Shabbat Zachor and Purim: On Knowledge and Humility

The juxtaposition between Shabbat Zachor and Purim strikes me as strange. At first glance, the connection is clear: Parashat Zachor (the extra Torah reading on the Shabbat before Purim) deals with the command to remember and to completely annihilate the nation of Amalek, and on Purim, we celebrate our victory over the evil Haman the Aggagite, descendant of the Amalekites.

But upon reflection, it seems that Zachor and Purim don’t really fit together. Zachor is a serious matter; it bids us to have moral clarity concerning the evil in the world and to take an extremist position of zero-tolerance – complete annihilation – of such evil. Purim, on the other hand, is a light carnival holiday, full of laughter and irony. On Purim we are not exactly sure who we are and what is right or wrong; we put on costumes, pretending to be both evil and good characters and we are told to drink ad delo yada, “until one does not know” the difference between the cursed Haman and the blessed Mordecai.

Perhaps the light nature of Purim provides an essential counter-balance to the seriousness of Zachor. Yes, you are called as a Jew to take seriously your task to eradicate evil and pursue good in the world, but don’t be overzealous about it. Take the time to laugh at yourself and your convictions. Even in the very midst of our assertions of clarity concerning good and evil we pause to say that, in some ways, we humans are really all drunkards, our perception imperfect, unable to perfectly distinguish between those who should be cursed and those who should be blessed.

This dichotomy between moral clarity and an appreciation of our limited ability to discern good and evil is epitomized in the Megillah by two characters, Mordecai and Achashverosh. Mordecai stands for moral clarity and certainty. Indeed, the word yada, to know, is used multiple times with reference to him. He knows of Bigtan and Teresh’s treachery; how he knows we never find out, but he knows; he is a knower. And he knows of Haman’s plans; chapter 4 begins U’Mordecai yada et kol asher na’asah. “And Mordecai knew all that had been done.” Mordecai approaches Esther with this moral clarity and tells her what needs to be done. He knows, without any question, what is right and what is wrong.

Achashverosh, on the other hand, seems to have neither knowledge nor convictions. He is often portrayed as a simpleton for precisely this reason; he is equally open to the evil Haman and to the righteous Mordecai, offering them each in turn the use of his signet ring. He does not judge; he does not make distinctions. He is like a drunkard, like the drunkard that we are meant to be at the Purim feast. He muddles through life, waking up anxious at night with a sense that there is something he should be doing, but he is not quite sure what it is.

To be like Achashverosh most of the year would be wrong. We are meant, like Mordecai, to take seriously our task to know things in the world, to remember what is right and what is evil and to act on such convictions. But such moral certainty is also dangerous in a human; it is a kind of hubris. On Purim, on the cusp of making a statement of great moral certainty in Parashat Zachor, we are reminded not take ourselves too seriously, to temper our convictions with humility, a sense of the limits of the human capability to really know.