View From a Height

Happy Purim

Today is the celebration of Purim, much beloved by Jews, virtually unknown by the outside world. In a nutshell, it celebrates the story in the Book of Esther. In machinations worthy of any oriental court, the Jews of the Persian empire (which is pretty much all the Jews, at that point) manage to survive a plot to kill them, engineered by Haman.

There's a fair amount of Jewish history packed into this story, and it represents the prototypical pattern of anti-Semitism. Jews follow our own religious laws, which gets held against us. Some people will extend personal grudges against individual Jews to the whole people. Jews who manage to "pass" can come in very handy at key moments, but tend not leave much of a personal Jewish legacy.

In a fit of justice, Haman ends up being hung on his own gallows. (Those of you who are not Jewish, but who have heard the Southern expression, "Hang him high as Haman," now know where that came from.) And in a phenomenon unknown until about 1948, the Jews actually organized militarily and defended themselves against the planned pogroms.

Since it's one of the books with a happy ending, the holiday is an extraordinarily festive one. We dress up in costumes, hear the Whole Megillah read out loud, give small gifts and food baskets, and in olden days, would write "U Can't Touch This" on the local Russian Orthodox churches. And then spend the day packing.

Nowadays, congregations and shuls put on "Purim Spiels," which make fun of more or less any institution. Religion is too often associated with a relentless earnestness, and it's good to get away from that from time to time.

I realize that today is also Good Friday, which must cause tremendous cognitive dissonance for our Messianic friends. It's a quirk in the calendar appropriate for some other post, and it happens very rarely. I want to extend appropriate Easter wishes to the Christian readers of this blog as well, especially now that the Church has stopped blaming me personally for the weekend's events.

Just remember that, if you happen to drive through a Jewish neighborhood and see people celebrating, it's not all about you.