WHEN THE FIFTEENTH FALLS ON SHABBAT, THE MEGGILAH IS NOT READ ON SHABBAT, RATHER, IT IS READ EARLY ON THE DAY BEFORE SHABBAT, AND MONEY FOR THE POOR IS COLLECTED AND DISTRIBUTED THAT SAME DAY.

TWO TORAH SCROLLS ARE TAKEN OUT ON THAT SHABBAT. THEN CAME AMALEK IS READ FROM THE SECOND;

AL HANISSIM IS RECITED.

THE PURIM FEAST IS NOT HELD UNTIL SUNDAY.

 

Like clouds, wind - but no rain - is one who boasts of gifts not given.

(Mishlei 25:14)

 

Like clouds, wind, etc. - As when there is false hope, when the skies fill with clouds, and the wind blows, and one expects rain but it does not come, making one distressed and desperate, so it is with a man who boasts, saying, "I will give such and such charity to the alms-collector," yet he lies and the poor desperately anticipate his gift, but it does not arrive.

(Rashi on Mishlei 25:14)

 

Even though they said that villagers advance [the reading of the Meggilah] to the day they go into town, [gifts for the poor] are collected and distributed that very same day. "Even though they said"? On the contrary, because "they said" [i.e., gifts are given to the poor on the day people go into town because "they said" the Meggilah would be read on that day]. Rather: Since they said that villagers advance [the reading of the Meggilah] to the day they go into town - [gifts for the poor] are collected and distributed that very same day, because the poor look forward to the reading of the Meggilah [knowing that they will receive gifts].

(Meggilah 4b)

 

 

 

These days of Purim

Yossi Penini

Upon the end of the year of mourning

for the death of my father,

Ya'akov z'l, whose life work was dedicated

to the Jewish People and its land.

Biblical holidays mark eternally meaningful events which occurred in the lives of those who left Egypt. The Exodus itself is commemorated on Pesach, the revelation at Sinai on Shavuot, and the experience of wandering through the desert on Sukkot. It is strange that the event which marked the goal of that forty year trek - the entry into the Land - is not celebrated with a holiday or otherwise commemorated. It is even odder that we find an allusion to that event in the laws of the reading of the Meggilah. So we read in RaMBaM's Mishnei Torah, Hilkhot Meggilah 1:4:

What is the time of its reading? The Sages established various times for it, as it says in their times (Esther 9), and here are the times of its reading: Any town that had a wall around it in the days of Joshua ben Nun, whether in the Land or outside of it, even if today it no longer has a wall - [there] they read [the Meggilah] on the fifteenth of Adar. Such a town is called a krakh. Any town that did not have a wall around it in the days of Joshua ben Nun, whether in the Land or outside of it, even if today it does have a wall - [there] they read [the Meggilah] on the fourteenth of Adar. Such a town is called an ir.

The big question is - what is the connection between the story of the Meggilah and the entry of the Israelites into the Land of Israel? What is it that makes the events described in Meggilat Esther into an occasion for celebrating - to an extent - the entry into the Land of Israel? And if we are considering bewildering questions, it is fitting that we continue reading the RaMBaM and see what he writes in the conclusion of Hilkhot Meggilah 2:18:

All of the books of the Prophets and all of the Writings will become void in the days of the Messiah, except for the Meggilah of Esther - that [book] will endure as will the Five Books of the Torah and the laws of the Oral Torah, which never become void.

Similarly, we find in the midrash Yalkut Shimoni on Mishlei (944):

...in the future, all of the holidays will be abolished, but these days of Purim will never be abolished

What is there in the Meggilah that makes it, together with the Five Books of the Torah, uniquely relevant even in the Coming Future? What advantage does it have over the books of the Prophets, over the books of wisdom, and over those wonderful chapters of Tehillim that touch the heart's hidden mysteries? And what makes Purim superior to all other holidays, making its message and contents relevant after all other holidays lose their contemporary significance and become mere chapters of collective memory no more important than any other episode in the nation's history?

Since we are all well-acquainted with the story of the Meggilah and it has fired our imaginations since childhood, there is no need to set out much detail. It will be sufficient to recall the long days of wine-feasts described in chapter one and the long process leading up to the choice of the future queen in chapter two.

Set against the background of the two introductory chapters, chapter three leads us into the heart of the drama. Its fifteen verses subsume, in horrible brevity, many similar episodes in Jewish history. Haman is appointed to his high office. Mordechai, sitting at the city gate refuses to bow down and prostrate himself before him. This catches Haman's eye, but Mordechai continues his defiant behavior. The actions of the Jew standing at the gate flood Haman with dark, anti-Semitic feelings:

But he disdained to lay hands on Mordechai alone; having been told who Mordechai's people were, Haman plotted to do away with all the Jews, Mordechai's people, throughout the kingdom of Ahasuerus. (Esther 3:6)

In a flash, the "Jew" becomes a "kike" - all at once he stops being an individual personality and becomes an archetype for all Jews; suddenly there is no solution to the "Jewish Question" except for the "Final Solution." And so Haman describes the situation to Ahasuerus:

Haman then said to Ahasuerus, "There is a certain people, scattered and dispersed among the other peoples in all the provinces of your realm, whose laws are different from those of any other people and who do not obey the king's laws; and it is not in Your Majesty's interest to tolerate them. If it please Your Majesty, let an edict be drawn for their destruction, and I will pay ten thousand talents of silver to the stewards for deposit in the royal treasury. (3:8-9)

Such are the Jews: They are found everywhere, their appearance and lifestyle are conspicuously unique, they are law-breakers, they live by laws different from and contradictory to the laws of the kingdom, and they are unprofitable. The final annihilation of the Jews will not only offer a permanent solution to their problem, but the very process of executing "the final solution to the Jewish problem" will bring appreciable revenue to the state treasury.

Reacting to the king's positive reception of Haman's suggestion, the "machine" leaps into coordinated and well-oiled activity:

On the thirteenth day of the first month, the king's scribes were summoned and a decree was issued, as Haman directed, to the king's satraps, to the governors of every province, and to the officials of every people, to every province in its own script and to every people in its own language. The orders were issued in the name of King Ahasuerus and sealed with the king's signet. Accordingly, written instructions were dispatched by couriers to all the king's provinces to destroy, massacre, and exterminate all the Jews, young and old, children and women, on a single day, on the thirteenth day of the twelfth month - that is, the month of Adar - and to plunder their possessions. (3:12-13)

The eye and ear of imagination can see and hear the unfolding of maps, the pins marking the locations of death camps, the cadres of mobilized academics searching for quick and efficient methods of mass murder, the shapers of public opinion and the propaganda machine cranking up hate and arousing blood-lust and its justifications. How close these distant events are to us!

In my humble opinion, Scripture contains no passage more terrible than the two verses which complete the chapter:

The text of the document was to the effect that a law should be proclaimed in every single province; it was to be publicly displayed to all the peoples, so that they might be ready for that day. The couriers went out posthaste on the royal mission, and the decree was proclaimed in the fortress Shushan. The king and Haman sat down to drink, but the city of Shushan was dumbfounded. (3:14-15)

The picture is so bright and clear: An exhausting day's work is done, chock-full of excitement and the exercise of authority. Passion for the mission and its sacredness had increased the levels of adrenalin in their blood, so that the king and Haman sat down to drink - in the drawing room, with Mahler's god music playing in the background, schnapps served in crystal shot-glasses, their faces sharing a look of relaxed self-satisfaction, their eyes meeting and telling each other: "Oh, what a fruitful day's work we had today!"

In many ways, the story ends with this picture; the rest of the Meggilah merely offers the particulars of a specific event that took place in Shushan and Ahasuerus' kingdom. Perhaps here, at this juncture of the story, we can find an answer to the questions asked in the beginning of this article. Here we are given an all-embracing position. There is no guarantee for the continuation of Jewish existence. Not only today, but also in the future-to-come. Not only when the Jewish People is scattered among the nations, but also when they enter the Land of Israel, lay claim to it, settle it, and gain sovereignty over it. Even there they will not find a "safe refuge" against the eternally fragile reality that always places a large question mark over Jewish survival.

Faced with this blunt message, so unequivocal and fateful, perhaps we are left with only two options: Either to jump off the "Jewish wagon" or to get drunk...

In any case, what shall we do?

Perhaps part of the answer may be found in RaMBaM's Hilkhot Purim. Following the laws dealing with the Purim feast and mishloah manot, we read in paragraph 17:

It is better for a person to augment his gifts to the poor than to augment his feast and mishloah manot to his friends, for there is no greater and more glorious joy that to bring joy to the hearts of the poor, the orphans, the widows, and the strangers.

The general message seems to be: Hold hands, hold them tight, and especially hold and strengthen the hands of the weakest links of society - for they are likely the first to break, bringing the whole chain down after them. Social solidarity is the order of the day for Purim; solidarity with the embittered poor, the unprotected, the beaten, the exploited, and victims of social injustice.

In our days, especially as we live under a hard-hearted and pitiless social policy, it is a certainty that, "It is better for a person to augment his gifts to the poor than to augment his feast..." Perhaps it would be worth considering, as both an act of kindness and an act of protest, to cancel the feast altogether and to give all the more in gifts to the poor and to voluntary organizations that deal with social problems all year round.

In "these days of Purim" there are also weak links of another kind; those whose faith is on the brink of a great crisis. For instance, the residents of Gush Katif and the Northern Shomron. Despite all possible disagreement with their project and with their interpretation of the Torah, and despite the great hope and the great improvement that the retreat promises to bring, despite all of this - our brothers are in distress. We, whether we agree or disagree with them, share a great duty: to hold their hands, to embrace them, to assist them, to express empathy for their plight, to feel their pain rather than to turn away from it.

For their sakes - and for own - for the sake of Jewish continuity and the continuity of the Zionist project.

We, by our action or inaction, will share in the religious, moral, and national responsibility if their crisis pulls all of Israeli society to the edge of the abyss.

"Be strong, be strong" we shall tell them as they leave - and we shall all be strengthened together with their arrival.

Yossi Penini is the general manager of "Meitarim," the Jewish-Democratic educational network.

 

 

The blood is the soul

Eat no blood: For it is improper for one having a soul to eat a soul, for the souls all belong to God. The human's soul and the animal's soul are both His, they have one and the same fate: as the one dies so dies the other, and both have the same spirit (Kohellet 3:19).

(RaMBaN on VaYikra 17:11)

 

It may also be said regarding the prohibition upon eating blood: Besides its being an ill humor, eating it causes one to become cruel. [That is what happens] when a human swallows parts of animals that are physically similar to him, the parts upon which the animals are dependent for their very lives. It is known that animals have a "soul", which the philosophers call the "animal soul" - that is to say, [a soul] that is not intellectual, even if it is apparent that their soul is capable of the discernment necessary for avoiding falling into holes and a few other things...

(Sefer HaHinukh 148)

 

It is not implied that the actual substance of the blood is life, only that the blood bears the spirit of life which is in living creatures and is inextricably connected with the spirit of life, and both together form the living creature. The blood is the instrument of the soul through which it carries out its activities.

(R. David Tzvi Hoffman's commentary on VaYikra, as quoted in

Prof. Nehama Leibowitz z"l's Studies in Vayikra, pg.55, Aryeh Newman, translator)

 

The consciousness of shame is the beginning of moral improvement...Cover the blood! Hide your shame! These actions will bear fruit and ultimately educate mankind. The mute protest will, when the time is ripe, [i.e., after generations of meat-eating, but of eating within the context of a system of commandments regulating slaughter, inspection, and salting of meat] be transformed into a mighty shout and succeed in its aim. The very nature of the principles of ritual slaughter with their specific rules and regulations designed to reduce pain, create the atmosphere that you are not dealing with an inanimate automat, but with a living soul.

(R. A. Y. HaKohen Kook, ztz"l, Talilei Orot, as quoted in

Prof. Nehama Leibowitz z"l's Studies in Vayikra, pg.55, Aryeh Newman, translator)

 

But they did not lay hands on the spoil -- The Distinction Between Rescue and Redemption

But they did not lay hands on the spoil (Esther 9:10) Even though the royal decree specified to plunder their possessions, they did not take spoil, lest the king say that their intention was not deliverance from their enemies, but the taking of spoils, therefore but they did not lay hands on the spoil - that it be known that they were innocent of that. Know yet more, they related properly to this miracle, for the miracle was wrought not so that Israel acquires wealth, but to vanquish their enemies. This is the difference between this deliverance (geulah) and other deliverances: from all other deliverances, they profited. When they left Egypt - the geulah was to bring them out of Egypt and make them a free people - they profited from this geulah. But the purpose of this - the Purim - miracle was to remove the foe, but not to gain anything beyond what they had before, for even after the miracle they were still subjects of Ahasuerus. Thus Israel acquired nothing in Ahasuerus's days beyond what they already had. Even though the fear of Jews was upon them, this was to remove the adversaries, but not to rule over them, as will soon be explained. Had they taken their wealth, it would have looked as though the miracle was wrought so that they profit from the geulah - but certainly there is no profit here, for they were still in exile.

(Ohr Hadash L'Purim, Maharal of Prague, p. 308)

 

 

 

 

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