This year the KKSY community will celebrate the Jewish holiday of Purim on the evening of Thursday, March 13th, through Saturday, March 15th. Purim is a joyous celebration where children wear costumes and community members distribute gifts of food to their friends and neighbors and money to the poor.
However, the historical story behind Purim is not a simple story of celebration. It is a complex tale of a high ranking official plotting to kill the Jews who lived in Persia sometime between 486 and 465 BCE and who only narrowly escaped massacre.
As related in the Biblical Book of Esther (known in Hebrew as megillat Esther), Haman was royal advisor to King Ahasuerus, head of the Persian Empire. Proud and overbearing
Haman became angered when the Jew, Mordecai, would not bow before him. Not content simply to retaliate against Mordecai, he threw lots (or “pur”) to decide on a massacre date for all the Jews. The lot came out on the 14th day of Adar in the Hebrew calendar. At Haman’s instigation, the king signed an order for the massacre not realizing that his own wife, Esther was a Jew (and Mordecai’s cousin). Only by the intervention of Mordecai and Esther was the plot foiled and Haman hung on the gallows he had erected for Mordecai.
Although joy is paramount on Purim, the holiday also recognizes the tragedy that almost occurred. In the Book of Esther, the queen asks the Jews to fast for three days before she goes to the king to invite him to a party where she will reveal Haman’s plan. For that reason the day before Purim is a fast day called Ta’anit Esther. KKSY’s community goes from the sad time of fast to the happy celebration of Purim just as the ancient Jews of Persia did and as do Jewish communities all over the modern world. That the Biblical telling of this story is called the Book of Esther rather than the Book of Mordecai or the Book of the Persian Jews shows that historically Jewish communal leaders have recognized the salient role played by women as well as men in saving the Jewish people and they have been happy to publicize that role.
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