Rabbi Dov Gartenberg
Motzei Shabbat, Saturday night, March 8. 2025
We are living in an Ahasuerus moment. Every year when Purim comes around, we seek to find in its plot some cameo in the snapshot of time we are living in. Purim, more than any other Jewish festival, offers us stereotypes to choose from to apply to our historical moment. Mordechai is a courageous and clever hero. Esther, through the gift of her beauty and smarts, has influence and stature before the king and his entourage. Haman, is a murderous enemy, always plotting to influence the king toward his ends. God is absent, hidden in the background (never appearing in the Megilah) as the events unfold. The human king is the object of manipulation from all sides, a king with supreme authority but questionable judgment. He is easily distracted and angered and mindlessly surfs on the chaos around him.
That Ahasuerus reminds me of the current president and his entourage should be obvious and helps make this year’s Purim very timely and somewhat therapeutic. This year I’ll have a special kavanah when I am twirling the grogger that will give me some fleeting release of negative feelings. But unfortunately, it will only distract me briefly from the chaotic and harsh decrees emanating from Washington. Of all the terrible things happening since January 20, I find the abandonment of Ukraine and the enthusiastic embrace of a murderous dictator whose armies seek to rampage through it, to be the most horrifying. It will temper my Purim playfulness.
I turn to a teaching about Megilat Esther (the Scroll of Esther) that we will read on Thursday evening. This comes from a famous passage in the Talmud that connects the giving of the Torah at Sinai to the Jews of Shushan.
“Rabbi Avdimi bar Ḥama bar Ḥasa said: the Jewish people actually stood beneath the mountain, and the verse teaches that the Holy One, Blessed be He, overturned the mountain above the Jews like a tub, and said to them: If you accept the Torah, excellent, and if not, there will be your burial.
Rav Aḥa bar Ya’akov said: From here there is a substantial caveat to the obligation to fulfill the Torah. The Jewish people can claim that they were coerced into accepting the Torah, and it is therefore not binding.
Rava said: Even so, they again accepted it willingly in the time of Ahasuerus, as it is written: “The Jews ordained, and took upon them, and upon their seed, and upon all such as joined themselves unto them” (Esther 9:27), and he taught: The Jews ordained what they had already taken upon themselves through coercion at Sinai.
(BT Talmud Shabbat 88a as translated by Sefaria. )
This famous but baffling text suggests that the original giving of the Torah at Sinai was imposed on Bnai Israel. The actual moment when the Jews accepted Torah was @1000 years later in Shushan during the time of Ahasuerus. This text is the subject of numerous interpretations, but as I understand it, the relationship of the Torah evolves, from a coercive acceptance to a free and willing acceptance. It is accepted without the “bells and whistles” of miracle, but through the free choice of a Jewish community experiencing the vagaries and vulnerabilities of history.
The challenge before us is how to find Torah teachings that help us to navigate these chaotic and head-spinning times. It is a great challenge for teachers of Torah how to find the teachings that will illuminate and help us to move through these times. It is a great challenge of students to receive and implement the teachings that will serve the Jewish people and accomplish Tikun Olam in a world that seemingly is veering out of control and is filled with hatred and vengeance.
May we find a way of to ordain and take upon ourselves the Torah of our times. This is the way to enduring hope and strength (Hizuk) at this moment.
Hag Purim Same’ach, 5785/2025.
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