The Shepherd's House

Responding to the Call of Christ - Rabbinic Thoughts for Purim 2019

By: PM

Esther is one of the only two books in Tanach (Jewish Testament, i.e., Old Testament) which does not contain the name of the Lord, the other one being Shir HaShirim (Song of Songs). But whereas Shir HaShirim is a book about the Lord’s love for us, Esther is a fearful book because it records the moment when it was resolved Lehashmid laharog ule’abaid et kol hayehudim mina’ar v’ad zakein taf v’nashim beyom echad, “to destroy, to slay, and to exterminate all Jews, young and old, children and women, in a single day,” when the first warrant for genocide against the Jewish people was issued. Purim is the only festival in the Jewish year set entirely in Galut, (in Exile). Every other festival is either based on an event that happened in Israel or on the journey toward Israel. Purim alone takes place when the people of God are in exile – where it was harder for them to feel the presence of God in an alien land (Psalm 137). Yet there is one line in the Book of Esther that cuts through like a knife and represents the most powerful statement in the Bible which shows that that the Lord has not abandoned us. Towards the end of the fourth chapter in the Book of Esther, we find Esther telling her uncle Mordechai about all the problems she might encounter while interceding with King Xerxes regarding the fate of the Jewish …Read More