Purim and what it means this year
Tonight begins the Jewish Holiday of Purim. Quite frankly this is the greatest Jewish holiday ever. We read a special biblical text called the Magillah and are commanded to get completely intoxicated beforehand. The reason for this is so that as we rad the story of Esther, we cannot tell villain from hero.
For those of you unfamiliar with all the other fun parts of Purim, basically imagine this: Combine Halloween, Christmas, and America’s St Patrick’s Day into one holiday and you have Purim. Sounds pretty awesome right?
Well now that I have my fun being silly, I’m gonna talk about what we read in the Magillah, which is anything but silly.
I doubt there is anyone who will read this post who is unfamiliar with the Holocaust, but this is not the only time that antisemitism has reached such a point that an entire nation was calling for the death of all Jews. Oh no, the story of Purim is one other such story. This time, the threat came from Persia. The adviser to the King, a man named Haman, wished to see the Jews destroyed due to the actions of one man, Mordechai who refused to bow before him, stating “I only bow before G-d”
Haman set out to trick the King of Persia into destroying the Jews. The king, who researchers have discovered was none other than Xerxes the First fell for the trick and wrote a declaration for the destruction of the Jews. Being that many of the Jews in the world lived within the Persian Empire at the time, this decree would have been catastrophic if not for one very brave individual.
This young woman was Esther. Today we fast just as she did before she went before the king. Now I think its needed here to explain a little about her.
Esther had become the Queen of Persia after the former Queen, Vashti had been exiled for refusing the King’s summons and so he had brought every female in the land to him and not one he decided had beauty equal to Esther.
Esther happened to be Mordechai’s cousin and as such, when Haman declared the death of the Jews due to his actions, he went to her and they decided that since both were Jewish, they needed to convince the King to undo the decree for the sake of Judaism.
Unfortunately, even the queen could not enter the King’s chambers uninvited. When one entered these chambers unannounced, one of two things would happen. Either the king would raise his staff, and the onlookers were allowed to enter, or he would not move it which was a death sentence to anyone who was entering the room.
After Esther fasted for a day of intense prayer to G-d, she bravely entered the room. Her prayers were answered though as she was permitted to enter. She did not immediately unmask Haman for the trickster that he was immediately, instead, she played a massive gambit game, that resulted in Haman being killed on the very gallows he built to kill Mordechai. Also every one of his known children were killed right beside him. (there are rumors that a few escaped and that Hitler himself may be related to one of them)
Sadly, the King could not undo the proclamation. What he did instead was made it legal for the Jewish people to fight back. And fight back they did and despite the fact that they were facing the infamous Persian Immortals, they came out victorious.
Now that you have the history lesson, let us get the what that means for the Jewish people today.
Yesterday Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu spoke in front of the United States Congress about a Nuclear Iran. A country that seeks to destroy Israel and ultimately the Jewish people. For those of you who are not so great at Geography, Iran and Persia are the same place!
The Persians are once again trying to kill us, only this time, we have a country of our own. As Bibi (his nickname) said so close to the truth last night: “If Israel needs to stand alone, it will stand” The story of Purim teaches us that when we fight for what is right and defend ourselves from evil, we will win. And that evil is right there in Iran. Even if there is an equal evil known as Isis fighting them, we cannot consider Iran an ally because they fight another one of our enemies. To quote Bibi again: “The Enemy of my enemy, is still my enemy” These words are absolutely true and form a number of plot twists in my own novels.
I am sorry President Obama and John Kerry. I may have voted for you and on most issues I stand with you, but when it comes to Israel and Iran, you cannot continue down this road of appeasement. It will only lead to death when dealing with men with murder in their eyes and genocide in their hearts.