For Purim: Groundless Together

Purim – both its story and the way we celebrate it – always gives me a vague feeling of unease and instability.

First, the story. Yes, we do win in the end, but the forces against us feel very real, and the victory sudden and unreliable. It is the story of Jewish history; they hate us and want to kill us, but somehow we survive, and are even victorious. The problem is that it keeps happening, and often, although we end up surviving as a people, there is a fair amount of suffering before we get there. The whole thing does feel a little like a pur, “a lot;” there is nothing stable here; at any random moment, we could be subject to hatred and killing, just as at any moment we could be granted salvation. There is nothing to hold on to, no ground to walk on.

The celebration only seems to intensify this sense of groundlessness. All rules are temporarily suspended; drink as much as you want; wear whatever clothes you want; say rash things in the guise of humor; “boo” someone in public. It is as if there are no longer any inhibitions in public or in private. The gemara (Megillah 7b) tells a story about two rabbis who had a se’udah together on Purim; they drank too much and one killed the other. On Purim anything goes. It is as if we all feel this sense of groundlessness and instability about our futures and so we adopt a gallows humor; who knows if we will live or die so might as well enjoy today and not worry about any rules!

There is a truth to the groundlessness behind Purim; we actually do have very little control of the future. We are like ships tossed in the sea, dates cast in a lot. Purim asks us to surrender to this reality and even revel in it.

What anchors us on Purim? What normally anchors us is God, but I don’t think that it is God that anchors us on Purim. His name is absent from the Megillah, and indeed, not a single one of the four main mitzvot of Purim is directed toward God; we read the story (no God); we eat a meal together; we send each other food gifts; and we take care of the needy.

No, Purim is not focused on God. Though we know that God lies behind our redemption and our survival time and again, our experience of history is that we are tossed about in an unpredictable way. Yes, in the end, He will come to our rescue, and that does provide some long-term comfort, but in the mean time, when we look around, what do we have to hold on to? Each other.

We don’t know what will happen tomorrow and there is a certain unease we have to live with. Purim’s answer to that unease is to turn to one another. All four mitzvot involve gathering – hearing the Megillah is to be done in large groups; mishloach manot are to share food and bring a sense of kinship ish lere’ehu, “a person to his fellow;” we take care of the poor; and we eat festive meals together. All are done together.

It is as if we have all been riding a boat together for a long time. We don’t really know when we will reach our faroff destination. There have been storms and bright days and even hurricanes, and through it all, the one constant has been one another. We pause for a moment and appreciate each other, appreciate that we are on this journey together. As we are tossed about on the sea, there is some comfort in knowing that we are not alone.