Purim and the Place of Disapora

By LEWIS GLINERT

Purim Anthology
By Phillip Goodman
525 pages. Jewish Publication Society of America. $22.

Purim and Hanukka are in many ways the 'little twins' in the Jewish family of holidays. Tucked away together in the winter months, both of them mark events that happened at the tail-end of Bible days—after the Israelite kingdoms had been shattered and much of their population carted away to Egypt and the East. (Indeed, the Hanukka story never even found a place in the Jewish Bible.) Both Purim and Hanukka celebrate stunning Jewish military victories against overwhelming anti-Semitic forces. And we celebrate both of them by 'going public': lighting hanukkiyot for all to see, parading in weird costumes through the streets.

And yet, when you dig deeper, you find that the twins are very un-identical. Just open Phillip Goodman’s Purim Anthology, and you’ll find a wealth of information about this little holiday that’s much more than noisemakers and hamantashen (but rest assured, you’ll find several hamantashen recipes in this information-packed book!). Some tidbits: While Hanukka trumpets the re-gaining of Jewish independence and sovereignty in our own land, the expulsion of the Syrian and Greek occupiers from Jerusalem and the re-purification of the Ancient Temple, Purim is all about death and life in Diaspora. Search from one end of the Megillah to the other and you will find no mention of the Land of Israel. The single mention of Jerusalem comes with the sorry words describing Mordechai "who had been exiled from Jerusalem with the exiles exiled with King Yechonya of Judea..."

Instead, Jewish life in Megillat Esther is painted as life in Diaspora—spread thin and wide across the 127 provinces of the far-flung Persian Empire "from India to Ethiopia". The Persian state controlled the land of Israel too; but it was not deemed important, or at least "P.C.," to mention this fact in the Book of Esther. One consolation: the Jews (or some Jews, at least) were keeping up the old ways and not losing their identity. Is it not Haman himself who oozily declares to the King: 'There is one people scattered and broken up among all nations, whose customs are different than other nations' and who do not keep the customs of the King, so 'twould not be in the King's interest to let them be...'

Just to add mystery to misery, God too is absent from the story. For a Biblical author to recount history, and indeed miraculous events, without at least a nod toward God is odd indeed.

And yet: The very suppression of God in the Purim story is a powerful metaphor for life in Diaspora, and for Jewish life everywhere in the world today –staggering events, miraculous escapes unprecedented in history (no, I'm not talking about 9/11 but about the creation of the modern State of Israel, the rebirth of Hebrew, Israel’s victories in the wars of 1967 and 1973), and all the time God hidden beneath, encoded in the action. The very name Esther (pure Persian, meaning 'star') hints at the Hebrew word 'astir' ('I shall conceal'), as the Talmud reveals. To use Mordechai's own coded words in the Bible to Queen Esther: 'Respite and salvation will come to the Jews from some other place.'

One of the many interesting lists of information that The Purim Anthology provides is a list of “local Purims”. These local Purims celebrate modern miracles of deliverance. In these celebrations, disparate Jewish communities celebrate their deliverance from their Hamans in different periods of history and places across the globe. Just a cursory look at the list and one begins to understand the holiday’s joyful popularity. This is not just a story, but—sadly—a snippet of Jewish history that has repeated itself over and over again.

And the Land of Israel, too, is coded into the Purim story. Over and over again, Mordechai is called Hayehudi. Anyone who translates this as 'the Jew' is missing the point: Yehuda meant 'Judea', the Biblical kingdom; and yehudi 'the Judean'. The modern terms 'Jew, Jude, Judeo' themselves go right back to this word Yehudi, to the soil of Judea and to the Judean/Israelite nation. Mordechai carried with him the hopes and aspirations of every Jew that the Jewish people would once again achieve freedom in their homeland, freedom to uphold their laws and culture unmolested. And when the plot was unmasked, and every Yehudi mobilized to launch an attack on the gathering troops and mobs, their panic-stricken enemies even felt constrained to pretend to be Yehudim ('mityahadim'), so desirable had it now become to be a Judean.

Purim, then, is a model for the place of Israel in the Diaspora today, and for the place of miracles. For every Jew, celebrating but also worrying in our new uncharted world, there is some other way of reading events as they unfold. There is 'some other place.'

Reprinted with permission from the AVI CHAI Bookshelf, where birthright israel alumni can order free books and periodicals.