From weddings and Bar/Bat Mitzvahs to business functions and lectures, our facility is a great setting and location for your special occasion. BAS Rabbi's Message for February 2010
Purim Portents
posted January 22, 2010
Is the reason so many of Judaism’s primary source texts are creations by authors who sought anonymity—humility or lack of a desire on their part for fame or gain?
The Book of Job, the Book of Esther, the ordering of the prayer book and much of its compilation, and the Haggadah, for example, are not ascribed to individuals or even groups of individuals. Perhaps the message is so much more important than the messenger. Who among us would have had the will power, self-discipline, and devotion of self to forego the credit for these magnificent works?
What is the message, though, when God’s name is left out of the Book of Esther? The usual response is that the background of the book—beauty contests, drunkenness, and assimilation—is not conducive to God’s presence being manifest.
In his book of Jewish festivals, Irving Greenberg would rather see the point of God’s name not being included in Esther as emphasizing the critical role human beings play in their own redemption.
The holiday of Purim exists because of Esther’s daring, which saved the people of Israel. The same may be said of the Maccabees at Hanukkah time. Judah’s and his brothers’ resoluteness in the face of seemingly insurmountable obstacles enable Judaism to continue to be a living faith, giving rise to Christianity and later Islam.
As Passover, we think of the Hebrew midwives, Shiphrah and Puah and their defiance, of Pharaoh’s daughter’s love and concern, and Miriam’s solicitousness for her brother—human actors enabling light to shine through the darkness, working as co-partners with God.
Since one righteous deed leads to another, each of us can initiate the process of redemption. In accord with this view is the concept of personal messiah.
Rather than a messianic age of a heavenly personage, it will be a human being who will redeem the human race in concert with God. Thus each of our individual strides forward for the sake of heaven will play a crucial role in the redemption process.
In the time of the Messiah, the Talmud states: All the festivals will cease, but the days of Purim will not cease. Purim, with its emphasis on humor, engenders in every Jew an imperturbable optimism toward transcending the implacable foe both within and without, making possible the discovery of the holy sparks which reside in each person so that God’s sovereignty will be manifest.
The Purim Megillah lays the challenge before us: God’s presence is not necessarily obvious, but we can make it so by our actions.
Happy Purim!
Join our Purim Celebration and Megillah Reading on
Sunday, February 28th at 9:30 am.
Mark L. Shrager
Rabbi
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