We Jews have few utterly happy holidays. This is one of them. This is a day for dancing and singing, feasting and drinking, revelry and silliness, pure enjoyment of life. Nobody can appreciate the simple joy of living quite so much as one who has been pulled back from the very brink of extinction. And on this day, we relive that experience, that story, every year, as we are commanded to do into the infinite future.
The Jews ordained, and took upon themselves, and upon their descendants, and upon all who have joined with them, so that it shall not fail that they would keep these two days according to their writing and according to their appointed time every year; and that these days should be remembered and kept throughout every generation, every family, every province and every city; and that these days of Purim should not fail from among the Jews, nor the memorial of them from their descendants.
Esther 9:27-28
Clear enough. An evil man in Persia set his sights on us and conspired to wipe us off the face of the map. But, somehow, his despicable designs were turned against him and instead he and his sons, the latter day remnant of Israel's worst enemy, the Amalekites, were utterly destroyed. Not only them, but for one day (two in the walled castle city of Shushan) the Jews were given free license to defend themselves (mark that, please) against any and all who elected to follow the fatwa decree to murder them and to do so (defend themselves), not with restraint or proportionality but in a manner that would eliminate the threat (or at least the current threat) to their existence once and for all.
(It is not, by the way, this day of slaughter, the 13th of Adar, that we celebrate, but the end of it, the 14th of Adar, the day of feasting and gladness, the day we knew that the danger had passed and that we had survived it.) Nevertheless, our sages and our scholars have always had a problem with this holiday. Putting aside (for the moment) the sticky thicket of wifely obedience that the narrator presumes to be a given virtue, Jews have never been comfortable with the notion of standing for our lives and destroying, slaying and causing to perish those who would assault and destroy us. King Saul wasn't comfortable with it and as a result he lost his crown and allowed a last unsuspected remnant of the Amalekites (the seed of Agag) to survive. (See yesterday's Haftara.) Haman was his descendant. What evil future might our own discomforts be breeding today?
But that's a question for tomorrow. Today, we celebrate!
Chag Sameach! Happy Purim!
