By Rabbi Eli Birnbaum, Head of Community Development, Stanmore and Canons Park Synagogue
Last week, we analysed Rav Avdimi’s statement in the Talmud (Shabbat 88a) that there was some degree of coercion in our ancestors’ decision to accept the Torah after the Exodus. Into this theological dilemma enters Purim. It completes the process Pesach began.
At Sinai, the Israelites accepted the Torah on the premise that God’s presence would remain as open and obvious as it was throughout the Exodus and journey through the desert. It is here that the Talmud spots a problem: what happens if God’s presence becomes concealed, and the miracles dry up? Does this render the Torah null and void? Do we leave Judaism to fade, until all that remains is a dying echo of what once was?
Rava’s answer in that Talmudic conversation now begins to take on a much more urgent significance. In its wake, the Purim festival becomes more than an annual celebration in the mode of “they tried to destroy us, we beat them, let’s eat”. No; Purim is a nationwide re-affirmation of our commitment to Judaism as a whole:
“Rava resolved this: the Jewish people recommitted themselves to Torah observance freely and willingly at the time of the Purim story, as it says (Esther 9:27): ‘They established and accepted it again.’” (ibid.)
Whereas the Pesach festival celebrates and commemorates open, obvious miracles, Purim tells a very different story. Famously, of the 24 books of Tanach (Scripture), the Book of Esther is the only one lacking any mention of God’s name. In its absence, the entire story could be read as a series of remarkable coincidences woven into a tapestry of political intrigue, the threat of genocide and ending with everyone living happily ever after. God’s name is only in the Purim story if we choose to see it there.
Therefore, we hide behind masks, deliver treats to complete strangers and give charity to unknown causes. Built into the fabric of our celebration is the air of a great mystery. Pesach’s faith was spoon-fed. Purim’s faith is self-taught.
Esther realised this; there is no point in celebrating Pesach if the faith it gave us disintegrates. We needed to press ‘reset’ before we hit ‘snooze’ to condemn Judaism to an eternal slumber. She declared a fast. She cancelled Pesach and asked the people to fast, while she approached the king. A seismic decision that shook our people to their core.
Now that God has ‘retreated’ behind a veil of concealment, was the Exodus all for nothing, or are we still – proudly and defiantly – committed to the Covenant forged at Sinai?
The people answered. They joined in Esther’s fast. They embraced a whole new chapter in Jewish history, a chapter in which we are summoned to read God’s name even where it is not clearly written. On the third day of their fast, Haman was hanged on the very gallows he had so maliciously prepared for Mordechai. And from behind the divine veil came a smile, an embrace, a laugh that reverberated throughout the cosmos and joined us in glorious celebration.
Back then, Purim was interwoven into Pesach. Today, Pesach is interwoven into Purim, the day on which we begin to study the laws and details of the story that started it all. Revealed and hidden, it is all the same story, for both share the same Author. Last year in Egypt. This year in Persia.
Next year, in Jerusalem.