Rabbi Toba's Shabbat Thoughts

We are entering into the Shabbat before Purim, Shabbat Zakhor—“Remember!”—based on an a few verses from the book of Deuteronomy traditionally added to the weekly Torah reading, in which the Israelites are commanded to “remember what Amalek did to you on your way out of Egypt,” and the additional command to “blot out the memory of Amalek.”  The villain of the Purim story, Haman, is understood to be a descendant of the Biblical villain Amalek, oppressor of the Israelites, and the “blotting out” commanded here turned into the practice of drowning out the name of Haman every time it is read from the book of Esther on Purim.

There has been an enormous amount of discussion on the various rabbinic listservs I inhabit about how it’s possible to celebrate Purim this year, in the wake of the events of October 7.  There are those feeling that as long as the people of Gaza and the Israelis still held hostage are suffering so greatly, how can we rejoice? Others (who, unlike us, are dedicated to reading the entire scroll of Esther) are wondering how in the world to read the verses in chapter 9 where the King gives the Jews of Shushan the right to defend themselves, resulting in a mass slaughter (this is the part of the story not usually recounted in Hebrew school).  What to do with Purim this year?

My friend and colleague, Rabbi Elyse Wechterman, has written a beautiful drash on the challenges posed by Purim, and how we can "reconstruct" its more problematic elements in this historical moment. I’d like to share a bit of her teaching here:

“Purim is a story that dangles between the injustice of experiencing victimhood and the injustice of perpetrating violence. Today, in these months after the brutal Hamas attack on October 7th and this war that has seen the deaths of thousands of innocents, it can feel like the Jewish people are also dangling between these two poles – victims or perpetrators – which will we become?  How can we dare to celebrate Purim at such a time?"

Rabbi Elyse goes on to recount a story about the Hasidic Rebbe Zvi Elimelekh of Dinov.  In the middle of the Purim feast, Zvi Elimelekh suddenly stopped the festivities and said, “Saddle the horses and get the carriages; it is time to blot out Amalek.” His followers had no idea what he meant—go to war in Poland?—but they obediently followed him to a local inn, where the Polish peasants were engaged in their own drunken bash.

The rebbe and his disciples entered the inn. When the peasants saw them, they stopped dancing. The music stopped. It was absolutely silent. Everyone circled around the rebbe and the Jews as they walked to the center of the dance floor. The tension began to build.

And then, the rebbe looked at one of the peasants and put out his hand. Silence. The peasants looked at one another. Suddenly, one of them stepped forward, put his hand in the rebbe’s, and they started to move. They slowly started dancing. The musicians began playing. In a matter of minutes, all the Hasidim and peasants were dancing furiously with one another.

Elyse lifts up this story as a model of how we can “blot out Amalek” in our time—and write a new kind of story. She continues:

“In January, I organized a webinar that brought leading Israeli and Palestinian peace activists to the attention of a broader American Jewish audience. One is the Palestinian principal of a dual-language elementary school in Kfar Saba, where Israeli Jewish and Palestinian children study, play, and learn together daily. One is the head of an advocacy organization trying to imagine a new construct for a shared Israeli and Palestinian homeland. And one is the leader of Israel’s largest grassroots organizing initiative that just last week helped to elect the first Palestinian woman to the Haifa City Council on a platform of shared society and coexistence. These individuals are daring to tell a new story.

“And in that work, they are taking the hand of the other and learning to dance – just like the Hasidic rebbe in Poland did so many years ago. And they are blotting out the name of Amalek not through violence but slowly, over decades, building a world where the Amaleks are irrelevant – they will no longer have a purpose or need to exist.

“This year, when we read the Megillah and tell the Purim story, let’s imagine a new ending. Let’s write a midrash in which Esther and Vashti work together to end the harem system that trapped women in sexual servitude. Or a postscript where the Jews of Shushan built a coalition with other communities to overthrow that inane and wasteful monarchy and installed Persia’s first-ever multi-ethnic and multi-faith democracy. And in our own world, where our divisions are so deep, tensions are so high, and some people are predicting the end of the American civilization, let us recommit to engaging in the partnerships, alliances, multifaith dialogues, and multi-racial projects that enable all of us to tell new stories and make the name of Amalek permanently and utterly irrelevant.”

Amen.