Monday, March 13, 2017

Lots of Haman

In the blessing we recite on Purim night after reading the Megilla we mention כי פור המן נהפך לפורינו, that the lots drawn by Haman had switched to being our lots.
I found this terminology troublesome. Haman carries the lineage of Amalek, and we are taught that the outstanding feature of Amalek is אשר קרך, that they had the attitude that everything is happenstance and random. They believed that there is no concept that God directs in any manner the goings on in this world. The פור, pur, the lots drawn by Haman were meant to symbolize this randomness. Haman would choose the date on which to exterminate the Jews in the most random way possible. Why would we want to make that ours. We do not believe that everything is random. Judaism teaches us that Gods hand is manifest throughout Creation.
I believe that the answer lies in the fact that even though we may believe that life is not random, the fact remains that from our constricted human perspective it often appears random. So many times things occur that we lack the ability to comprehend "Why?" and there is no escaping that reality within the human experience. We have, essentially, two options how to face such situations. We can embrace the Amalek/Haman philosophy that it is indeed random and lacking any rhyme of reason. Alternatively, we can believe that despite the seeming senselessness, we believe that God is behind these occurrences and there is meaning to the apparent randomness.
But there is a danger in the latter approach as well. One can take it to the extreme and say that since I don't and can't understand the mind of God, and I find so much of my life to be inexplicable, I will give up any attempt to understand and to participate in the development of my life and leave it all up to God. This complete self-abdication is also not the goal of the Torah and, in the end, is not much different than the Amalekite approach.
But I would suggest that this is exactly what occurred to the Jewish people after they crossed the Red Sea. Shortly after crossing they were attacked by Amalek. Why then? Our Sages teach us שרפו ידיהם מדברי תורה, there hands became weak in the study of Torah. What was it about crossing the Red Sea that caused them to minimize their efforts at studying Torah, the key to understanding the mind of God? I think that they were so dazzled by all the miracles they had seen that they were prepared to just give it all up to God and to cease trying to understand. The word רפו, used by the Sages to describe their weakening has the same letters as פור, the lots of Haman.
This then is the message of the blessing after the Megilla, we want the pur of Haman to become our pur. Not to leave it up to God but to embrace the randomness of life and make it our own, by continuing to strive to understand the meaning behind it.

Thursday, March 9, 2017

I Will Not Have Green Skin and Hair!

The Gemara tells us that אסתר ירקרקת, which is conventionally understood to mean that Esther had green skin. This has inspired countless little girls to dye their skin green as they dress up as Queen Esther on Purim. The Gemara's comment is a bit strange as people don't generally have green skin. (Some suggest it means olive colored skin, however the term, assuming it means green, would seem to indicate a very deep green because of the double term ירקרק.)
However, when the Tikunei Zohar makes the same comment it is clearly in reference to Esther's hair, not her skin. Not that it makes it much better as we have now gone from Esther the Martian to Esther the Punk Rocker.
The Gaon of Vilna in his commentary on the Tikunei Zohar points out that there is no such thing as a green haired person. However, he indicates that there may be  an alternative explanation. Tosefos in Meseches Sukkah points out that the word ירוק is used in the Gemara to mean one of three colors: green, blue, or yellow. The Gaon therefore suggests that when the Gemara says that אסתר ירקרקת, it means to say that Esther was a blonde, which would presumably have been an anomaly in the Persian kingdom, and would explain why she received so much attention.

The Tail of Vashti (and another story)

The Gemara tells us that בא גבריאל ושעה לה זנב, the Angel Gavriel came and made her a tail. Many people understand this to be taken literally, that Vashti actually grew a tail, but the Gaon of Vilna understands it differently.
He bases his explanation on a Gemara in Sanhedrin that tells the story of a young Nevuchadnezzar who was a scribe in the court of the Assyrian king Biladan ben Biladan. When the king heard that the King of Israel, Chizkyahu, had miraculously recovered from illness he ordered his scribes to send a letter to Chizkiyahu. The letter was addressed to Chizkiyahu King of Israel and to the Great God of Israel.
Nevuchadnezzar was not in the office when the letter was written. When he returned and heard about it he felt that it was disrespectful to put the name of Chizkiyahu before the name of God in the letter. He began to run after the messenger who had taken the letter, but after three steps, the Angel Gavriel came along and stopped him. In the merit of those three steps, the Gemara says, he became Emperor of Babylon for three generations. Has the angel not stopped him, his dynasty would have lasted for ever.
Vashti represents the last generation of his descendants who were rulers. With her death came the end of the line for Nevuchadnezzars family. It was because Gavriel had stopped Nevuchadnezzar a century earlier that Vashti now became the tail end of the dynasty.
As you see, the Gaon does not take this line to be literal, but metaphorical. It is also interesting that he understands the Gemara to be using idiomatic language that was used two thousand years ago, two hundred years ago, as well as today.