As we celebrate Purim, I have been
thinking about how radically different our experience of Purim is here in Israel in
2013, when contrasted with that of my ancestors who lived in Europe (Poland, Germany) only
one-hundred years ago. I will try to explain and fully articulate this
sentiment.
1. From Powerlessness to Sovereign
Power
One insight that comes into focus
in the Megilla is surely the dependence of the Jews upon the foreign power that
hosts them and thus the fragility of their existence in Galut.
Let us begin with the closing lines
of the Megilla:
"And King Ahasuerus imposed a tax upon the land and on the isles of the sea. And all the acts of his power and his might and the full account of Mordecai's greatness, how the king advanced him-are they not written in the book of the chronicles of the kings of Media and Persia? For Mordecai the Jew was viceroy to King Ahasuerus … seeking the good of his people…"
What is the purpose of these lines?
Why mention the tax? What else do we observe here? Rav Yoni Grossman suggests
that this section drives home the fact that when ultimately, despite the
victory of Esther and Mordechai, all the prestige and power of Mordechai is
framed within the context of the Persian government. The REAL power is held by
Achashverosh; he can even impose taxes upon the far-flung islands. Note too how
Mordechai's greatness is recorded specifically in the Chronicles of Media and
Persia. This notion of "chronicles of kings", of "Divrei Hayamim,"
is quite familiar from our Tanakh, where our history is recorded in the "Chronicles
of the kings of Israel and Judah." In this vein Rav Yoni Grossman comments:
"… the reader who recalls the kings of Israel and of Judah, in light of this expression, cannot but dwell on the chasm separating the kingdom of Achashverosh from the kingdom of Israel in its own land; the chasm separating the "Book of the Chronicles of the Kings of Media and Persia" and the "Book of the Chronicles of the Kings of Israel/Judah." In other words, the whole story narrated in Esther is the story of the Persians; it is the story of Achashverosh and his kingdom! This expression is, to a large extent, a biting one specifically because of its inclusion at the end of the story. The narrator is telling his readers, as it were: "When all is said and done, the exile is still the same exile; the king is the same king, and the Jews of Shushan remain where they are. This is not really a story about the Jews. Even if they played an important role in the plot, all in all this was nothing but an episode in the story of the Persians, the ‘kings of Media and Persia.'"
Yoram Hazony takes this a stage
further in his book, "The Dawn,"
To live in a society ruled by others means that the government and the laws are not the product of a Jewish concern for the general public interest, and that they are certainly not the result of an interest in the well-being of the Jews as a nation; that Jewish intellectual endeavors are under constant pressure, whether overt or implicit, to conform to alien norms; and that Jewish leadership, if it is capable and effective, is perpetually viewed with a certain measure of suspicion and even fear-both by the community of non-Jews, and by members of the Jewish community concerned that Jewish success may be interpreted by the gentiles as a challenge to their authority.
So what I am saying is that
essentially, the Purim story is a story of temporary salvation, of real danger
which is averted by political manipulation.
How do we view this from a modern
Israeli perspective, from the vantage point of Jewish sovereign
self-governance?
The modern Israeli is disdainful of
this Galut existence in which we fail to determine our national future.
Israeli's don't want to be dancing to anyone else's tune. To an Israeli ear, in
an era where Israelis have an army to protect them, and will fight openly and
proudly against our foes, the Megilla sounds too much like an expression of
powerlessness, vulnerability, and dependence on foreign favor.
2. Jewish Violence: From Fantasy to
Danger
At most moments during our 2000
year of global wanderings, the Purim story in which Jews actually killed their
enemies, was absolutely unrealistic. Rabbi Daniel Landes recently described it
as a comic fantasy in which Jews get their vengeance on their most feared oppressors.
However, I doubt that their were any Jews in the past 2000 years who harboured
genuine plans of killing thousands of the anti-Semites who threatened them. The mitzvah
to wipe out Amalek was entirely theoretical, and represented a idealized fight
against forces of evil, something that we could philosophize about , and we
were unlikely to enact.
And suddenly, we have Medinat
Yisrael. We have weapons; we have the most powerful military in the Middle
East. We really can kill our enemies. And now, how shall we relate to the mitzvah
of Amalek? Now, a mitzvah that calls for vengeance and killing, a festival that
celebrates avenging our enemies – this becomes dangerous stuff, especially after
the Baruch Goldstein massacre. The notion of Amalek when abused will have devastating
impact, and hence, Purim must be accompanied by caution, and our discussions of
Amalek must be regulated and qualified.
--
One hundred years ago, a Jew in
Poland or Russia, or Morocco, may have identified with the Shushan reality as not
that different from his own. The paradigms were familiar. Purim is the
quintessential holiday of survival in exile, repeated time after time around
the diaspora.
Purim in Israel today then, is
radically different from one-hundred years ago. We engage it in a manner
unknown to our Galut forebears. And in that case, we have to wonder about the
message that Purim can offer us here and now. What is the message that Purim
should communicate?
Here are some thoughts that occur
to me:
- The Persistence of Jew hatred. We need to use Purim to remind ourselves of how – from Haman to Hitler, from Aquinas to Ahaminajad - Jew-hatred is alive and well. It is irrational, but extremely deadly. We would do well to fight it whenever it raises its ugly head.
- The Impermanence of Stability. The analysis that I gave above, suggested that life in Shushan, to an Israeli ear, sounds impossibly vulnerable. However, even in an era of statehood and Jewish power, we need to recall that stability is never permanent, and that despite the illusions of security, the situation can turn dire at any given moment. Possibly Shushan is closer than we think. We should never get too overconfident.
Of course, there are many other
messages within the Megilla itself. If you have anything to add, please do so
in the comments below.
Purim Sameach!
