Mourning to Joy: Preparing for Purim
By Rabbi Boaz D. Heilman
February 28, 2025
Today is Rosh Chodesh—the first day—of the Hebrew month of Adar. We learn from the Talmud (Ta’anit 29a) that “When Adar begins, joy increases.” There are a couple of reasons for this teaching. Adar, after all, represents the very last stretch of winter and the first stirrings of spring. A bit like the days we’ve been enjoying here lately: more daylight and warmer temperatures; green grass begins to sprout, and the chattering of birds is noticeably louder. The hundreds of geese that like to graze in the field across from our house are beginning to stir too, flexing their wings in preparation for the journey north that they will soon undertake.
And then, of course, Adar is also the month on which the holiday of Purim occurs. Purim is probably the most joyful festival in the Jewish calendar. It is accompanied by revelry and festive meals, exchange of sweets with our neighbors and friends, and charity to the poor. But Purim—I guess like all our other holidays—also has its darker undertones.
The sacred text we read on Purim is the Scroll of Esther—a strange little book which, despite being part of the Bible, never once mentions God. Some say that it is actually the first purimspiel—a masquerade meant to entertain even as it reminds us of events that may or may not have happened thousands of years ago.
And yet, despite the humorous elements in the story, there are some dark shadows as well. It isn’t only Haman, of course, the dark knight of evil derring-do. L’havdil—to make a thousand separations between evil and holy—there’s also the righteous and wise Mordechai, who overhears two courtiers in Ahashverosh’s palace as they plot to overthrow the king. But is any revolution ever the product of only two men—or is there a wider movement out there that they represent, evidence of political instability in the kingdom? Haman’s designs surely included his own aspirations to the crown, while the antisemitic tropes he stirs in the heart of the king and the general population, catching fire as quickly as they did, emphasize even further the dissatisfaction that must have been prevalent at the time, swirling just under the surface, within the hearts and minds of the masses.
Even the beautiful and courageous Esther shows several facets to her personality. She is an assimilated Jew, who of her own will or because of Mordechai’s instruction, hides her true identity; even the name by which she is known is derived from that of a pagan goddess—Ashtart.
And then of course, is that entire chapter, the one we usually don’t teach our kids at religious school, where the Jews stand up for themselves in self-defense, killing—at least according to the story, and we must keep in mind that the numbers reflect symbolic significance more than historical accuracy—75,300 of their murderous foes.
Yes, in the end, impending doom turns to joy, and deep mourning to celebration; but the underlying terror must have been intense—a feeling that Jews have felt in Persia as well as every other country where they found themselves living. To this day.
Still, we are commanded to increase our rejoicing this month. That doesn’t mean that we party the entire month long—but we do take the first steps towards celebration and merriment.
To tell the truth, however, this year I’m finding this more difficult than ever. The ongoing war between Israel and the terrorist organization Hamas has caused both deep grief and rage. There was the initial grief we felt the first few days after Oct. 7; and then the pain of the loss over the last few months of more than 900 soldiers and police officers. Even after the shooting ended—at least temporarily—terror attacks perpetrated by Hamas supporters from Judea and Samaria—the so-called West Bank—have been on a steep rise. Terror supporters who call themselves “Pro-Palestinians” have been defacing synagogues and Jewish community centers, harassing and besieging Jewish students on university campuses, and engaging in violent terror attacks all over the rest of the world.
There is grief at the rise of antisemitism—both on the right and left—which until a few years ago we thought was almost gone from the world, and which we now realize is always there, always at the ready to catch fire again and display its true, murderous, evil intent.
And there is also rage. Rage against the horrors we’ve been witnessing for a year and a half now. And rage at the Israeli government, which seemed blind to the danger growing under its own nose.
Someone asked me just the other day, whether I saw any similarity between the Israel-Hamas war and the 1973 Yom Kippur War. Both, after all, began on a holy day; both seemed to catch Israel unprepared. But there is a difference. We now know that in 1973, Israel’s government—including the mythic hero Moshe Dayan and the beloved Prime Minister, Golda Meir, knew in advance about the impending attack. On October 7, however, evidently we didn’t.
On the news from Israel—which I follow regularly, thanks to the Internet— earlier today a commentator spoke eloquently and yet forcefully, calling the current government a narcissistocracy. Long-gone are the inspirational and beloved leaders who saw the Jewish People’s safety and survival as their primary goal. Far removed, those in power today seem to have another prize before their eyes: their own power and glory.
If Mordechai kept his eyes and ears side open enough to catch the whispering of two revolutionary guards, the intelligence unit of the famed IDF—the Israel Defense Force—engaged in precisely the opposite. It shut its eyes, was oblivious to the most obvious maneuverings going on just a few kilometers from Israel’s borders. The terrorists themselves were surprised at the lack of reaction that they encountered.
Then, on top of all this has been the frustrating dribbling of the hostage return, the shameful manner in which the hostages were exhibited to a jeering and cursing crowd before they were handed over to Israel; the physical condition they came back in—their gaunt and thin frames reminiscent of Nazi Concentration Camp survivors. The grief we felt at last week’s return of the remains of Shiri Bibas and her two small sons—Ariel, who was four when he was kidnapped, and his brother Kfir, who was not even one year old; the carelessness displayed by Hamas when it was discovered that Shiri’s coffin contained not the remains of the sainted mother, but of an anonymous Gazan woman; the heartbreaking return, on the same occasion, a week ago Saturday, of the body of Oded Lifshitz, z”l, a peace activist who was one of the founders of Kibbutz Nir Oz, less than 14 miles from the Gaza border, a tireless peace worker who made it his and his wife’s mission to drive Gazans in need of medical attention to Israeli hospitals and back again.
And yet, this month we are commanded to increase our joy. A difficult if not impossible commandment to obey.
And yet we must take heart. Even as I rage and grieve on the inside, I realize what strength the Jewish People holds within itself. Disunited and bickering on most other occasions, Israelis showed unaccustomed unity, as hundreds of people accompanied the coffin of Oded Lifshitz to his final resting place last Tuesday. And a day later, thousands upon thousands lined the streets where the hearse containing the embraced remains of Shiri, Ariel and Kfir slowly made its way to a private burial ceremony, with not one member of the government present, either because of shame, or at the request of the Bibas family. My brother, who lives in Tel Aviv, described the funeral procession, saying that half the country was standing at the roadsides, holding the blue-and-white flag of Israel, while the other half was watching the proceedings at home, all in tears. Orange balloons were let free into the heavens all over the world, with cities and monuments—unbidden, of their own deep grief and compassion—lit up with orange lights, in honor of the red hair of the children whose lives were so cruelly stolen from them.
But we will dance again. We will sing again, we will write poems again—not the mournful dirges we see today, but of joy and celebration. Isn’t this the truth, after all, that we recite year after year at our Seder tables: “In each and every generation, they rise up to destroy us, but the Holy One, Blessed be God, delivers us from their hands.”
We are going through difficult and dark days and nights today. But that must not cloud our vision. To be sure, an accounting will be exacted—both from the murderous terrorists and those government and military officials who ignored the warnings and thus enabled the horrific violence to take place. And we will yet rejoice, as a nation and as a people, when the hatred dissipates—the hatred that, we now know, will never disappear, but which, with God’s help, will soon return to the murky sewers where it festers in shame and cowardice.
May the upcoming holiday of Purim embody our past-present-and-future hopes and prayers. May Esther’s courage and rediscovery of her real identity and faith set an example for all of us. May our darkness soon turn to light, our sorrow to joy, and may we all soon celebrate this festival as we were commanded, making these, “Days of feasting and merrymaking, and as an occasion for sending gifts to one another and presents to the poor” (Esther 9:28, JPS 1985).
© 2025 by Boaz D. Heilman
