Today is the Jewish holiday of Purim: the joyful holiday that is sometimes compared to Hallowe’en or Mardi Gras because it involves dressing up and a significant amount of festive partying. There are many lesser known facts about the day and lots of rituals and foods and traditions to study. It is considered a joyful day when one is supposed to reconsider our assumptions of what is right and wrong.
The story of Purim can be found in the book of Esther: the only book in the Hebrew Bible that does not contain the name of G!d explicitly mentioned. Upon closer examination, the story is especially troubling, in that what we were taught about the day has very little to do with what actually happened. We are generally taught a cleaned up version of the story of how Jews were saved from genocide by Esther, who courageously hid her identity and married the King. We don’t really reflect in great detail on the reason why the Jews almost died by genocide: Mordecai refused to follow the laws of the land, and bow to Haman, representative of the King, thereby angering them both, and then he sought revenge and put Esther in danger. When one is not deeply rooted in our sense of who we are, we may be especially prone to the manipulations of the ego, as Mordecai seems to have been.
In the stories of Purim we learn, we are taught to glorify the story of a woman using her sexuality to appease a King who got rid of the last female that spoke up to him. The theme of women’s sexuality as a means of appeasing a king can also be seen amongst our earlier patriarchs, including Abraham and Isaac. Although most contemporary feminists draw a line at villainizing Vashti, we tend not to question the other characters. And we generally don’t talk about the intense civil war that followed, in order to punish Haman for how he treated Mordecai. The more we think about it the more it is a deeply troubling story, and I am grateful to my colleagues from Rabbis for Ceasefire for their excellent work to help us think more critically about this story. Personally, I can think of no better way for any Jew to observe this holiday than to watch the deeply important movie “Israelism“. If you do nothing else, please consider spending 5$ to rent it and watch it. The story of Purim is about unmasking what we think is right and wrong, and this documentary does this better than most.
Decolonizing our understanding of Purim
It is perhaps not surprising that our current understanding of Purim is inaccurate: most people do not speak Hebrew and believe that the year is 2024 (Jewish time believes it is 5784). Both of these are examples of how colonization has caused us to forget who we are and what we believe. Most Jews do not understand Judaism for all sorts of complicated reasons, and what they believe is what they were told in religious school when they were children, and they were taught, for the most part by slightly older kids who did not know much more than them. This is part of a much larger dynamic that can best be understood by watching the movie Israelism mentioned above, to show some of the complicated ways that colonization has impacted Jews over the last century. Colonization has hurt everyone in unique intersectional ways through intergenerational trauma and a set of beliefs and values that ensure complicity with the power structures that oppress us all, pitting us against one another, rather than turning on the ones that are exploiting us all.
When I say colonization, I am speaking about a dynamic that existed thousands of years ago, when the ten northern tribes of Israel were exiled and assimilated by the Assyrian conquest of Israel in 722 BCE. Every people has experienced colonization differently. We have been assimilated and exiled and killed and converted. Our African brothers and sisters were dispossessed from their land and uprooted, sold into slavery and brought to this continent as part of the slave trade that continues to be legal in the US constitution and central to much of our current global economy. Other countries, like India, have their own stories.
We can see the same patterns of colonization described in the biblical conquest of the Assyrians in 722, when our first Temple was destroyed, that are evident in the ways that England colonized most of the world, and the ways that Christianity was weaponized to ensure that the Doctrine of Discovery was enshrined in legal codes, and the idea of Terra Nullius which states that land that is not occupied by a Christian is therefore empty (null). This belief permitted the establishment of the countries of America and Canada, and it remains enshrined in our legal code To see how the Anglican Church of Canada owns this terrible chapter of Christian history and uses this recognition to inspire their sacred work of reconciliation and restorative justice, please check here.
For so many of us, who have been raised with stories about who we are and about the founding of our colonial countries, we might be confused when we hear words like “colonization” that don’t align with what we think we know or understand to be true. We might feel confused when we meet people whose idea of history is different than ours. This is understandable. Central to the colonial enterprise are conversionary practices to make us believe that we are right and others are wrong, and to teach us to doubt ourselves rather than those in power. The question is what we do with this confusion: do we do what we were taught and judge or reject the growing numbers of people who are sharing their stories and deconstructing the stories that we were taught when we were children? Do we get angry because we don’t understand and our ego tries to protect itself? Who is most harmed by the failure to examine one’s self? Are we capable of pausing and questioning what we were taught? Can our questions and doubts help us deepen our faith? If Judaism has always celebrated questions, can these questions be celebrated? If not, what does that say?
Unmasking
Central to the festival of Purim is the idea of masks: according to the rabbis, even G!d is hidden and masked. The goal of the holiday is to learn to see beyond the externals: this is what will ultimately save us all. Esther hides her true identity and then unmasks it when the time is right. Haman is eventually seen for who he truly is. “Nahafoch bah” are the words the rabbis use (literally: “it was turned on its head”) to explain the power of unmasking: revealing our true selves is redemptive.
Masking and unmasking means different things to different people. We often hide our true selves. Our world teaches us that we are not safe if we are authentic and vulnerable. Many of us learn early that the world does not like authenticity or vulnerability: the “sensitive” children are often bullied in schools, and everyone who watches it absorbs the vicarious trauma. We learn early that we should wear make up or dress up or look/act in certain ways to be cool and accepted and successful. Neurodivergent people often mask to try to fit into a neurotypical world. 2SLGBTQIA+ folks often mask (stay in the closet) to fit into a cisgender/straight world. Jews often mask to try to avoid being killed or impacted by pervasive antisemitism. Such hiding can cause us to feel burned out, but masking is also often perceived as a luxury: visibly different people (which some of us are) cannot mask.
The story of Esther tries to communicate a lesson: If you can hide your true self, you should, so that you can come out strategically, to help others. Indeed, coming out or revealing our masks can be powerfully redemptive. Representation matters and authenticity is transformative. But, a better version of this story would have Esther never needing to hide herself. Masks may have strategic value in times of survival, but they also come at a high price. Masking is the way we burnout, because authenticity is the way that oxygen fills our heart and spirit.
What is also rarely talked about is that the most difficult but redemptive part of coming out is being forced to face our fears of rejection: those of us who have come out out of the closet, we have faced fears most people have not. This changes us. If we come out, we know that we are painting a target on ourselves to be shunned and condemned by our religious communities, to potentially lose friends, family, job, home and more. Once we face this, we become almost untouchable. The experience of facing one’s worst fears is salvatory in ways that only those who have done so can understand. The grief is profound but the liberation is incredible. And the best part: it is so much less exhausting to be authentic. It is the ultimate Joy to our Oy: finally feeling free to be one’s self. For better or worse, this became Esther’s superpower and it can be ours too.
Perhaps this is why the rabbis state that Purim is our holiday of redemption- if we observe it properly: it calls on us to depart from expectations. Many people dress up as someone else or to pull pranks or do things that they would normally not do: the goal is to be liberated from one’s self and what one thinks is right. Our idea of what is right and wrong is the actual source of our suffering: we are commanded to revisit everything we assume. The only way to “nahafoch bah” and reverse our fortunes, is by doing everything differently than we have done thus far. And the first step is to stop masking ourselves: we must speak the things that we would rather hide. When we do this, we will generally realize that our worst fears are much worse than a lot of reality. Rather than living in fear, we begin to live with compassion: for ourselves and one another. And this fount of compassion is the source of our collective healing and the true source of our Joy.
Joys and oys
The rabbis famously said: “Yom Kippurim Yom K’Purim” meaning that Purim is like Yom Kippur/the Day of Atonement. Perhaps we should celebrate Purim as a day of reflection and repentance, and Yom Kippur as a time of joyful redemption. Upon closer examination, our reasons for joy in Purim are less obvious than one might think, and our reasons for discomfort (oy) are far more prevalent: this holiday that is supposed to be so fun and light-hearted, is actually filled with violence- both gender and civil war, as well as deeply problematic values. G!d’s Presence is not mentioned in the biblical text and our means of celebrating are unconventional (get very drunk) and problematic. But, true Joy is born from facing all of our discomfort unflinchingly and being willing to unmask and be authentic, no matter the consequences.
And so it is that, in the colonial year of 2024, corresponding to the Jewish year of 5784, many of us are awakening to many concepts and ideas that are new and uncomfortable. We might feel scared of facing some of these ideas, but if we persevere, we will be blessed with authenticity and the ability to look at ourselves in the mirror. Speaking out for what is right may be scary, but staying in a closet of shame, silence and complicity is worse. If safety is just an illusion (also a theme to the holiday), then every discomfort is really an opportunity for redemption. And in this, we can see the seeds of Passover liberation be planted: which is exactly what the rabbis predicted for this holiday.
Speaking out for Joy in a world of “oy” is pretty counter-cultural and many of us feel like we can’t be joyful in the midst of such trouble. We live in a world that glorifies suffering and believes it is a virtue. This is part of colonization’s influence on all of us: amplified through the ways that Jesus’ crucifixion has been sanctified and our misunderstanding of the concept of the sacrificial system.
Sacrificing Ourselves: the Cult of Oy
Rev. Tricia Hersey, in her book Rest is Resistance: A Manifesto, talks about “grind culture” and how being tired or busy is a badge of honor in a capitalist world that glorifies suffering. We sometimes even engage in “suffering olympics” where we think that the only way to get justice is to be seen as the one who suffers the most. All of this is part of the “cult of oy” best described in the Jewish joke: “How many Jewish mothers does it take to change a lightbulb? None: Don’t worry about me, I will just sit in the dark.” Like all Jewish mother jokes, it is used as a misogynist strategy, but it speaks to a culture of glorifying suffering and passive aggressive communication patterns that are typical of traumatized people who don’t feel like they are allowed to get their needs met. This leads to the poor communication strategies that enable the violence of our era.
The Hebrew word for “sacrifice” is “korban” which comes from the word “karov” which means “close”. The best way to think about “sacrifices” is to look at how we treat those closest to us. The early rabbis explain that in a world where people sacrificed their children/human sacrifices can be seen archeologically, the biblical story of Abraham was meant to wean us off human sacrifice by encouraging animal sacrifice instead. Harm reduction. But it still glorifies killing and we see the cult of violence continues.
Animals are treated barbarically in our world, often by humans who are trafficked or called “illegal”. To read more about how violence against animals (US slaughter houses) is related to human trafficking, click here. Humans sacrifice their children to military service and we scapegoat each other through government violence, intersectional hatred and religious extremism. Humans continue to misunderstand what G!d wants, which is the real reason I adopt the Jewish tradition of not spelling out the Divine Name (for more about this traditional Jewish practice, click here). If Judaism teaches that humanity does not even know how to pronounce G!d’s name (why we usually just say “HaShem” or “The Name”), then why do we think we know it is okay to kill any living being in G!d’s Name or in the name of what we think is right.
This is a great Christian reflection on how Jesus was trying to be the scapegoat to end all scapegoating, but humans have misunderstood and used his act to justify death in ways that we all now must come together to redeem by recognizing the dangers of colonization and the culture of violence in which we live. According to that reflection, Jesus was siding with the downtrodden and marginalized, and wanted to be the scapegoat so everyone would stop scapegoating minorities. Sadly, minorities continue to be marginalized and we engage in lateral violence to do “imitatio dei” which is the Latin for imitating god. The Crusading violence that enabled the Christian conquest of the Middle East and the rest of our colonized planet continues to haunt us all in the misunderstandings of our religious texts and the glorification of violence. So long as we continue to let violence exist, even in a harm reduction approach like Jesus tried to do, we will continue to be haunted by its specter.
The rabbis teach that true redemption must be thorough: even a crumb of bread during Passover can ruin our liberation. Similarly, even the smallest glorification of grind culture or suffering maintains the triangle of oppression: the victim, persecutor or rescuer. Each of those roles are stifling and maintain the status quo of the crucifixion complex that haunts us all through our intergenerational trauma and the ways in which we compete over who is most oppressed instead of competing over who is most compassionate. I am not Christian, but I believe that this is what Jesus likely would have liked. And I believe that this is what all of our religious traditions are trying to teach in our shared understanding that the point of all religion is to “love your neighbor as yourself”. This is also why the most religious policy anyone can advocate for would be to heal the triangle of oppression with an upside down triangle of liberation: truth, justice and healing. That is my Jewish star of David prayer for universal mental health care everywhere. This is the only path to peace that I can see.
I firmly believe that the best use of my tax dollars for public safety and peace is an investment in universal mental health care and a commitment to trauma-informed restorative justice healing practices. Today is Shushan Purim, which is the day to spread the message of Purim outside of our walls and today I will be celebrating it by organizing a special advocacy day event in collaboration with the Canadian Mental Health Association in order to demand/beg for universal mental health services. I have a long list of parents who have lost their children to suicide begging for change and I honor the memories of two of my own cousins who died by suicide in the last few years. We can love our neighbors as ourselves when we help us all heal and love. That will always work better than war or bombs at making peace. This is my Shushan prayer, and the “paid work” I do to translate my rabbinic aspirations into reality, by praying with my feet for advocacy. To learn more: https://nscsw.org/we-are-social-workers/
Nahafoch Hu: Turning it all upside down
As I have taught elsewhere, we live in an upside down world according to the rabbis. The story of Purim teaches that redemption comes when we “nahafoch hu“: when we turn things upside down. It reminds me of the Seinfeld episode where George tries to do the opposite instinct of everything he was ever taught, and that leads him to getting a dream job with the New York Yankees. In our colonial world, we have misinterpreted everything. What is good is bad, and what is bad is good. People who subscribe to “Israelism” will see me as a bad Jew, just as much as those who subscribe to “churchianism” will see my Christian colleagues who are advocating for 2SLGBTQIA+ human rights are bad Christians. Abraham had to leave the house of his ancestors to go out and learn how to become a blessing and Moses had to leave Pharaoh’s palace to learn compassion and freedom. Each of us are born into conversionary closets that teach us that “oy” is better than “Joy”. But Rebbe Nachman taught that Joy is central to the spiritual journey, and our rabbis also explained that Purim is the beginning of Yom Kippur redemption: when we understand how to read past the literal interpretations, and understand the story as a lesson in thinking critically and unmasking our own Sacred Essence in a world that desperately needs G!’d’s Love and Light. To learn more about my thoughts on the healing power of Joy, click here.
My Purim Prayer
May this Purim inspire us to question those things we take for granted so we can begin to see more clearly and find the courage to be seen more clearly, for only in this way will we be able to become who we were created to be… and who the world needs. May we discern the path from our Oys to the Joys that await for us all. May we live more authentically and learn to see each other more clearly and to speak out more honestly and courageously. This song can help:
Emerging Torah as Rabbi Nachshon emerges 