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YOU SHALL MAKE HOLY GARMENTS FOR YOUR BROTHER
AARON, FOR HONOR AND GLORY.
(Shemot 28:2)
When he showed the riches of his
glorious kingdom - R. Yossi bar
Hanina said: This teaches us that he donned the priestly garments: there (Esther 1) it is written the splendor of the glory
of his majesty, and here (Shemot 28) it is written for
honor and glory.
(Megilla 12a)
You shall make holy garments - they were thus called, because they [the
priests] served while wearing them in the place of holiness; or it can be
understood in the manner of [the verse] and they shall not sanctify the
people with their garments (Ezekiel 44:19).
(Ibn Ezra - longer
commentary - Shemot 28:2)
for honor [lekavod]
- is the spiritual kaved
- the weight, the mass, that by which the spiritual and moral content, the
character, of a person impresses itself on others. So that the meaning of the
priesthood is to express itself in he garments. Kavod is the real actual
character of the garments.
and glory - At the same time they are to be made in
such a matter that they also lend "glory" to the priest.
Pe'er [the root from which tifferet, "glory,"
is formed] is close to be'er, beher, bahar which all have
the idea at root of shining forth, being conspicuous, or distinguished.
and
glory adds the demand that
besides the given necessary conditions expressed by for honor, the
garments also satisfy the requirements of the sense of beauty; that they
distinguish the priest in an aesthetic manner.
(Rabbi
S.R.Hirsch ad loc, Levy translation)
Purim is in
many senses the strangest holiday of the Jewish calendar year. To begin with,
it is in a certain sense the most "secular" of the Jewish holidays. The
Scroll of Esther, its central text, is lacking in any definitive religious message,
at least on the surface; indeed, the name of God is totally absent from it (apart
from one passage which refers, in rather oblique fashion, to "salvation
and benefit" coming to the Jews from "another place" should
Esther fail to act (4:14); some old scrolls also hint at the
presence of God by emphasizing places where the Divine name can be found in
acrostic in the first or last letters of certain groups of words). The manner
of celebration of the holiday is likewise lacking in the elements of dignity
and seriousness, the sense of spiritual uplift and holiness felt on other
festive days. The day begins with the public reading of a scroll that tells a
rather bizarre and even outlandish (not to mention improbable) tale, in an
atmosphere of noise and total chaos in the synagogue; the rest of the day is
devoted to eating, to drinking to excess (including actual drunkenness, which
is deemed a praiseworthy state on this day!), the wearing of masks and
costumes, including cross-dressing, and various forms of tomfoolery, pranks and
generally raucous behavior.
Two
Rabbinic dicta relate to this problematic aspect, suggesting that the day as
such represents a kind of embracing of opposites: venahafokh hu, "and
it was turned around" (Est 9:1),
as the slogan of the day has it. That is, Divine Providence was indeed at work
in the events described in the Megillah, but in completely hidden fashion: "From
whence do we know that Esther is from the Torah? From the verse, 'And I will
surely hide (my face from them on that day; haster astir panay; Deut 31:18)'" (Hullin 139b). "Wherever the
Megillah refers to 'King Ahashverosh' it refers specifically to Ahasverosh; wherever
it speaks of 'the king' without elaboration, this refers to both sacred and
mundane" (Esther Rabbah, at Est 1:9). That is, the word "king"
refers simultaneously to the rather stupid, earthly king of the book, and to
the King of Kings, the Holy One blessed be He, who secretly moves events.
This
idea, of Purim and the Megillah enjoying special significance precisely because
it is enwrapped in a mundane, secular shell, is developed extensively in later
commentaries and works of derush, and especially in the literature of
Hasidism, which is replete with homilies extolling the special holiness and
importance of Prim, precisely because things are done therein "in hidden
fashion."
But
there is a second, more serious problem with Purim. Now and again, one
encounters the view that Purim is a festival that somehow celebrates violence,
that it is based on unworthy emotions of vengefulness against the enemies of
the Jewish people, and rejoicing in their downfall; that the entire story, and
the celebration that comes in its wake, is based upon the downfall of Haman,
the great enemy, and the rise to power and greatness of Mordecai the Jew.
According
to this reading, the behavior of the heroes of the Megillah involves more than
a few morally questionable actions: at the beginning, Mordecai sends his niece
and ward, Esther, a pure Jewish virgin, to submit to the embraces of a Gentile
king - an act on his part hardly better than pimping! Esther herself conceals "her
people and her birth," as if she were ashamed of her Jewishness. Mordecai's
refusal to bow before Haman, by which he endangered his entire people, may also
be seen in negative light - obstinately attaching excessive significance to an
act of simple civility and respect to a high royal official. And then, after
the turnabout, the Jews themselves engage in massive slaughter of thousands of
civilians, who may well have been unarmed; and so on. All this, as I said, is
an alternative, unsympathetic, but coherent and plausible reading of the Scroll
of Esther - one which has been propounded at various points in history.
Recently,
historian Elliott Horowitz wrote a book entitled Reckless Rites,1
in which he explores the more negative aspect of Purim, including condemnation
of the Book of Esther and/or the festival of Purim by both Non-Jews (often with
no small measure of hypocrisy) and by a certain strain of liberal, enlightened
Jew. Among other facts, he mentions that during the Middle Ages there were
certain places were it was customary to conduct a symbolic flogging or burning
in effigy of Haman, or to designate someone to play the role of Haman in the "Purim
Speil" - at times a Jew and at times a Gentile - who would be subject to
blows, spitting, etc. This "Haman" was often in turn identified with
the contemporary enemies of the Jewish community. On some relatively rare
occasions this would also cross the boundary of symbolic action, and descend
into real violence. He mentions two documented cases in history - in Inmestar (near
Antioch in Syria) in the 5th century, and in Bray or Brie in Provence
in 1191 or 1192 - in which such Purim "festivities" ended in the
actual murder of the victim. But this was overshadowed in our own lifetime, on
the awful Purim of 1994, when 29 Arab worshippers were slaughtered in cold
blood at the Cave of the Mekhpelah by Baruch Goldstein, a Jewish settler from
Hevron - an event that for some people left an indelible stain on the day.
The
sense of repulsion towards Purim on the part of some Jews is indicated by the
urban legend that the late Ernst Simon, a religious intellectual of high-minded
ethical and humanistic principles (and one of the founding fathers of the early
movement for peace and reconciliation between Jews and Arabs, Brit Shalom)
deliberately avoided celebrating this holiday. Every year he would spend the 14th
of Adar in his home in
The
question that needs to be considered is: are there aspects of Purim that are in
fact unseemly, deserving of condemnation - or is, perhaps, the very foundation
of the festival tainted?
Returning
for a moment to the element of riotousness, frivolity, and inebriety associated
with Purim: Purim may be seen, essentially, as based upon the model of the "carnival,"
a kind of "moral holiday," in which man is freed from the normal
restraints of behavioral limits.2 Almost every culture (or, in any
event, what might be called "folk" cultures) has its days of riotous
behavior, of breaking conventional boundaries, of a structured easing of
certain norms, and the temporary erasing or obscuring of boundaries of social
class and hierarchy. Put otherwise, one might say that the carnival is a time
of ritualized chaos within socially accepted limits. (Incidentally,
by comparison with carnivals in other cultures, Purim is generally rather tame
- compare, for example, the rather explicit displays of near nudity and
sexuality during Mardi Gras in such places as
But
beyond the joy and levity of the carnival, there is another aspect: in an
almost paradoxical sense, beneath the surface of hilarity, there is an almost
tragic consciousness, a kind of keen awareness of the absurdity of life: "We
laugh, because otherwise we would have to cry." The carnival is a
defiance, for one day, of the human condition: against our mortality; against
the social structure of ruler and ruled, of strong and weak, of rich and poor;
and against the random, unpredictable nature of life, in which we may be
overtaken at any moment by catastrophe, turning our lives around - wars,
natural disasters, meaningless violence, disease, accidents, etc. On the depth
level, the carnival is a kind of protest against the random, chaotic nature of
life itself. We ourselves create chaos, as it were, to protest against the
chaos in the universe.
But
to return specifically to the Jews and to Purim: there is a particular element
of danger and insecurity in Jewish existence throughout the generations. I do
not know to what extent the events portrayed in the Megillah occurred exactly
as described there, but it does not require much imagination to see in the Jews
of Shushan, dependent upon the whims of a stupid, licentious, and drunken king,
as an archetype for Jewish communities in all their places of exile, dependent
upon the good-will and mercies of Gentile rulers and the clever management of
relations with them. (And perhaps one should add: even Jews living in their own
independent state find themselves more than a little dependent on the mercy and
realpolitik considerations of international powers stronger than
themselves, be it in decisions to wage war or to wage peace.)
From
here we return to the question with which we began: Purim and violence. While
Horowitz's book is primarily a historical work - and as such I found it
fascinating, filled with little-known information on a wide variety of
subjects, relating both to the Purim and the Megillah, and to Jewish violence
generally - here and there he expresses an ideological position, to which I
must take exception. Thus, in the chapter on "Amalek," he criticizes
those who draw a comparison between Amalek and the historical enemies of the
Jewish people in recent times, even taking to task those who compared Hitler
and the Nazis to Amalek during the 1930s and '40s (pp.
137-145). He
mentions in particular a comment by Rav Soloveitchik for advancing "the
notion that an Amalekite was anyone, of any background, who harbored
unconditional hatred of the Jewish people" (p. 144).
I
fail to see what is so reprehensible in this approach. Is not evil, even what
might be called absolute evil, part of the reality of our world? Can every
conflict between people be understood in purely socio-economic terms that, with
a bit of good-will and rationalism, could be explained away and resolved? Are
there not individuals or movements towards whom the only appropriate human and
value reaction is one of utter hatred and disgust and abhorrence? True, it is
too easy to engage in demonization of the other, of the rival who contests
one's ownership of the same "God's little acre." And certainly, I
would agree with him that there is such a tendency in the present situation, of
seeing all Arabs or Palestinian nationalism as the embodiment of evil (thereby
conveniently overlooking the injustices and acts of oppression committed by our
side). But there is also a danger of moral relativism, of losing one's moral
compass, in going to the opposite extreme and failing to recognize demonic
hatred and religiously-motivated hatred on the other side.
And,
I might add, the essay on Purim in which Rav Soloveitchik makes these comments
is imbued davka with a universal spirit, with a sense of the universal,
existential tragedy represented by Purim, and with the notion of man as
imprinted with the Divine image, and the Amalek syndrome as a strange exception
in which man "exchanges his Godly personality for a satanic persona... "3
To
conclude: as I understand it, the Torah allows room for expression of the
entire gamut of human experience, including those aspects of life that are not
specifically "religious." By their inclusion in the framework of the
mitzvoth, they are uplifted to their source in holiness. Such is the case
regarding such things as joy, sadness, sexuality, food, business life, and even
the realm of doubt and questioning. The same holds true for the anarchic
impulse within mankind. Purim provides a certain release for the human need to
leave the accepted social and religious order - within a certain framework that
nevertheless involves a certain degree of restraint and discipline - and to
live in a world of reversal. The impulse towards violence and aggression is
also among the basic components of human personality, and is at times a
necessary evil. Thus, even the most ardent lover of peace needn't reject Purim,
the festival of a people that has been "scattered and divided among the
nations," that has known much suffering during the course of its long
history, and that rejoices in its survival despite the many "Hamans" that
have risen up in the attempt to destroy it. Under such circumstances, one may
forgive them if, at times, they ignore the verse from Proverbs, "When your
enemy falls do not rejoice."
1 Reckless
Rites: Purim and the Legacy of Jewish Violence (Princeton–Oxford:
2 On the notion of the carnival and its
meanings, see Harvey Cox, Festival of Fools; and cf. Mario Vargas Llosa,
The Language of Passion, tr. N. Wimmer (New York, 2000), 229-234. And
see also my essay on "Mardi Gras and Purim," HY VI: Purim.
3 "On the
Metaphysical Meaning of the Festival of Purim" [Hebrew], in
his Divrei Hashkafah (
Rabbi
Jonathan Chipman is a translator by profession, and a scholar in Jewish
studies. He writes a weekly sheet (in English) on the portion of the week and
the Haftara, titled "Hitsei Yehonatan". (Anyone interested in
ordering a sample of subscription can write via email to: yonarand@internet-zahav.net.)
Remember what Amalek did to you on your
journey... and cut down all the stragglers in your rear... undeterred by fear
of God... You shall blot out the memory of Amalek from under heaven, do not
forget!
(Devarim 25: 17-19)
Blot out the memory of Amalek -
(Pesiktah Rabbati 12)
It is a positive commandment to destroy the memory of Amalek, for it
says, You shall blot out the memory of Amalek, and it is a positive
commandment to always recall its evil deeds and waylaying in order to inflame
hatred against it, for it is said, remember what Amalek did to you.
Tradition teaches that remember is performed with the mouth, do not forget
with the heart, for it is forbidden to forget to bear hostility and hatred
towards it.
(RaMBaM, Hilkhot Melakhim,
5:5)
'Do not forget' - Do
not forget this thing if the day comes and you will want to become like Amalek,
and, like Amalek, you fail to recognize your obligation and do not know God.
Rather, you only seek opportunities, in matters small or great, to exploit your
advantage in order to harm your fellow men. Do not forget this if the day comes
and you ask to relieve your heart of its role and its mission as
Do not forget - and in order that you not forget, remember
from time to time, renew in your heart the memory of Amalek and what you have
been told of its future.
(From Rabbi Samson Raphael
Hirsch's commentary on Devarim 25:19, written circa 1860!)
Rava asked: Which takes precedence, reading the Megillah or [burying a] meit
mitzvah [a deserted corpse]? Does reading the Megillah take precedence
because it involves the publicizing of the miracle, or does meit
mitzvah take precedence because of [concern for] human dignity?
After asking the question, he answered it himself: Meit mitzvah
takes precedence, for the sage said: Great is human dignity which overrides
a prohibition of the Torah.
(Megillah 3b)
It is better to spend more on gifts to the poor than
on the Purim meal or on presents to friends. For no joy is greater or more glorious
than the joy of gladdening the hearts of the poor, the orphans, the widows, and
the strangers. Indeed, he who causes the hearts of these unfortunates to
rejoice emulates the Divine Presence, of whom Scripture says, to revive the
spirit of the humble, and to revive the heart of the contrite ones (Isaiah
57:15).
(RaMBaM Hilkhot
Meggilah ve'Hanukka
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