I speak a lot from this pulpit about the daily minyanim here at Anshe Sholom and the need to strengthen their reliability and grow the attendance, of men and women in this community, at our weekday Shacharit, Mincha, and Maariv minyanim.
Well, I had an interesting experience at a few weekday minyanim this week. As many of you know, I spent Sunday and Monday of this week in Washington DC, attending the AIPAC annual policy conference along with a dedicated delegation from the shul and over 18,000 others. There were at least 50 Orthodox rabbis whom I know personally at the conference and in between sessions there were repeated impromptu pop-up minyanim – forty people gathering in a hotel hallway for a quick Mincha etc. At one occasion, I joined a group of several dozen Jews for a quick Maariv service that took place following a mass gathering in the Verizon Center and I noticed that there were members of congress who were walking around us on their way from meeting to meeting and were doing their best to avoid disrupting our davvening.
What a country! I promise you, none of our grandparents ever inconvenienced a congressman with a minyan. Do you think Queen Esther asked Achashverosh to wait while she benched at the end of one of her famous parties?
Coming from Washington back to Chicago and jumping into Purim made for a very hectic week – (I’m sorry if I haven’t returned all of your emails quite yet…) – but the juxtaposition made Purim all the more interesting and highlighted the question of the meaning of Jewish power that animates the story of Purim.
We sometimes remember the story of Purim as though it were a simple tale, with unambiguous heroes and unambiguous villains. But the world of authentic Torah study and the world of halakhah is a world of conflicting values, a world of ambiguity and nuance, and a world in which difficult choices must be made to mitigate harm and to leverage fragments of goodness for maximal impact.
In the shadow of Purim, the hangover of Purim, if you will, we can see with clear eyes how Purim presents a complicated and conflicted political legacy from which we can organize to protect the Jewish future. There are three distinct models of Jewish power that emerge from the Megillat Esther and our challenging task is to choose wisely among them.
The least remembered but most profound hero of Purim is Harbonah. Harbonah is one of the eunuchs in the court of Achashverosh. According to the Talmud he was an enemy of Mordechai and the Jews, until he saw which way the wind was blowing, shifted his allegiances, and at a crucial moment, informs the king that a gallows stands ready, right in Haman’s own backyard that was built to kill Mordechai but could instead be used to kill Haman and neutralize his threat. Had Harbonah not aligned his opportunism with Jewish interests at that crucial moment, Haman would surely have been able to weasel his way back into the favor of Achashverosh.
Harbonah is not an admirable person. He displays to lofty principles or commitments. He is an opportunistic apparatchik who saw his own self-interest align, for a moment, with Jewish interests and acted quickly and decisively. “VeGam Harbonah Zachor l’tov – And also remember Harbonah for good” is the concluding line of Shoshanat Yaakov, the special piyut, the poetic prayer, recite after the megillah is read. On Purim we celebrate and remember with fondness the occasion when someone like Harbonah saw it in his interest to support the Jews.
But this celebration is muted and the source for some of the dark themes of Purim. Although there is a mitzvah to drink four cups of wine on Pesach, the obligation to become drunk exists only on Purim. This is because the drinking on Purim, however moderate, is undertaken to drown out a deep sadness and when drinking drowns out a sadness, it is the drinking of drunkenness, no matter how sober one remains. We remember Harbonah and convene a day of celebration because in Shushan HaBirah, it all turned out well in the end. But Megillat Esther ends with the Jews still servants of Achashverosh, still beholden to a capricious king. And so very often in Jewish history it did not work out well in the end.
This is why, according to Rava in the Talmud (Megillah 14a), we skip the recitation of Hallel on Purim. We sing Hallel on other holidays, in celebration of deliverance, but not on Purim since we remain subjugated to Achashverosh. We still do not fully control our own destiny. Even when we are lucky to have opportunists on our side, we cannot forget the fundamental and inescapable vulnerability of our situation.
But there is another model of political power that can be learned from another hero of Purim. The dramatic climax of Megilat Esther occurs when Mordechai confronts Esther and explains the need for her to intervene on behalf of the Jewish People. Esther is reluctant because palace protocol, the norms and customs of Persia are unambiguous in forbidding the sort of intervention that Mordechai proposes. Mordechai says:
.ומִ֣י יוד֔עַ אִם־לְעֵ֣ת כָזֹ֔את הִגַ֖עַתְ לַמַלְכֽות
“Who knows. Perhaps it was for this very moment that you became queen.”
This is what your privilege and your power is about. You did not gain access to power in order to go along to get along. Use you influence that you have for good. This moment animates Rav Nachman in the Talmud who claims that we do not recite Hallel on Purim because קרייתא זו הלילא – reading the megillah itself is a form of Hallel. Hearing the story of the megillah, and hearing the emergence of Esther as an effective advocate and spokeswoman for her people is itself an expression of joy and an expression of gratitude and Hallel is nothing other than grateful joy.
That gratitude is at the heart of Jewish political life according to a letter written in 1984 by Rav Moshe Feinstein, the monumentally influential American rabbi whose thirtieth yahrzeit was observed this past Thursday. Rav Moshe wrote:
“On reaching the shores of the United States Jews found a safe haven. The rights guaranteed by the United States Constitutions and the Bill of Rights have allowed us the freedom to practice our religion without interference and to live in this republic in safety.”
This is what I experienced in Washington when I joined 18,000 other Americans who love Isarel, and when I inconvenienced senators by davvening in the literal corridors of power. But Rav Moshe continues.
“A fundamental principle of Judaism is hakaras hatov – recognizing benefits afforded us and giving expression of our appreciation. Therefore, it is incumbent upon each Jewish citizen to participate in the democratic system which guards the freedom we enjoy.”
Note: According to Rav Moshe, the basis for our political participation is an obligation to show gratitude for the safety and freedom given to us by America. He does not say we vote primarily to secure our own communal interests. At a basic level, we participate in the democratic process because America has been a blessing to us and to our people and we have a corresponding obligation to return the favor.
Esther’s empowerment is not without it’s dangers as well. At the end of Megilat Esther, when the Jews have defeated their enemies, the battle ends in slaughter on a massive scale. The great Israeli philosopher Yeshayahu Leibowitz would spend Purim in Jerusalem each year and Sushan Purim in Tel Aviv so that he would never have an obligation to celebrate the holiday. For Leibowitz, Purim was tainted as a grim reminder of the great violence perpetrated by Jews when we momentarily had great power.
The final model of for the use of power learned from Purim is not found in Megilat Esther itself. Tanakh, Hebrew scriptures, contain one more reference to Shushan HaBirah, and a member of the king’s court who approaches the king with a special request. Nechemiah, a member of the court of King Artachshastah in Shushan, discovers that the rebuilding of Jerusalem under the auspices of the Persian Empire has stalled. He makes a request of the king that echoes Esther’s language but has a different focus:
וָאֹמַ֣ר לַמֶ֔לְֶ אִם־עַל־הַמֶ֣לְֶ ט֔וב וְאִם־יִיטַ֥ב עַבְדְָ֖ לְפָנֶ֑יָ אֲשֶ֧ר תִשְלָחֵ֣נִי אֶל־יְהוד֗ה אֶל־עִ֛יר קבְר֥ות אֲבֹתַ֖י וְאֶבְנֶֽנָה׃
Nehemiah asks to be sent to Jerusalem to supervise the building of walls around Jerusalem so Jews can defend ourselves in our own land and our own city. According to Megilat Ta’anit, he began his efforts on the 16th of Adar, the day after Shushan Purim when Purim is celebrated in Jerusalem. The day after the megillah was read in Jerusalem, Nehemiah organized the rebuilding of Jerusalem’s walls.
Nehemiah represents a rejection of diaspora Jewish politics and the vulnerabilities of relying on someone like Harbonah. Nehemiah represents an ideal of self-sufficiency and a rejection of acquiring power and influence within someone else’s government. Nehemiah is a compelling model of Jewish power.
And yet, the walls that were built by Nehemiah were destroyed by the Romans a few centuries later while the Jewish community in Sushan has endured until modern times. It isn’t always clear where the future will be brightest and it isn’t always clear where Jewish life will be most safe. Judaism is not a religion for children. Questions of Jewish politics, like questions of Jewish law and practice, have few simple and obvious answers.
But some things are simple.
Megillat Esther begins with a description of a massive party hosted by King Achashverosh. According to the Talmud the Jews of Perisa deserved the persecution that they received because they participated and enjoyed the party of Achashverosh. One might think that their attendance was criticized because the food was not kosher or because of some other ritual violation.
But, the Talmudic passage that identifies the meal of Achashverosh as the reason the Jews of Persia deserved punishment suggests that the food at this meal was kosher. It seems Mordechai even poured the wine, so there was no need for waiters to serve mevushal wine of lessor quality. What then was so problematic about Jewish participation at this meal?
According to midrasnhic traditions, Achashverosh served food at his party using the keilim, the sacred Temple vessels, that were brought as plunder when the Babylonian armies destroyed the city and the Temple years earlier. Jews who ate and enjoyed themselves at a meal served off of the keilim from the beit hamikdash have forgotten their own history. They have forgotten their own recent past as exiles and refugees. They have forgotten, amidst the opulence of a party in the capital city, the importance of, in the words of Pastor Marshall Hatch “seeing the world from the bottom up.”
The food could be glatt kosher, Mordechai himself can serve as mashgiach and pour the wine, but if you don’t remember where you come from, if you lose your sympathy for the underdog, then the meal is a meal of assimilation of the most destructive variety.
And so, as an antidote to se’udat Achashaverosh, our participation in the identity-erasing meal of Achashverosh, we celebrate Purim by giving food to one another and eating at our own se’udah. Mishloach Manot is a way for eating and drinking that creates and builds identity and solidarity rather than erase it. And we give gifts to the poor. Nothing is as constitutive of Jewish identity as remembering our own slavery in Egypt and successive cycles of exile, and so we must identify with and support those who are similarly marginalized.
And this is why the celebration of Purim always leads, invariably, to the Passover season. This year, when we observe two months of Adar, we had a choice as to when to celebrate Purim. We, seemingly, should have celebrated Purim in the first Adar – zerizim makdimim l’mitzvot – we always try to perform mitzvot at the first opportunity. But Purim is celebrated in the second Adar during leap years because it must be adjacent to Nissan, the month of freedom and redemption, and the celebration of Pesach.
And, this year too, may the Passover season bring redemption and freedom to us all.
Rabbi David Wolkenfeld 