Spiritual Perspectives
The Festival of Purim

By Avrum Organick
Special to The Independent

On March 26th I and Jews throughout the world will celebrate the festival of Purim, a remembrance of (perhaps) an actual event within historic times in the capital of Persia about 600 BCE (before the common era). The account is described in Megillath Esther (the Scroll, or the Book of Esther) which is read in its entirety in the synagogue on the 14th day of the Jewish lunar month of Adar (and at a time similar to those of Passover and Succoth) when the moon is full.

The story of Esther has many aspects. The first is that of an oriental romance, the tale of a powerful but capricious monarch who deposes his queen, but then, following an elaborate contest, chooses as his next queen, Esther, a beautiful, wise and brave Jewish girl. Esther uses her influence to save her people who have been threatened with annihilation. The villain of the story is Haman who had chosen by the casting of lots (the meaning of the word Purim) the date, the 14th of Adar, to kill all of the Jews of the kingdom on that one day.

Remembering this deliverance, the Jews celebrate with feasting, with wine, with the giving of gifts, and with pageants and plays. Little Jewish girls, in every land and in every generation, have dressed up in costume in hopes of being chosen to play the part of Queen Esther in plays to commemorate the event.

I remember the exchange of little presents among students in our class: boxed sets of checkers, dominoes, or colored pencils. I remember the fun of using the mechanical noise-maker in the synagogue to drown out the name of Haman every time it was mentioned during the reading of the Megillah. I remember the joy of feasting on triangular prune-filled cakes called Hamantaschen (Haman's ears), and I still take pleasure in recreating those times with the rolling out of the dough and with the filling, the shaping, and the baking of them.

But in spite of the feasting, the celebration, and the joy of the holiday, there is the dark side: that Purim is a reminder of the evil hatred of those in every land and in every generation, of the Nazis within recent living memory, and of the rising again of anti-Jewish hatred in Europe and of the continual onslaught against Israel today.

Avrum Organick is a physician on the Navajo Reservation. He can be contacted at AVRUMORG@aol.com.

This column is the result of a desire by community members, representing different faith communities, wishing to share their ideas about bringing a spiritual perspective into our daily lives and community issues.

For information about contributing a guest column, contact Elizabeth Hardin-Burrola at the Independent: (505) 863-8611, ext. 218 or lizreligion01@yahoo.com.