Thoughts on Purim and Yom Kippur

Happy Purim to all!  We had a great gathering last evening for the Megillah readings, both our family reading and the traditional full text not to mention the pizza party that went on afterwards.  While there are always people who take the stories in the Bible as historical truth and others who see them as just fairy tales, the reality is probably somewhere in the middle.  Certainly, the author of Megillat Esther draws upon authentic details of the Persian court back in the fifth century BCE, however, the events described do not follow that which we know from other sources about the historical Persian Empire.  Parts of the story seem improbable. It reads more like wishful thinking about what we would have done, had we the power and authority at that period of history.  Queen for a Day without Jack Bailey and the washing machines.  

The book of Job is an interesting example where rabbinic midrash places the central figure, Job, in a variety of time periods while other sages claim that he never actually existed, but is used purely to raise questions about God’s justice in the world.  The Song of Songs is taken by many as an allegory of the love relationship between God and Israel. Its physical descriptions of the lovers are seen as symbolic, e.g. the woman’s two breasts represent the nourishing teachings of Torah given by Moses and Aaron.  Other works which may possibly have a historical basis or not, have been utilized by later rabbinic midrash, by the mystical tradition of Kabbalah, or by the Hasidic Rebbes to convey various ideas and concepts they had in mind.   The book of Jonah, for example, is one such work that has been used in this way.  Various words, expressions, or actions in one text call to mind teachings in other places that we might use to interpret the values and teachings of our tradition.

The authors of the major text of the Kabbalistic mystical tradition, the Zohar, believe there is a deeper, secret meaning behind the words of scripture and connects them to its system of sefirot, the ten divine emanations, the forces that operate in the world.  One surprising link is found between this holiday of Purim and Yom Kippur.  The official name used for the Day of Atonement in our liturgy is Yom HaKippurim.  Notice the last five letters are P-u-r-i-m and one could very well read the name as Yom (a day) ki (like) Purim.  That seems rather strange.  One could not imagine two holidays that seem to be so different, diametrically opposed as Purim and Yom Kippur.  How is the most solemn fast day of the year, when the sages imagine God decreeing our fate for the year ahead anything like the joyous festival of Purim with its noisemakers, its feasting and drinking and celebration?  Nonetheless, they find some common threads and build their case.

The Zohar in a later addition known as Tikkunei Zohar, envisions a future where Yom Kippur transforms into a day of delight, not unlike Purim.  Both holidays involve themes of fate and divine judgment. In the book of Esther, Haman casts lots (purim) to determine a propitious day for the massacre of the Jews.  In the ancient Temple, the High Priest also cast lots, there called goralot, to determine which of two goats would be offered as an expiation sacrifice on the altar and which would symbolically bear the sins of Israel off into the wilderness as the “scapegoat.”  The mystics view these seemingly opposite days as two sides of the same coin, reflecting the balance between solemnity and joy in the spiritual journey.

In the Megillah, the name of God never appears yet we feel the divine presence behind the scenes as events fall into place. There are too many coincidences that just happen to bring about the salvation of the Jewish community in the story.  We don’t see God acting, yet His presence is felt.  One word that does appear many, many times in the scroll is “HaMelech,” the king.  In some places, it is explicitly “HaMelech Achashverosh,” King Achashverosh, while elsewhere we find simply “HaMelech.”  The rabbis suggest that the king referred to when we’re not told it is Achashverosh, is the Heavenly King.  If we start with that assumption, we begin to see the possibility of an allegorical interpretation.  The rabbis ask, “Where is Esther mentioned in the Torah?”  The answer may be simply that she is not there.  However, they point to the verse in Deuteronomy where God tells us explicitly that there are times when His face will be hidden, Haster astir panay.  These two verbs, haster and astir have the same root letters as the name Esther.  Reversing this, the heroine of the book is Hadassah, who we’re told is called in Persian “Esther,” implying some hiddenness.  Indeed, through most of the book, she hides her identity.

The mystics see Esther as representing the soul of the Jew, the neshamah, which is in exile within the body and the material world, much like the Jewish people are in exile in the story of Purim.  Her concealment reflects the hidden nature of divinity within the physical world and the soul’s struggle to recognize and align with its spiritual purpose.  It has been suggested that King Achashverosh can represent the overarching Divine Will or the transcendent aspect of God, while Haman symbolizes the ego, doubt, and the forces of spiritual destruction that seek to annihilate the soul’s connection to the Divine.  Mordecai, by contrast, embodies faith, spiritual discipline, and the internal guidance that aids the soul in overcoming these challenges. The unfolding of events in the Purim story is thus viewed as a metaphor for the soul’s journey from concealment and exile to revelation and redemption, parallelling the process of discovering the hidden light of the Divine within one’s own life.

If we think about the rituals of the Temple on Yom Kippur which we read of and symbolically recreate to a degree on the holiday, we might view Esther’s entrance into the inner court of the King as paralleling the entrance of the High Priest into the Holy of Holies on Yom Kippur.  In both cases, there is a journey from an “outer” realm to an “inner” sacred space, and both involve immense risk, reverence, and the potential for transformation or redemption.  Esther’s bold decision to approach the King without being summoned reflects a moment of ultimate vulnerability and courage, as she risks her life to advocate for her people.  Similarly, the High Priest enters the innermost sanctuary of the Temple, the Holy of Holies, on Yom Kippur to atone for the sins of the Israelites, undertaking a sacred and perilous task.  You may recall in last week’s Torah portion that the High Priest’s robe had bells on it, so that the people could be reassured when he entered the Holy of Holies that he was still alive, moving about.

On a deeper, spiritual level, Esther’s journey can symbolize the soul approaching the Divine King, seeking to move past externalities and into the intimate presence of the Divine.  The High Priest’s journey on Yom Kippur mirrors this as an act of purification and intercession, symbolizing the return to oneness with the Divine. These shared motifs – vulnerability, intercession, and the blending of fear and reverence – point to a profound connection between the two stories.  They serve as a reminder of the transformative power of stepping into the “inner court,” whether to plead for a people’s survival or to reconcile the soul with its Creator.

 Women’s hidden spirituality appears in a number of places in the Bible and elsewhere.  One thinks of the prayer of Hannah, mistaken for drunkenness by the High Priest Eli, but taken by the rabbis as a template for our Rosh Hashanah liturgy. Likewise, we see Rebecca’s prayers opposite her husband Isaac, and later those of Rachel, described in Jeremiah, as weeping for her children as they go forth to Babylonian Exile.  Those examples and others are lovely, but they don’t seem to fit so well with Esther.  She comes across as a much more independent person, a practical planner, not demonstrating spirituality, at least until she declares a three-day fast prior to entering the presence of Achashverosh.  She comes up with a plot and is able to manipulate her husband the King by playing on his weaknesses: his suspicion of others bordering on paranoia, his impetuous nature, and his attraction to earthly pleasures.  We do not hear, as we do in Daniel, of Esther requiring special kosher meals or engaging in regular prayer toward Jerusalem.  The absence of such ritual elements catches the eye of later commentators who expand the book by inserting prayers in the mouths both of Mordecai and Esther that are reported in the Greek translation, the Septuagint, and included in the Apocrypha of many Christian Bibles.  It is only later rabbis who question what the Jews of Shushan ate at the king’s banquets and theorize that Haman’s plot might be punishment for their lax observance.

Nonetheless, it seems quite appropriate on reflection that a book in which God Himself “hides His face” should include a heroine who draws on hidden spiritual resources to save her people and to connect with that hidden deity who is ultimately in charge. The Megillah itself claims that these days of Purim will endure when all the other holidays are forgotten.