Purim just might be the happiest holiday on the Jewish calendar. How paradoxical that it commemorates an unhappy time, when the Jews of ancient Persia came within an inch of utter destruction.
That’s the effect dodging a Haman-sized bullet can have on a people. Survival and merrymaking apparently go together like prunes and pastry.
Long ago, the sages decreed that the community gather on the 14th of Adar (this year it’s Tuesday, March 14) to hear the reading of the Megillah, or the Book of Esther. Not as long ago, others decreed that the holiday be celebrated with costumes, parties and three-cornered cookies. And more recently, someone said Purim should also feature a carnival with ring-toss, cotton candy and ponies that go around in a circle.
The 14th of Adar happens to be the date that Haman — the arch villain of the Purim story — ordered that all Jews must die.
Well, in your face, Haman.
The story of the Book of Esther is certainly well known. Vashti, Mordechai, Ahasuerus, Haman and Esther are almost like friends (and enemies) of the family, their account a part of the very breath and tissue of Jewish life.
Of course most Jews, especially the kids, focus on the fun. Parties, costumes, carnivals, fruit-filled hamantaschen and seeing the rabbi dressed up like a meshugginah, make Purim a kind of portable Jewish Disneyland.
For some adults, there is the added fun of drinking until one cannot tell the difference between “cursed be Haman” and “blessed be Mordechai” (as suggested in the Talmud). Perhaps that would entail a bit too much fun.
Far be it from us to say anything to diminish the jubilation. God knows times are tough enough these days, especially for Jews living in a world where new Hamans, such as the evil president of Iran (formerly Persia — oh, the irony), slouch their way across the world stage.
But let us serve here as the still-small voice of sobriety on this happy day. We celebrate Purim because the Jewish people survived the likes of Haman, barely. It could have gone the other way then, and many times after.
We must remain cognizant of the miracle of Jewish survival. There is nothing else comparable in human history. Cookies and costumes don’t even begin to convey it.
Then again, perhaps nothing bespeaks our survival better than the sight of a wide-eyed Jewish child, dressed in an adorable costume, munching on a hamantaschen without a care in the world.
We are here for that child, and she is here because of miracles like Purim.
Chag sameach to one and all.