Purim

Purim

Countdown to Purim
February 28, 2010

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What is Purim?

Purim is the celebration of the people of Yisra'el over Haman the terrible, who tried the first Holocaust. How did it start? Well, there was this queen, Vashti, who rightfully refused the King's beckoning for her to be put on display before a crowd of leering men. So she was summarily divorced (boo!), and King Artaxerxes (or Ahasuerus, as butchered in Hebrew) decided to hold a Miss Babylon contest — Apparently, he never read my article on A covenant with my eyes! The winner was Jewish (only in the Scriptures!), a girl named Hadassah. She was given the pseudonym Ester (Ishtar, in Babylonian, the pagan goddess from whence we get the name Easter), so as to pass of as Goyim (Hm! Sounds like family history for a lot of Jews!). And her uncle Mordecai finds himself elevated into a position of authority:

Ester 2:21-23
²¹In those days, while Mordechai was sitting at the king's gate, Bigthan and Teresh, two of the king's chamberlains of guardians of the threshold, became enraged and sought to send [their] hand against king Ahasuerus. ²²The matter became know to Mordechai, who told it to Queen Ester, and Ester informed the king in Mordechai's name. ²³The matter was investigated and found [to be] true, and they were hanged on a gallows. It was recorded in the book of chronicles in the king's presence.

Now, another counselor to Artaxerxes was promoted at the same time:

Ester 3:1
¹After these things king Ahasuerus promoted Haman son of Hammedatha the Agagite and elevated him; he set his seat above all the officers who were with him.

Haman was a former barber, according to Talmud (Megillah 16A). Legend has it that Haman was a direct descendant of Amalek; indeed, he was the last Amalekite.

Ester 3:2-5
²All the king's servants at the king's gate would bow down and prostrate themselves before Haman, for so had the king commanded concerning him. But Mordechai would not bow and would not prostrate himself. ³So the king's servants who were at the king's gate said to Mordechai, “Why do you disobey the king's command?” ⁴Now it happened when they said this to him day after day and he did not heed them, they told Haman, to see whether Mordechai's words would prevail; for he had told them that he was a Jew. ⁵When Haman, himself, saw that Mordechai did not bow down and prostrate himself before him, Haman was filled with wrath.

Thus, is Haman not as bad as Hitler. Hitler hated the Jews long before he came to power — indeed, when he was an art student in Vienna. Anyone who disagrees has never read Mein Kampf.

Ester 3:6
⁶However, it seemed contemptible to him to send [his] hand against Mordechai alone, for they had told him of the people of Mordechai. So Haman sought to destroy all the Jews who were throughout the entire kingdom of Ahasuerus — the people of Mordechai.

Ester 3:8-9
⁸Then Haman said to King Ahasuerus, “Thee is a certain people scattered abroad and dispersed among the peoples in all the provinces of you realm. Their laws are different from every other people's and they do not observe the king's laws; therefore it is not befitting the king to tolerate them. ⁹If it pleases the king, let it be recorded that they be destroyed; and I will pay ten thousand silver talents into the hands of those who perform the duties, for deposit in the king's treasuries.”

We have here an interesting parallel. Hitler of course was second in power of Germany, and told the Chancellor almost the same thing, without of course the bribe. "Their laws are diverse from all people; neither keep they the king's laws." Modern translation — The Protocols of Zion. How come we keep having to refute the same lies over and over again?

Ester 3:13
¹³Letters were sent by courier to all the provinces of the king, to destroy, to slay and to exterminate all the Jews, from young to old, children and women, in one day, on the thirteenth of the twelfth month, which is the month of Adar, and to plunder their possessions.

I'm sure that had Adolf Eichmann been there, he would have busied himself with trains and schedules as well. Isn't it amazing that ha'Satan chose the day before Pesach for their extermination?

Ester 4:9-11
⁹Hathach came and told Ester the words of Mordechai. ¹⁰Then Ester told Hathach, and ordered him [to return] to Mordechai, [saying]: ¹¹“All the king's servants and the people of the king's provinces know that any man or woman who approaches the kin in the inner court, who is not summoned, his law is one [past] thirty days.”

Now, Mordechai's response is a classic: Let every believer take them to heart!

Ester 4:13-14
¹³Then Mordechai said to reply to Ester,: “Do not imagine in you soul that you will be able to escape in the king's palace any more than the rest of the Jews. ¹⁴For if you persist in keeping silent at a time like this, relief and deliverance will com to the Jews from another place, while you and your father's house will perish. And who knows whether it was just for such a time as this that you attained the royal position.”

How about that? simplified: You're in the same boat — we die, you die. If you say nothing, Eloheim will help us some other way, but what if you were Eloheim's plan to rescue us in the first place? Mordecai is reminding Hadassah of the story of Yosef in B’reshit. Again, we see a Jew placed in authority, against a time in the future. All of us are potential Yosef's and Hadassahs!

So Hadassah cooks the King and Haman a dinner. And invites them to another the next day.

Ester 5:12-13
¹²Haman said, “Moreover¹³Yet all this is worth nothing to me so long as I see Mordechai the Jew sitting at the king's gate.”

Already, Haman is thinking like Eichmann, Goebbels, and Hitler. There must be some demonic spirit that literally begins shaping your thinking and speech once you allow anti-Semitism a foothold in your soul. Now Haman gets himself into trouble with Eloheim, who was already moving towards Haman's undoing, but still allowing him time to repent:

Ester 5:14
¹⁴So his wife, Zeresh, as well as all his friends, said to him, “Let them make a gallows, fifty cubits high; and in the morning speak to the king and have them hang Mordechai on it. Then accompany the king to the banquet in good spirits.” This suggestion pleased Haman, and he had the gallows made.

What Torah has Haman violated?

Vayikra 19:17-18
¹⁷You shall not hate your brother in your heart; you shall reprove your fellow and do not bear a sin because of him. ¹⁸You shall not take revenge and you shall not bear a grudge against the members of your people; you shall love your fellow as yourself — I am HASHEM.
Vayikra 19:11
¹¹You shall not steal, you shall not deny falsely, and you shall not lie to one another.

Vayikra 25:17
    ¹⁷Each of you shall not aggrieve his fellow, and you shall fear your God; for I am HASHEM, your God.

Commandment 563
Vayikra 19:15
¹⁵You shall not commit a perversion of justice; you shall not favor the poor and you shall not honor the great; with righteousness shall you judge your fellow. (This one also applied to Artaxerxes)

Commandment 16
¹⁶You shall not be a gossipmonger among your people, you shall not stand aside while your fellow's blood is shed — I am HASHEM.

Sh’mot 23:1-2
     ¹Do not accept a false report; do not extend your hand with the wicked to be a venal witness. ²Do not be a follower of the majority for evil; and do not respond to a grievance by yielding to the majority to pervert [the law].

Sh’mot 20:13
    ¹³You shall not murder; you shall not commit adultery; you shall not steal; you shall not bear false witness against your fellow.

Sh’mot 20:13
    ¹³You shall not murder; you shall not commit adultery; you shall not steal; you shall not bear false witness against your fellow.

D’varim 24:16
    ¹⁶Fathers shall not be put to death for their children, nor shall children be put to death for their fathers; a person shall be put to death for his own sin.

Commandment 536
D’varim 19:15-21
¹⁵A single witness shall not stand up against any man for any iniquity or for any error, regarding any sin that he may commit; according to two witnesses or according to three witnesses shall a matter be confirmed. ¹⁶If a false witness stands against a man to speak up spuriously against him, ¹⁷then the two men [and those] who have the grievance shall stand before HASHEM, before the Kohen'im and the judges who will be in those days. ¹⁸The judges shall inquire thoroughly, and behold! the testimony was false testimony; the testified falsely against his fellow.

Commandment 180 ¹⁹You shall do to him as he conspired to do to his fellow, and you shall destroy the evil from your midst. ²⁰And those who remain shall hearken and fear; and they shall not continue again to do such an evil thing in your midst. ²¹Your eye shall not pity; life for life, eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot.

Sh’mot 23:7
⁷Distance yourself from a false word; do not execute the innocent or the righteous, for I shall not exonerate the wicked.

B’midbar 35:30
³⁰Whoever smites a person, according to the testimony of witnesses shall on kill the killer, but a single witness shall not testify against a person regarding death.

I'd say Haman is in a lot of trouble...

Ester 6:1-10
     ¹That night the king's sleep was disturbed so he commanded to bring the book of records, the chronicles and that they be read before the king. ²And it was found written [there] that Mordechai had denounced Bigthana and Teresh, two of the king's chamberlains of the guardians of the threshold, who had sought to send [their] hand against King Ahasuerus. ³The king said, “What honor of majesty has been done for Mordechai for this?”
     The king's attendants, his ministrants, said, “Nothing has been done for him.”
⁴The king said, “Who is in the courtyard?” (Now Haman was [just] coming into the outer courtyard of the royal palace to speak to the king about hanging Mordechai on the gallows that he had prepared for him.)

     ⁵So the king's attendants said to him, “Behold! Haman stands in the courtyard.”
     And the king said, “Let him enter.” ⁶Haman entered and the king said to him, “What should be done fro the man whom the king desires to honor?”
     Now Haman said in his heart, “Whom would the king especially want to honor more than me?” ⁷So Haman said to the king, “For the man whom the king desires to honor, ⁸have them bring royal attire that the king has worn and a horse upon which the king has ridden, one with a royal crown placed on his head. ⁹The let the attire and the horse be given over into the hand of one of the king's most noble officials, and let them dress the man whom the king desires to honor, and have him ride on the horse through the city square, and let them proclaim before him, ‘This is what shall be done for the man whom the king desires to honor.’ ”

    ¹⁰Then the king said to Haman “Hurry, take the attire and the horse as you have said, and do all this for Mordechai the Jew, who sits at the king's gate. Do not omit a single detail of all that you have suggested”

This Biblically could be the first time that the loud expression of chagrin was ever heard: "D'oh!!"

Ester 6:11-13
    ¹¹So Haman took the garment and the horse and dressed Mordechai, and had him ride through the city square, and proclaimed before him “This is what shall be done for the man whom the king desires to honor.”
    ¹²Mordechai returned to the king's gate; but Haman hurried home, despondent and with his head covered. ¹³Haman told his wife, Zeresh, and all his friends everything that had happened to him, and his wise men and his wife, Zeresh, said to him, “If Mordechai, before whom you have begun to fall, is of Jewish descent (zera — literally "of the seed"), you will not prevail against him, but will undoubtedly fall before him.”

Ester 7:2-8
²The king asked Ester again on the second day at the wine feast, “What is your request Queen Ester? — it shall be granted you. And what is your petition? [Even if it be] until half the kingdom, it shall be fulfilled.”

³So Queen Ester responded and said, “If I have found favor in your eyes, O king, and if it pleases the king, let my life be granted to me as my request and my people as my petition. ⁴For we have been sold, I and my people, to be destroyed, to be slain and to be exterminated. ”

⁵Thereupon, King Ahasuerus exclaimed and said to Queen Ester, “Who is this? Where is the one who dared to do so?”

⁶And Ester said, “A man who is adversary and an enemy! This wicked Haman!” Haman trembled in terror before the king and queen.

     ⁷The king arose in his wrath from the wine feast and went into the palace garden while Hamen remained to beg Queen Ester for his soul, for he saw that evil had been determined against him by the king. ⁸When the king returned from the palace garden to the hall of the wine feast, Haman had fallen onto the couch upon which Ester was; so the king exclaimed, “Would he actually assault the queen while I am in the house?” As soon as the king uttered this, they covered Haman's face.

The word Assault in this passage is 3533. kabash, kaw-bash'; a prim. root; to tread down; hence neg. to disregard; pos. to conquer, subjugate, violate:--bring into bondage, force, keep under, subdue, bring into subjection. This seems to be a good way to describe Rape, which by the way, is another violation of Torah — Haman's really in for it.

Ester 7:9-10
⁹The Harbonah, one of the chamberlains [in attendance] before the king said, “Furthermore, the gallows which Haman made for Mordechai ” And the king said, “Hang him on it!” ¹⁰So they hanged Haman on the gallows that he had prepared for Mordechai, and the king's anger abated.

Remember the commandment above?

D’varim 19:16-19
¹⁶If a false witness stands against a man to speak up spuriously against him, ¹⁷then the two men [and those] who have the grievance shall stand before HASHEM, before the Kohen and the judges who will be in those days. ¹⁸The judges shall inquire thoroughly, and behold! the testimony was false testimony; the testified falsely against his fellow. ¹⁹You shall do to him as he conspired to do to his fellow, and you shall destroy the evil from your midst.

Thus is God's word fulfilled! We see again the Scriptural power of B’reshit come to pass — “He who curses you I will curse.” The impaling that Haman wanted to do to the Jews was done to him. His sons were hung on the gallows that he had constructed. The people of Yisra'el rejoiced. The property that Haman wanted to confiscate from the Jew, in turn his property was confiscated. His stretch limo confiscated as well (okay, the text doesn't say that exactly...). Interesting parallel — Adolf Eichmann was also hung...

So, how to Scripturally celebrate this Holy Day? Well, it's already Scriptural, so I don't really understand the question. How to put Yeshua in the Holy Day? Sorry. Should we wear masks and get drunk? No, I don't think that's a proper way to do it. But perhaps, if you'll read the megilah, and drown out Haman's name every time it's read, you'll find it's a lot of fun. Especially if the reader is good at imitating celebrity voices. Grab a grogger!

I understand there are some who wish the Messianic Community to evolve (I hate that word) their own traditions for celebrating Holy Days. If that's the case, throw out your Hanukkah menorah! But be it as it may, yes, establish your own observance with the festival — but do not criticize those who do not rush to abandon traditions you do not accept (this really seems to be the only Holy Day I have to say this about). Have fun!

And, in the spirit of Purim...

Two students were once comparing the virtues of their respective teachers. "My Rabbi is so great," said one, "that he decrees and Hashem obeys."

"So what," retorted the second. "My teacher is so great that Hashem decrees and he obeys."

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