduce the extent to which the megillah can be used to condone violence in the contemporary world, we might refer to certain interpretations of the struggle against Amalek as a metaphor for an inward struggle. One passage in the Zohar, the central text of Jewish mysticism, understands Amalek as the “grave evil” that leads to dissatisfaction with one’s lot.

Similarly, a number of Hasidic writers interpret Amalek as the yetzer hara–the evil instinct. The commandment to wipe out Amalek, according to these readings, cannot be used to justify a massacre such as that described by the megillah, but should instead be understood as a challenge for self-purification. Without making the megillah any less bloody, such understandings of Amalek at least reduce the Purim story to a one-time occurrence and refuse to allow it to become a model for future revenge. The suggestion that the Jews of the megillah kill only in self defense similarly precludes using the megillah as a paradigm for the way that we should act in the world.

For me, none of these attempts to lessen or to justify the deaths of more than 75,000 people fully responds to the question, well-known to us also from human history, of how an oppressed people can go on to oppress another people.

In the end, perhaps we might respond to the massacre in accordance with Esther Rabbah, the major collection of midrash on the book of Esther. The last midrash of this collection begins with an appreciation of awe for God, who allows “the murdered to kill their murderers, the crucified to crucify their crucifiers, and the drowned to drown their drowners” (the latter being a reference to the crossing of the Red Sea) and then goes on to declare God’s abundance of mercy, loving-kindness, justice, and goodness. The midrash closes with an extended ode to peace, perhaps intended as a subtle critique of the bloodshed with which Megillat Esther itself concludes.

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Learning of this decree, Mordecai approaches the new queen, his cousin Esther, to intercede with the king. Esther, who has not revealed her Judaism publicly, fasts for three days in preparation for this task. At a banquet for the king and Haman, she denounces the evil Haman, who is eventually hanged. Because a royal decree cannot be rescinded — including the decree ordering the extermination of the Jews — Mordecai must send another decree to all the provinces. This letter authorizes the Jews to protect themselves from their enemies. The days following the Jews’ struggle with their enemies (the 14th and 15th of Adar) are declared days of feasting and merrymaking, today celebrated as Purim.

The Beginnings of Purim

Although it provides the blueprint for the festival of Purim, the origins of the Book of Esther remain obscure. The text’s style of Hebrew and its lack of corroborating historical information from ancient Persia suggest that the Book of Esther was not authored until well after the time it claims to describe. Nonetheless, the Book of Esther does contain many parallels to various ancient Near Eastern and Greek myths, particularly those of the Babylonian gods Marduk and Ishtar.

Some scholars argue that the Book of Esther adapted stories about these pagan gods — Marduk becoming Mordecai and Ishtar transformed to Esther – -to reflect the realities of its own Jewish authors in exile. The period of Greek hegemony in the Land of Israel seems to have offered the social, cultural, and political circumstances for the development of this reinterpreted mythology. The actual text of the Book of Esther is thought to be of late Second Temple authorship, being amongst the latest books to enter the Bible, alongside Ecclesiastes, the Song of Songs, and the Book of Daniel.

The Book of Esther reflects a number of important features of the Persian culture, which are also found elsewhere in the Bible, above all in the Book of Daniel. These features, satirized in the Book of Esther, include a mock representation of Persian rites of gluttony, drinking, exuberant public eroticism, abnormal pomp and display of richness, and bowing to idols or men.

Other Versions of the Purim Story

There are different versions of the story of Esther in addition to the one that appears in the Hebrew Bible. The Greek versions contain the name of God, which is absent in the biblical story. Josephus, a Jewish historian of the first century of the Common Era, paraphrases the story of Esther in The Antiquities of the Jews.

The holiday of Purim is one of the Jewish tradition’s most beloved communal celebrations. By the second century CE, Purim played such a significant role in the Jewish calendar that an entire tractate of the Mishnah (the earliest compiled rabbinic legal work), called Megillah, was based on the discussion of Purim’s proper observance.

A festive meal, packages of food and other small treats offered to friends and family (mishloach manot), and gifts to the poor (matanot la’evyonim) as cited in Esther 9:22 remain key components of traditional celebrations until today. Purim is a holiday where celebrants are obligated to be happy — and to drink until they are unable to tell the difference between Mordecai and Haman (Babylonian Talmud, Megillah 7b). The reading of the Book of Esther from an actual scroll, often an object of special decoration and care, is performed with distinctive cantillation on both the evening and morning of Purim. These readings include numerous ancient customs, among which are jeering and making noise each time the villain Haman’s name is mentioned, as well as reciting the names of Haman’s 10 sons in one breath.

Contemporary Observances

Sarcastic, humorous, and iconoclastic entertainment has become a universal component of Purim celebration. Although written evidence of the Purim shpiel (Yiddish for “Purim play”) exists in Europe only from the 14th century, Purim entertainment is likely of ancient origin as well. Since Jewish performers and musicians did not exist as a professional class until the 18th century, Purim shpiels and wedding entertainments are our only source of Jewish popular pursuits for centuries. The biting content of Purim performances and the socializing, mockery, dressing up, and carousing surrounding them often provide an important forum for boundary-crossing on issues of gender, sexuality, authority, and relations with the non-Jewish world. Through satires of the original story in the Book of Esther, Purim performances and religious practices provide an essential and fixed measure of creative release exploring some of the Jewish community’s most sensitive topics.

From at least as early as the 10th century, the emergence of “Special Purims” — commemorative days instituted by local Jewish communities employing any number of Purim-related customs — demonstrates Purim’s effectiveness as a prototype for engaging larger Jewish concerns in the context of shifting historical events, particularly in the case of communities or families who escaped from serious danger. Both Special Purims and Purim itself have proven particularly useful for adapting traditional Jewish narratives and customs to the changing historical circumstances of the Jewish experience. Each generation has related its own understanding of the Jewish experience to this deceptively simple story of good versus evil and Jewish survival in a distant and hostile land. The myth of Purim lends itself to such reinterpretation because of its timeless and compelling nature.

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