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The Many Faces Of Purim

IN FOCUS

gious bigotry on Sunday, it was a small
all the frivolity — the grog-
step in the right direction. But institu-
gers, costumes, masks and
tional atonement is a step that has not
parties. — are the happy side
been taken, either by the Vatican or by
of Purim, celebrating one of
most of the world's governments.
the first battles for religious freedom in
Perhaps we need to remember how
recorded history.
Queen Esther faced these issues. Her
But in all the merrymaking, we
fast to gain courage before risking her
sometimes forget that the
holiday truly commemorates
a battle. The Jews of ancient
Persia had to fight for their
lives, once given the chance
by King Ahasuerus. Jews
were attacked throughout
the kingdom on the 13th of
Adar — the date drawn by
lots (pur) by the wicked
Haman. In the walled city of
Shushan, the attacks contin-
ued a second day, leading to
the tradition of Jews cele-
brating victory on Adar 14,
but Jews living in walled or
formerly walled cities, like
Jerusalem, marking Shushan
Purim on Adar 15.
Purim's parallels to today's
times and perils are uncanny.
Purim Procession from Sefer Minhagim
The battles over religion
Amsterdam, 1707
have continued for the 2 1 /2
millennia since the original
fight for religious freedom.
, life to intercede on behalf of her people
Conflicts in the Middle East for the
is something few of us have ever had to
last two millennia are directly attributed
face. The Fast of Esther on erev Purim is
to religious strife. In the 20th century
symbolic in that regard.
alone, battles have been waged between
Monday's Fast of Esther, Purim on
Turks and Armenians, Egyptians and
Tuesday
and Shushan Purim on
Copts, Iraqis and Kurds, Israelis and
Wednesday
have lessons for a world that
Arabs, Shiites and Sunnis, to mention
continues to believe the politics of dif-
only a few.
ference carry greater weight than the
When Pope John Paul II called on
brotherhood of tolerance. 11]
individual Catholics to atone for reli-

A

,

Success At^ SAJE

What's the most-asked question of Judy Leder, project coordinator for
Seminars for Adult Jewish Enrichment? "When is the next session?" To
which she must answer, "Not until next January." She hates to disap-
point participants, but says she "feels great when they are interested
enough to ask." The second three-week SAJE term ended March 9.
With more than 500 students and 1,300 registrations for more than 50
classes, this year's numbers equaled those in 1999. The second annual
program filled "a real need for Jewish adult learning in the middle of
winter when not as much is going
on in the community," Leder
said. SAJE co-sponsors are the
Jewish Community Center, the
Jewish Federation, the Agency for
Jewish Education and the Jewish
News. Community shaliach Mark
Myers, above, leads a class on
Israeli issues,"My Israel: From an
outsider looking in, to an insider
looking out," as Leo Goldstein of
Farmington Hills and classmates
listen.

Lessons Of Repentance

r

rom the first, we Jews are taught to ask
tough questions and to honor the process
of exploration. We are given the Book to
study and we are told that the way to learn
is through analysis and debate. We also believe that
our relationship with God is direct, not mediated by
our priests or constrained by our temples.
So emotionally, we could not be further away
than we are from the Roman Catholic Church, its
leaders and its followers. For them, the church itself
is divine, and its pope the infallible earthly vicar of
God. Faith is the path, not inquiry.
So of course we have a lot of trouble understand-
ing why the papal apology issued Sunday was limit-
ed to the sins committed by the errant "sons and

Related story: page 12

daughters" of the church. Where then, we ask, was
the "father" (the pope is the papa) during all those
wayward acts? How could a divine Vatican have
missed the persecution of Jews that it inspired or
remained silent during the Holocaust?
Once again, a burden falls on us — this time to
accept that for now, Sunday's statement is as close as
the Catholic Church can come to saying "I'm sorry"
However much we may think that the church
cannot move forward until it truly accepts all of its
past errors, we need to understand that this is the
best that it can do, that it is trying to find a histori-
cal path on which Catholics and Jews can walk

together toward some common goals.
That doesn't mean that we have to agree with the
pope's statement or his actions. We remain, for
example, skeptical of the deal struck just last month
between the Vatican and the Palestinian Authority
that, in a message clearly aimed at Israel, said any
unilateral decisions on Jerusalem would be "morally
- and legally unacceptable."
But we aren't going to get anywhere further now
belaboring the obvious past errors of the Catholic
Church and its heads like Pope Pius XII. We need
to move forward by accepting this latest gesture as a
symbol of an "infallible" institution that may actual-
ly want to change. The stakes are too high for us to
just turn on our heels and walk away. ❑

3/17
2000

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