Opinion

0 HER VIEWS

The Hidden Power Of Purim

W

e often view Purim as the most
fun day of the year. Throughout
my life, when Purim was still
months away, I would start planning my
costume, working on the list of people I
would send mish-
loach manot (fes-
tive food gifts) to,
and thinking about
where my family
should eat the joyful
Purim meal.
However, when
we take a step back
from all the fun and
fanfare we find that
Rabbi Leiby
Purim has a very
Burnham
profound meaning
Community
that is sometimes
View
forgotten.
Most of us would
consider Yom Kippurim (the full name for
Yom Kippur) to be the most sacred day of
the year. It is a day spent fully immersed
in prayer, introspection and repentance.
Yet the sages tell us that Yom Ki-purim is
only like Purim (the prefix "Kr in Hebrew
means like), thus indicating that Purim
can be seen as an even holier day than Yom
Kippur!

How can this be? The entire day of
Purim is spent engrossed in merriment.
People busy themselves eating lavish
meals, getting dressed up in exotic cos-
tumes, making loud noises in the syna-
gogue when Haman is mentioned and car-
rying on with impassioned festivity!
Let us first look for what makes Purim
unique among all the other holidays of the
year. Purim is the only holiday that does
not celebrate an event linked with an open
miracle. Pesach, Shavuot and Sukkot all
celebrate the miraculous events associated
with the exodus from Egypt. Chanukah
celebrates the miracle of the oil.
What miracle occurred in the story of
Purim? The evil vizier persuaded the king
to make an edict that would wipe out
the entire Jewish people in one horrific,
genocidal day, and the Jewish queen dis-
suades him from doing it! (Clearly, there
are many miracles behind the scenes, such
as the fact that Esther was chosen as queen
out of all the girls in the land, or that
Achashveirosh can't sleep, and they read
him the account of how Mordechai saved
his life right before Haman comes to ask
the king to kill Mordechai.
(But these miracles are behind the
scenes and can be misconstrued as coin-

cidence, which was not the case with the
miracle linked to other holidays, such as
the splitting of the sea, the 10 plagues or
the oil burning for eight days.)
So what is so special about Purim, if
there are no incredible open miracles to
tell over? What makes Purim special is that
despite the absence of miracles, the Jews
came together in unity and prayed for sal-
vation, fasted for salvation and fought for
salvation.
It is much harder to fight for Judaism
and to fight for our people when God is
hiding Himself from us, when we don't
clearly see His hand guiding every event.
What Purim represents is the ability to
break out of a tough situation in which we
don't see God, by taking the plunge and
doing the right thing anyway.
This also explains why Purim is at the
end of the winter, as it signifies the break-
ing out of the darkness into light. Darkness
is our inability to see God's hand in our life
and we break out of it into light by doing
the right thing anyway. Then the darkness
dissipates suddenly and we see the salva-
tion in all of its glory.
Now we can understand why Purim has
the potential to be even greater than Yom
Kippur. On Yom Kippur, we attain great

spiritual heights, but in the light mode. We
spend the day in our synagogues praying
with hundreds of others, wrapped in our
tallitot, fasting and limiting our involve-
ment with the physical.
But Purim teaches us how to attain spiri-
tual heights even in the dark mode, even
while we spend the day eating, drinking
and entertaining lavishly.
Since most of our lives are spent in the
dark mode, where we don't feel HaShem's
presence like we do on Yom Kippur, the
lesson we learn from Purim is greater than
the lesson of Yom Kippur.
So, this year, we should all try to take a
step back from all the festivities and spend
a few minutes in solitude thinking about
the lessons of Purim and the power of
Purim. This way, we will be able to leave
Purim with a new strategy, the strategy of
"Just Do It Even When You Don't Feel IC
which is the kind of strategy that gives us
the ability to break out from darkness into
light!
Happy Purim!

❑

Rabbi Burnham is associate director of the
Jean and Theodore Weiss Partners in Torah

program of the Yeshiva Beth Yehudah in
Southfield.

Coming To Terms With Tragedy

New York/JTA

W

hen do we label an event "cata-
strophic"? We say that a wound
is "catastrophic" when it is
complex, when it involves many dimen-
sions of injury. So, too, with tragedy.
The March 6 brutal murder of eight
students at Yeshivat Mercaz HaRav is cata-
strophic because its meanings are multiple
and complex, and can be viewed from
numerous perspectives.
The uppermost layer is the loss of
human life, one that all people of good
will can understand. Just beneath that
layer is the loss of life of people so young,
of mere children; again, painful to every
decent human being. Deeper layers include
bereaved parents, destroyed dreams and
traumatized witnesses. And all of us are
witnesses.
Some dimensions are not so appar-
ent, however. The setback to prospects
for peace, already so remote, is one such
dimension. The loss of a sense of security
that had been almost totally restored to the

A34

March 20 • 2008

Ai

streets of Jerusalem is another.
acts of terrorism, murder and mayhem,
The shootings occurred in a place of
the Israeli army moved into action only
Torah study, a makom Torah, the inner-
after a Passover seder was the target of ter-
most sanctum of Judaism. Besides all else,
ror. The symbolism of the seder cut deeper
this was sacrilege, a profanation of the
than the symbolism of the Dolphinarium,
highest and most central of
a Tel Aviv disco.
Jewish values, the study of
I feel the responsibility to
God's word.
teach those who may not know
As such it calls to mind
that as powerful a symbol as the
images of Kristallnacht, of
Passover seder is, as much as it
medieval book burnings and
is a central ritual of Judaism, as
of the horrible massacre in
much as it heralds the message
Hebron in 1929. That massa-
of liberty and freedom, it pales
cre, too, was carried out in the
in religious significance when
study hall of a yeshivah, and it
compared to the scene of Torah
is no wonder that the eulogiz-
students poring over the Talmud •
ers last week connected this
Torah study is the holy core
Rabbi Tzvi
event to the never-forgotten
of our faith, more so even than
Hersh
crime of nearly 80 years ago.
our festivals and fast days. More
Weinreb
One cannot make compari-
so even than mitzvot. Every day,
Special
sons as to whose life is more
as part of our daily prayer, we
Commentary
precious. In the words of the
say the words of the Mishnah:
Talmud,"no one's blood is red-
Ve-talmud Torah keneged kulam
der than the blood of any other." But some
— Torah study is as significant as all the
killings carry heavier symbolic meaning
other mitzvot combined. Torah study is
than others. A few years ago, after many
Jewish eternity, Jewish continuity, so that

the image of the cutting-down of boys
so engaged penetrates to the very core of
our existential reality. Who raises children
these days to be pure? Who raises them to
strive for holiness? It suffices in the West
to train children to be "well-adjusted" or, at
the most, "decent."
But these young men at the yeshivah
were educated to be "pure" and diligently
attempted to be "holy." The murderer did
not merely snuff out the lives of young and
healthy and bright and personable and
ethical and moral kids. He sullied purity;
he contaminated the sacrosanct and
defiled holiness.
This tragedy is indeed catastrophic.
Only by the cultivation of Torah study,
of authentically Jewish spirituality, of
Jewishly informed acts of charity and
kindness, and of the appreciation of the
place of holiness even in this profane
world, can the pain be assuaged and our
spirits redeemed. ❑

Rabbi Tzvi Hersh Weinreb is executive vice

president of the Orthodox Union.