Two groups headed out on separate roads. One accompanied a coffin to the cemetery. The other escorted a couple to their wedding. They all froze as they reached the only intersection of the town simultaneously. Who should go first? The town leaders convened and resolved that sorrow would yield to joy; the wedding party would proceed, and then the funeral entourage would go along its way.
This is the scenario presented by the Talmud to teach that when a sad time bumps up against a happy one, happiness takes precedence. At least, that is the scenario that Judaism would prefer. To be sure, there are some sorrows that simply cannot be suffocated.
How are we to observe Purim 5784? Individuals who are within their year of personal mourning have customs upon which to rely, guidelines to follow, and boundaries to observe. But what is the Purim practice for a Jewish People at war?
The Eternal Nature of Purim
There is no holiday other than Purim that is more quintessentially Jewish emotionally, theologically, and in its straightforward effectiveness at conveying a substantial strand of our story. Purim contains such a dense double-helix DNA of Jewish history and destiny that the Midrash Mishlei teaches that after the arrival of Mashiach, all Jewish holidays will disappear, except for Purim.
There is another Jewish practice that is thought to be perpetual. Soon after Purim we will sit at a Pesach Seder as the Haggadah guides us to recall the Exodus from Egypt “all the days” of our lives. We will be invited to wonder about the seemingly superfluous word “all.”
The sages teach that “the days” of our lives means that we are to recall the Exodus while we are in this natural world, and the word “all” adds that we are also to recall the Exodus, l’havee li’y’mot haMashiach,” usually understood as “even after the Messianic Era.”
But that phrase “l’havee li’y’mot haMashiach” may also be taken literally, meaning “to bring us to the Messianic Era.” In other words, the sages are revealing our power: Recalling the Exodus endows us with the ability to bring Mashiach.
The Legacy of the Exodus
Our rescue at the Red Sea was not the essence of the Exodus; it was the final stage of God’s intervention in history, wielding unimaginable power to destroy incomprehensible evil. Throughout God’s strangling of Egypt, culminating with the army’s drowning under the sea, God directs us to watch what God does, not merely as witnesses to God’s power, but as apprentices to God’s practice. The Eternal One set an example for us that our eternal mission as a newly formed People is not to wait for God, but to emulate God by bearing our power to destroy evil. Recalling the Exodus is our daily recommitment to this mission.
Our pledge was put to the test in short order. Before we could find firm footing in the desert, we were attacked by Amalek. The battle was ours, but the trauma was so formative to our new sense of nationhood that God memorialized it in our Torah to reverberate throughout time.
Exodus as Prelude to Purim
The Egyptian mantle of evil was passed to Haman when he obtained King Achashverosh’s sanction for global genocide against all Jews, a plan that sounds terrifyingly foreshadowing of October 7, “to destroy, massacre, and exterminate all the Jews, young and old, children and women, on a single day.”
The Jews sought a reprieve through reversal of the royal decree only to learn that “an edict that has been written in the king’s name and sealed with the king’s signet may not be revoked.” Still, they were able to secure the right to save their own lives. Reluctantly, they took on the role that God modeled at the Exodus as eradicator of evil. In the ensuing battle 75,500 Persians who sought to murder Jews were themselves cut down.
Three Verses Above All Others
Of the 5,845 verses in the Torah, there are only three that are literally required reading in the presence of the entire Jewish People on the Shabbat before Purim. They are the words that God taught to reflect upon that battle with Amalek:
“Remember what Amalek did to you on your journey, after you left Egypt—How, undeterred by fear of God, he surprised you on the march, when you were famished and weary, and cut down all those straggling at your rear. Therefore, when your God grants you safety from all your enemies around you, in the land that your God is giving you as a hereditary portion, you shall blot out the memory of Amalek from under heaven. Do not forget!” (Deuteronomy 25: 17-19).
Despite our Jewishly optimistic view of the world, we are too often slapped with the painful reminder from the Haggadah that “in every generation they rise up to destroy us.” Today’s war in Israel is tragically notable for being ignited by the greatest rising up and murder of Jews since the Shoah. The enemy surprised and attacked Israelis who were neglected, unguarded—at the rear—those living at the border, the most vulnerable among any in southern Israel. And in Israel’s noble and God-like effort to eradicate evil, the IDF has taken perhaps more enemy lives than at any time since Purim, and with them, unfortunately, the terribly sad loss of life among noncombatants.
A New Form of Holocaust Denial
The very shifting of the ground extends beyond Gaza to Jewish communities around the world that are reeling from an onslaught of Jew-hatred that is unmasked, unequivocal and violently unleashed as a human behavior that apparently will never change. As counterintuitive as this may seem, I suggest that even in a peaceful Messianic future, as long as God’s gift of free will animates human activity, the stench of antisemitism may linger. Just as Achashverosh’s royal decree could not be undone, free will allows for hatred to endure as an eternal fact of life, as immutable as an edict from our King, God, that may not be revoked.
We connect this Torah reading to Purim because it is our awakening to a new form of Holocaust denial—our suicidal denial that another Holocaust is possible. “Zachor—Remember” that Amalek and Haman attempted to destroy you. “Do not forget!” that this threat may come anytime, anywhere. Even now, no matter when; even here, no matter where.
They Are Not at a Crossroads. We Are.
There is another eternal truth. Throughout all of this we will be nourished by the fruits from a Tree of Life that inspires us to bring the relevance and profound joy of Torah to the world. A Torah whose unique insights travel back with us to our little town where we find that the parties standing at the crossroads of life and death are, in reality, trembling within us. It is we who require Jewish wisdom to withstand conflicting emotions when Israel is at war and we are at Purim.
This is what will transpire within us on Purim. We will be in the celebratory wedding party. We will enjoy the right of way, but as we pass before the funeral, we will realize that we traverse the valley of the shadow of death. We will emerge at the other end and go on to rejoice at the pinnacle of happiness, though obviously singed by the sadness that settles upon us like embers from a flame.
We will be in the funeral procession, too, watching as the wedding goes by. As it does, we will be altered by the joy blossoming in such abundance that its aroma will be irresistible. Even in our disheartened state, we will follow their song sustained not by a hope—but by the certainty that life and love are ahead as surely as the wedding party is.
Robert Lichtman lives in West Orange. This article is adapted from an essay that appears in The Times of Israel.
