Rethinking Purim

By Rabbi Donna Kirshbaum from Jewish Women International’s Rethinking Purim, Women,Relationships and Jewish Texts

Waking up in the middle of the night with a splitting headache, how do we find our way to the medicine cabinet? Probably with a sense other than seeing: our bare feet, perhaps, can feel carpet, then wood, then finally, tile. Our hands know when to protect the rest of us – just in case our partner has left that closet door ajar, again. Our ears listen for the special creak in the floorboards near the raised threshold to the bathroom. On the way back, our noses might catch the scent of the dog sleeping by the side of the bed and tell us we're almost there. But when staying in others' homes or hotels, we don't have the luxury of such non‐visual knowing. So we carry a flashlight or leave a nightlight on – and still feel disoriented.

And so it may happen when we have pain that can't be relieved by a pill. If we don't have familiarity with the inner‐most 'rooms' in ourselves and, at the same time a sense of our whole house and where our house is located in the larger world, we may feel disoriented and confused when emotional pain strikes or worsens. It is good to get to know ourselves, deeply, before such a time – through prayer, through regular walks, through keeping a journal or engaging in some other contemplative, spirit building exercise. Such familiarity may prove to be life‐sustaining, even life‐saving.

The story of Purim, as told in Megillat Esther, makes no mention of the Divine. Not one word. Thus the Divine Presence, the Anochi ["I"] is like the "I" of Deuteronomy 31:18, says Rabbi Yitzhak Huttner (1906‐1980) in Pahad Yitzhak: "I – the One Who is surely concealed." The text of Purim asks us to "see" the Divine with our other senses, since the Divine cannot be seen in the text. We might even say that Purim demands an inner knowledge akin to what we know about our homes and the habits of those who inhabit them with us as we go for aspirin in the middle of the night.

Rabbi Huttner concludes that "the redemption of Purim [i.e., the sense of rescue, safety, and connection that is offered by Purim], [the one holiday] which taught Israel to discover the Anochi [the "I"] in darkness and concealment, will surely remain as an enduring achievement in the soul of Israel... All the other holidays will [eventually] be annulled – except for Purim." What, no more Passover? Yom Kippur? Sukkot or Hanukkah or Shavuot? No, says Rabbi Huttner, implying that the original Pesach (at the beginning of the Jewish year according to one way of counting, in the springtime month of Nissan) required much in the way of Divine intervention, especially in the form of miracles. Purim (at the end of the year of which Nissan is considered the first month), required no seen miracles, but much in the way of human initiative.

Esther not only has the resources to save her people, she has the courage to take initiative. Will we, like Esther, be ready to take the initiative for redemption – for rescue, safety, connection – especially when we, too, feel like we're beginning in the dark?

1 in 4 women will experience domestic abuse in her lifetime. There are too many people in our community suffering in the dark from the effects of abuse. Take the initiative and learn what you can do to help yourself, help a friend and help your community today.

RabbiKirshbaum is a member of JWI's Clergy Task Force on Domestic Abuse in the Jewish Community and serves a Reconstructionist congregation in Princeton, NJ. She is a contributor to JWI's revised Clergy Guide, to the Project S.A.R.A.H. website, and to A Guide to Jewish Practice: Everyday Living, a winner of the 2011 National Jewish Book Awards in the category of Contemporary Jewish Life and Practice.