by Rabbi Roberto Della Rocca
Article published in "Hebraica" Miscellanea di studi in onore di Sergio Sierra per il suo 75° compleanno – Turin 5759-1998
".....these days of Purim shall never cease among the Jews, and their memorial shall not perish from their seed..." (Book of Esther, 9;28).
In his great work of Jewish jurisprudence, the Mishneh Torah, Maimonides (1135-1204) argues that in the messianic era all the books of the Bible will fall into disuse except for the Scroll of Esther, as this will endure like the five books of the Torah, the existence of which is eternal.....and, he continues, "...even if the memory of all our sufferings were to disappear, that of Purim will never be erased".
But why should the Book of Esther in particular, and with it the memory of Purim, survive all the others? The Megillah (a term derived from the root gimel gimel lamed, which means to roll, to wrap, and which indicates reading from a parchment scroll like the Sefer Torah) is a book that tells of a completely assimilated community, uprooted from its land of origin, far away, materially and spiritually, from the Land of Israel, which is not mentioned anywhere in the entire narrative, neither as a memory nor, even less, as a destination of aspiration. We are right in the midst of the golah, of the exile, then, to the point that the Jews are even afraid to reveal their identity.
Another surprising sign is that, contrary to what is done during the festival of Chanukkah, on Purim the Hallel (lit. praise; it is the name given to Psalms 113-118) is not read, as it is reserved only for miracles that occurred in the Land of Israel.
Nevertheless, Esther achieves what was not granted to the valiant Maccabean brothers: not only is her book included in the biblical canon, but this also gave its name to a Talmudic tractate, called precisely "Megillah".
What is most surprising, however, in the book of Esther, is that throughout the text the Name of G-d is never mentioned, nor any of His attributes. This peculiarity of the Megillah, namely being the only book of the Bible not only devoid of the word and action of G-d, but also of any reference to Him, caused much discussion among the Masters before the decision was reached to include this text too in the biblical canon.
The very story of Esther seems to be a concatenation of entirely accidental events: for example, the great banquet of King Ahasuerus, the decision to call Queen Vashti, her refusal to appear, the choice of Esther, the attempted coup d'état discovered by chance by Mordechai, the king's insomnia, the arrival of Haman and Ahasuerus precisely on that night. The destiny of the Jewish people seems completely abandoned to chance and fatuity.
The term Purim, from the Persian pur, designates the lots that are cast to set a date or to regulate the destiny of others according to the decree of pure chance. The existence of the Jews seems linked to a game of dice and the people themselves appear powerless in a world moved by fate, abandoned to a blind destiny, in a world from which G-d seems absent or, at the very least, so well hidden that everything happens as if He did not exist.
The Masters of the Talmud, resorting to the most original interpretative devices, ask: "..where is Esther spoken of in the Torah?.." (Babylonian Talmud; Chagigah 5,b). The Masters pretend not to know that at least seven or eight centuries pass between the Torah and Esther.
To understand the meaning of their question, the text must be interpreted as follows: at what point in the Torah is there an allusion to the story of Esther? In the Torah, which encompasses the past, present and future history of the Jewish people, there must surely be some reference to the kind of miracle that characterises Purim and much of Jewish history.
The Masters therefore read in the verse of Deuteronomy, 31;18: "..and I will surely hide My face in that day..", a precise reference to Esther and Purim.
The Talmud, therefore, perceives a close relationship between the theme of the hidden God, who eclipses Himself, and the etymology of the name Esther, which means precisely hidden.
The salvation of the people of Esther and Mordechai takes place in a hidden and discreet way, unlike what happens with other miracles, in which God manifests Himself and acts in an overt form, as, for example, in the liberation of the Jews from Egypt.
This is why some commentator has attempted to find an allusion to the Name of God in the verse in which Mordechai, exasperated by Esther's hesitation to present herself to the king and intercede for the salvation of the people, declares: "..if you at this time remain silent, relief and deliverance will arise for the Jews from another place.." (Esther, 4; 14).
The term Makom, Place, would designate the divine residence itself, in accordance with what rabbinic literature maintains: "He is the Place of His world, but His world is not His Place", in the sense that God is omnipresent even when He is hidden.
The Hebrew word indicating the world is olam and derives from the root alum, hidden, perhaps to signify that the existence of God in this world is hidden and the purpose of the olam, that is, of the hidden world, is the search for that truth, emet, which according to the Midrash at the moment of creation God cast to the ground, so that man might make it sprout with his own instruments.
Man's task, therefore, is to grasp God's intervention not so much in the ten plagues or in the parting of the sea, but rather in everyday events, since an excessive emphasis on God's miraculous activity can make us forget that His presence is everywhere.
Although four other biblical books bear the name of Megillah, that of Esther is considered the Scroll par excellence.
During its unrolling, what is wrapped and hidden is gradually revealed to us. God reveals Himself as a guide so silent and invisible that His actual participation in human events can even be called into question.
The skill, the strength of Israel consists in knowing how to unroll the scroll, unwind the skein: we might say in knowing how to "meghillare ester", that is to unveil the hidden, to lift the veil of concealment, to know how to read behind the mask of appearance and restore an authentic meaning to the face of the mask, which has only the semblance of being human.
It is said in the Talmud that in the meal of the day of Purim it is customary to drink wine to the point of no longer knowing how to distinguish the right from the left, of no longer knowing how to recognise the difference between "cursed Haman and blessed Mordechai".
(It is noteworthy among other things that the two expressions, arur Haman and baruch Mordechai, have the same numerical value according to Gematria, an interpretive rule based on the numerical value of the letters).
In a universe, therefore, dominated by confusion, where the just is not discerned from the unjust, where fatality seems to rule the two extremes of the chain of history and the world risks transforming itself into a gigantic masquerade, and into a general drunkenness, the Masters invite us to maintain that discernment which makes it possible to decipher the meaning of the universal makeup.
In Hebrew the difference between golah, exile, and geulah, redemption, is given by a single letter the Alef, the first letter of the Hebrew alphabet, the letter with which among other things several names of G-d begin, the word Adam, man, the Ten Commandments, the letter with which the Torah was supposed to begin, but which had to give way to the Bet, the second letter of the alphabet, perhaps to teach the world, symbolised by the duality of the Bet, to strive towards the search for the One.
If the geulah is the ideal condition to which the Jewish people must aspire, and it will be achieved with the celebration of that Seder, that order of all humanity, the golah of the book of Esther, is the real condition of the world, where everything is confused, distorted, disordered.
However, the golah and the geulah are not as distant from each other as it might seem; in fact in embolismic years, when a thirteenth month is added, Adar Sheni, Purim is celebrated in the second Adar, to bring this recurrence as close as possible to the festival of Pesach. Purim, in fact, is the preparation for Pesach, a preparation for the complete geulah.
Purim, the lots of the Jewish people, are linked to the search for and reconquest of the Alef, of uniqueness, of individual and collective identity, of that particle of the One that is in each of us and by virtue of which We resemble Him.
It is precisely the absence of the Alef that allows the Hamans of every era to play dice with the fates of the Jewish people. Disunion and schisms within the Jewish people unleash the forces of Amalek, ancestor of Haman, prototype of the irrational and gratuitous anti-Judaism of all generations destined to threaten the existence of Israel in all times of history.
Salvation in the story of Purim, conversely, arrives only when Esther reveals what she had kept concealed: her identity, her Aleph, thus fulfilling the imperative of the Torah "…Remember what Amalek did to you…!" (Deuteronomy, 25;17).
The fast instituted by Esther to invoke divine help against Haman's decree thus becomes a premise for a radical overturning of the situation.
Teshuvah, repentance, return, through fasting represents the opportunity to look inside oneself, to take the reins of one's destiny back into one's hands and to free oneself from an exile that does not have an exclusively geographical meaning.
The necessary condition to move beyond golah and reach geullah is, therefore, the experience of Teshuvah, just as it is said in the Talmud "…great is Teshuvah because it brings near the geullah…" (Yoma 86, b).
Perhaps this is the meaning of what is maintained by rabbinic literature: the word Purim, lots, is contained within the word Kippurim, atonements. The lots are inside the atonements, in the literal sense of the statement, but one can also read: the lots are in Teshuvah.
Only with Teshuvah does the Jew therefore take his lots back into his own hands, responsibly and consciously, no longer allowing chance to decide for him.
Purim-Kippurim, (in this case the initial Kaf might have the function of "like") Purim like the day of the great fast!
Human life oscillates between these two dimensions, so different, yet at the same time so bound to each other. Masking oneself and unmasking oneself completely!
Fasting, after all, is the necessary consequence of a great banquet, and introspection is the inevitable reaction to a noisy revelry; sometimes it is precisely a hangover and the transgression of limits that stimulates a sincere examination of conscience.
In the Jewish conception, the body is not severed from the soul: our physical existence in the world, endangered at Purim and, therefore, exalted through a banquet, is inseparable from our spiritual existence celebrated on Yom Ha-Kippurim.
There is no Kippurim without a Purim that determines and motivates it, and there is no Purim without a Kippurim that contains it and gives it meaning.
The first time the word Esther appears in the Torah is in Genesis, 4; 14:
" ..I shall be banished from your presence..". It is Cain speaking: he fears being abandoned by God and no longer being considered a man. Cain, by killing his brother, tends to restore the primordial chaos of the universe. Yet his punishment is not the death penalty, but exile: the first murderer enjoys a strange immunity, no one has the right to imitate him, thanks to a mark that God carves upon him. The first sign that the Lord places in the world. According to a midrash, Adam, upon meeting Cain, is astonished to find him alive, so much so that he asks him: "Did you not perhaps kill your brother Abel?" Cain replies to him: "I have done Teshuvah, father, and I have been forgiven!" Hiding his face in his hands, Adam then exclaims: "So great is the power of Teshuvah?... I did not know it!".
Cain, the man of brutal crime, represents living proof that forgiveness is possible and that the strength of Teshuvah can make the light veiled by the darkening of God's face shine forth: the Hester Panim.
"..If one reads the Megillah of Esther backwards, one has not fulfilled one's obligation.." (Mishnah, Megillah, 2; 1)
What is the meaning of this rule? Whoever reads the Megillah of Esther thinking that the events narrated in it belong only to the past, "backwards", and the miracle is not relevant to the present, has not fulfilled their obligation.
Many events in Jewish history, even the most recent ones, seem to make us relive the story of the book of Esther, where God seems to be completely absent. For this reason, the Masters saw in the story of Purim the paradigmatic condition of the Jewish people, indicating that it is up to man to seek the divine presence in history, even when the darkness of exile has become thicker, or when the inhumanity of the mask risks transfiguring the human face.
Let us not forget, in fact, that in the Hebrew language, the etymon g-l-h means "to exile" and "to reveal" at the same time.