Richard 'Aharon' Chaimberlin, Litt.D. |
PURIM is perhaps the 'silliest' holiday on the
Jewish calendar. It celebrates the victory of the Jews over their enemies over
2500 years ago. This is a common theme for other Jewish holidays as well:
"They tried to kill us. They lost. Let's eat!" An enemy seeks to
enslave, destroy, or simply to assimilate the Jewish people as being a unique
people. Ultimately, the Jews arise vic-torious. That is an important message to
the enemies of the Jews of today. When the Jews arise victorious again, there
will be another Jewish holiday to celebrate! And all of these victories are
with incredible odds against the Jewish people. No sane person expects the Jews
to win, but we did and we will!
With
the holiday of Purim, the situation against the Jews was very drastic. The
enemy wasn't seeking to assimilate them or to destroy the Jewish religion, as
was the situation when Antiochus Epiphanies sought to keep Jews from observing
their faith. The enemy wasn't seeking to continue enslaving the Jews, as was
the case with the Israelites in Egypt. No... Instead, the goal of Haman and his
cohorts was the complete physical destruction of the Jewish people - every man,
woman, and child.
You
can read all about Purim in the Book of Esther. Martin Luther hated this book,
and almost excluded it from his German translation of the Bible. Martin Luther
(the founder of the "Protestant Reformation") was a rabid
anti-Semite, and no doubt did not like seeing the Jews victorious over their
enemies. The good news is that he ultimately did include it in his German
translation, and it is still found in both Catholic and Protestant Bibles to
this day, and of course is also in Jewish Bibles.
The
Book of Esther describes a situation in which the Jewish people had been highly
assimilated into the Persian culture of their day. In a sense, the Jews were
wearing masks, in an attempt to appear the same as those in the
surrounding cultures. Sometimes it takes the enemies of the Jews to remind the
Jews that they have a special calling to be a unique people, with unique
responsibilities as God's missionary people, with a divine mission to bring
forth the knowledge of Adonai, His salvation, and His Torah to all the people
groups on Planet Earth. Instead, the
Jews at that time chose to "pass" for being Gentiles.
God
is also figuratively wearing a mask. This is the only book of the Tanakh
(O.T.) in which the name of God (dedi - YHWH) is not mentioned
even once. There is not even any mention of prayer in this book. There aren't
any miracles of deliverance, as you can see in the Book of Exodus, with the
supernatural plagues on the Egyptians, as well as the miraculous escape of the
Israelites from Pharaoh's army. However, as you read through the Book of
Esther, you can see God's fingerprints all over it. There is a series of
"coincidences" taking place. Each one by itself is not a miracle in
any sense of the word. However, when you put all of the "coincidences"
together, you can see HaShem working behind the scenes, using "natural"
circumstances to accomplish His purposes, in what appears to be lucky
"coincidences."
King
Ahasuerus ("Achashverosh" in the Hebrew Bible) put on a marvelous
feast which all the citizens of Shushan (Susa) celebrated for many days, in the
third year of his reign.[1]
The royal wine was plentiful, according to the king's bounty. His Queen Vashti
refused to display her beauty in front of this bunch of possibly drunken men.
For this "indiscretion," King Achashverosh divorced her. Four years
later, in the seventh year of his reign,[2]
Achashverosh was lonely and sought a new bride by means of a beauty contest.
The winner happened to be the beautiful, but highly assimilated Jewish maiden
named Esther. Esther was an orphan, raised by her older cousin, Mordechai. He
instructed Esther to keep her Hebrew name - Hadassah - a secret, and also not
to reveal her Jewish ancestry. Esther was therefore also wearing a "mask,"
pretending to be a shikseh.[3]
And we still wear masks today when we celebrate Purim!
Esther
serves as queen for five years,[4]
when she is confronted with the possibility of all her people - the Jews -
being annihilated by the wicked Haman (May his name be blotted out). Haman was
descended from the Amalekites, Israel's enemies from ancient times. The Amalekites
attacked the Israelites after they came out of Egypt, by attacking those who
were faint and weary in the rear.[5]
Therefore, the Israelites were commanded to "blot out the memory of Amalek
from under heaven." Haman was an Agagite, a descendant of Agag,[6]
king of the Amalekites. As such, he had no love for the Jews.
All
of the king's servants would bow to Haman, who served as the prime minister of
the Persian Empire, which was covered a huge area, all the way from India to
Ethiopia. However, Mordechai refused to bow to an Amalekite, and as a special
revenge against Mordechai, Haman determined to kill all of the Jews, who centuries
earlier had killed most of the
Amalekites.
Haman
went to the king, saying, "There is a certain people scattered abroad and
dispersed among the people in all the provinces of the kingdom, and their laws
are diverse from all people. Therefore, it is not in the king's interest to let
them remain."
[7] Haman did not identify these people as being
Jews. However, the king gave Haman the authority to destroy this people for
their supposed evil.
Try
to imagine all of these events, simply "happening" by chance:
King Achashverosh gets angry at
his wife, sends her away, and later selects Esther (who just
"happens" to be Jewish) as his new wife. Morechai just
"happens" to hear of a plot to kill King Achashverosh, which saves
the king's life. Years later, when the king can't sleep, he asks his scribe to
read to him from the chronicles of the king. The scribe just "happens"
to open to the section chronicling the good deed of Mordechai, who had saved
the king's life, but finds that Mordechai had been unrewarded. Haman
"happens" to enter the room at the very time the king is seeking a
way to reward Mordechai. Haman, thinking that the king wants to reward himself,
ends up honoring Mordechai. Esther uses her position to turn the tables on
Haman, etc., etc.
All of the circumstances seem completely natural,
but the odds of all of them together happening by happenstance mitigate against
it. We see God working behind the scenes as the divine playwright. The Divine
Hand is moving the people like chess pieces or puppets, being moved about and
manipulated for a successful conclusion to what looks like a horrible and
foreboding situation. In the Passover story, divine salvation came from above,
whereas in the Purim story, salvation comes from below, disguised as a series
of ordinary events. The events in both the Passover and Purim stories ended up
saving and preserving the Jewish people.
HaSatan
- the Adversary - has been seeking to destroy the Jewish people for thou-sands
of years. Satan knows the Scriptures. He knew that the Messiah would come from
the Jews. And he knows that Yeshua will return when the Jews return to their
homeland. He tried to destroy the Jewish people in Egypt, and sought to kill Yeshua
when He was a baby.[8] Through various pogroms[9]
and through the Holocaust, Satan hoped to destroy the Jewish people, and to
prevent their return to Israel. He continues to work through anti-Semites
today. If Satan had been successful, he would have proven God to be untrustworthy,
and he would have ruined God's plans for the ultimate redemption of mankind,
which also includes the future Messianic Kingdom in which King Messiah Yeshua
will come back to reign and rule from Jerusalem!
What
is especially incredible is that HaShem even uses human weaknesses, such as the
desire to be "like everyone else," to bring about a happy ending.
Today, as in ancient Persia, Jews are seeking to assimilate into the cultures in
which they reside. Even in Israel, we see Jews trying to emulate American culture.
However, Israel has a higher calling. Someday, Messiah is returning to set up
His Messianic Kingdom. And:
"In
the last days, it shall come to pass, that the mountain of the house of YHWH
shall be established in the top of the mountains, and it shall be exalted above
the hills; and people shall flow unto it.
"And
many nations shall come, and say, 'Come, and let us go up to the mountain of
YHWH, and to the house of the God of Jacob; and He will teach us His ways, and
we will walk in His paths.' For the Torah (Law or Teaching)
shall go forth from Zion, and the word of the LORD from Jerusalem.
"And
He shall judge among many people, and rebuke strong nations afar off; and they
shall beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruning hooks:
nation shall not lift up sword against nation; neither shall they learn war
anymore." Micah 2:2-4.
May it be soon, even in our lifetimes!