THE TRUTH ABOUT PURIM

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I am going to begin by telling you a story. And, although the story of Purim comes from the ancient Hebrew Bible's Book of Esther, it reads like a modern reality show. The story takes place within the Persian Empire about 500 years before the Common Era, during the rule of Xerxes the Great.

Like many reality shows, this story begins with an epic party. And when I say epic, I mean epic on a biblical scale. We are talking 180 days of bacchanalia, drinking the finest wine, and eating the best foods, entertained by the greatest musicians, with dancing and singing all night long. On the final day of the celebration the King decided to do a little bragging. He ordered his wife, Queen Vashti, to appear before all of those assembled so he could show off her incredible beauty. But for whatever reason - an early feminist impulse, a wicked hangover, the history books and Old Testament scribes do not tell us why - she refuses.

This is a very big deal. The King is not used to hearing anything but yes and has also been on a six-month bender, so he is not pleased with her response and is quickly convinced to remove Vashti as Queen. He then orders all the eligible women of his kingdom to be rounded up, in a sort-of early beauty pageant, to compete to be the new Queen.

Esther quickly stands out from all the rest. A poor orphan, raised by her uncle Mordecai, she is humble and beautiful, and the King chooses her to be his new Queen. But, just like any good reality TV show contestant, Esther has a secret. Not only is she an orphan, but she is also a Jew, an untenable position within the Persian Empire. But no one knows her secret except her uncle.

After the 180-day festivity winds down the great empire begins to return to normalcy. Esther moves into the palace and out of her Uncle Mordacai's house, who returns to his job as the gatekeeper for the King's palace. And along with removing Vashti as Queen, the King also appoints a new Prime Minister, a man named Haman.

As one of the gatekeepers, Mordecai regularly runs into this new Prime Minister Haman, and a series of events occur that leaves the two of them in conflict. When Haman learns that Mordecai is Jewish, he convinces the King to put a bounty on all Jews in the Persian Empire, and then casts lots - called pur or Purim - to pick the day they will all be slaughtered.

When word gets out and Mordecai learns of Haman's state-sanctioned plan to exterminate his people, he reasons that their only hope of changing the King's mind is his niece Esther, the secretly Jewish Queen. Forced to communicate in stealth mode through messenger eunuch, Mordecai tells her that she is her people's only hope. But to no big surprise, Esther is initially hesitant to get involved. She replies that beyond not wishing to reveal her secret identity to the King, even if she did, no one, including the Queen, was allowed to approach the King without being called upon, at the risk of the penalty of death.

Undaunted, Mordecai responds, "Do not think that in the king's palace you will escape any more than all the other Jews. For if you keep silence at such a time as this, relief and deliverance will rise for the Jews from another quarter, but you and your father's family will perish. Who knows? Perhaps you have come to royal dignity for just such a time as this." His words had the desired effect and Esther accepted the challenge.

A few nights later, at a grand banquet with all the players in attendance, after cunningly building the King's concern for her, Esther reveals her true identity as a Jew, and makes it clear that Haman's plot will result in her entire race being murdered, including herself and her uncle Mordecai. So impressed with her bold act of revealing her true self, the King reverses his previous decision to allow the murder of the Jewish people, and instead empowers them to protect themselves. The story concludes with the Jewish people triumphantly vanquishing their foes.

That is what is celebrated during Purim: the deliverance from annihilation and the great victory won over those who would have destroyed the Jewish people. The books of the Hebrew Bible vacillate heavily between a god whose main message seems to be about loving the stranger, and an insecure god that demands his enemies' blood, and this story falls clearly into the latter category. So for that reason it was one that never really spoke to me.

But recently I learned an interesting fact about the book of Esther that really piqued my interest and inspired me to take another look at the text with a fresh set of eyes. What I learned is that of the over thirty books that make up the Hebrew Bible, Esther is the only one that does not ever, even one time, mention God. Through this entire twisted tale of beauty, betrayal, jealousy, disrespect and deceit the name of God is never appealed to or even mentioned. In an entire book that was found to be important enough to be included not only in the Hebrew Bible but the Christian Old Testament as well, the main character that this collection of stories is supposed to help us get to know better is completely absent.

This is not a mistake. And it has really changed the way I have approached this story. Once I realized that this wasn't a story about how God affects the world, instead of focusing on the horrible violent reprisal at the end, I am able to hear a very powerful message from this text. Once I let go of the ending, I was able to refocus on the rest of the story. I realized it's not about God at all, it's about us and how we choose to show up in the pivotal moments of our lives.

Queen Vashti initially gets the action moving by refusing to submit to the King's desire to be shown off for her beauty alone. She must have known there would be serious consequences, but she does it anyway. And as is often the case in biblical stories, the lesson is presented twice to ensure we don't miss it. In this case Queen Vashti's replacement as Queen, Esther, risks her own life when she disturbs the King without being called upon and reveals to him her true self, again knowing the potential consequence could be her own life.

Two women, two choices to be their authentic selves in the face of dangerous consequences.

This is a story about the power of revealing our true selves, about stepping into our authentic life, even though it would be easier to not rock the boat and play it safe. I think perhaps the most important line in the entire story is delivered by Uncle Mordecai to Esther through those messenger eunuchs: "Who knows?" He says, "Perhaps you have come to royal dignity for just such a time as this." Just such a time as this.

Of course Esther is hardly the only character in the Bible, or most of the stories we love, who at first fails to recognize the moment they have been waiting their whole lives for, the one that all the previous moments had prepared them for. I can certainly relate to this. Often times we need a second person to reflect that back to us, and if we don't get that, we just keep waiting around for it.

I spent the first few decades of my life waiting to be called upon. I felt deeply in my soul that I had been put on this earth for some purpose. And so I waited. I am not even sure what exactly I was waiting for: a sign, a voice, a calling, something that would confirm with one hundred percent certainty that this was the moment I had been waiting for. In truth, I think I was, and am, hardly alone. I think lots of people are out there waiting for the signal, waiting for the sign that will wake them from their feelings of hopelessness and spring them into action, that convinces them to step into their authentic and bold selves.

But at some point my waiting turned into an excuse not to get involved. My sense of needing to be invited into the work of the world was starting to look a lot more like a justification for sitting on the sidelines, for choosing the easy comfort of inertia. Because just like Esther, the older we get, the more safe we feel with the status quo, and amazingly even if that status quo is uncomfortable, we become conformed to it. Even if we dislike it, our feelings of complacency overcome our internal sense of justice. And lets face it, inertia is a powerful thing. Esther never set out to be a Queen, but I bet that after just a few days of being attended to, of having the finest food, of living in the luxury of the palace, she started to get pretty conformed to that way of life, pretty comfortable as the Queen in the palace.

Likewise, most of us never set out to be in the exact situations we find ourselves in. But like them or not, time and inertia work their magic and the devil we know becomes a lot safer in our minds then the possibilities of change.

So when Mordecai, her beloved Uncle, sent word that all of her people would be massacred, rather than think of them, Esther's first thoughts were of herself. She was not so ready as perhaps she would have expected herself to be to answer that calling when it came. It would be easy to assail her for this, easy for us to say: are you kidding me? You can't risk your comfort when it is the lives of your entire race that are at stake? Easy for us to judge Esther from our vantage point. But I have no doubt that any of us would have that same initial moment of hesitation.

I really believe that the universe responds to our boldness. That when we are willing to leave our comfort zones, to break with inertia, to say yes to life, that the unexpectedness of someone breaking out of their easy patterns is a powerful moment of creation.

But just like with Esther, often times we need an Uncle Mordecai. We need that other person to confirm that they see it in us too. I think most of the time when we teach from this story we focus on Esther and her boldness and exhort others to be like Esther, to step out of the closet and reveal your true self to the world. Of course I do strongly believe all of that but that is not the thought I want to leave you with. Rather, what I want you all to think about is that sometimes it is just as important to be Uncle Mordecai, affirming and pushing and cajoling another who is on the brink of stepping into their most authentic self. Be on the look out for those in your midst who don't see their own incredible magic, their unique position, and be willing to help reflect what you see in them, so that they might see it to.

May it be so. Ashe.