The Shalom Center - Purim

PURIM, GOOD FRIDAY, & 40 YEARS ABIRTHING: FROM DISASTER TO DELIGHT

Mon, 24 Mar 2008 07:56:51 -0400

By Rabbi Arthur Waskow

Today (March 21, 2008) is a strange day in the dance of sun, moon, and earth that make up the Christian and Jewish calendars.

For Christians, it is Good Friday -- the remembrance of how the Roman Empire tortured to death a great and troublesome Rabbi, and the foreshadowing of how just three days later the Rabbi was reborn into life, and there began the process by which he came to be understood as God's Own Self.

For Jews, it is Purim -- a festival of pun and paradox, in which the central text is a parody of history, telling the story of how a courageous woman and her uncle chose civil disobedience to save their people from a genocide - and won. How a pompous, stupid king is bamboozled by an ambitious, arrogant , and genocidal Prime Minister -- one might almost say, Vice-President. How everything is turned topsy-turvy, so that the gallows where a Jewish leader was to be hanged becomes the death-place of their tormentor. How God never appears in this story that might seem miraculous.

Iran: Purim & VASHTI come in Winter-time!

Thu, 06 Dec 2007 12:12:01 -0500

The early-spring Jewish festival of Purim - rooted in, or given roots by, the Scroll of Esther -- is an expression of the same topsy-turvy view of the world that we see in Mardi Gras and other early-spring festivals of folly. The story is a satire on the stupidity and the violence of rulers.

Even though we are still in wintertime, Purim is the only way to understand what has just happened in the topsy-turvy somersault in US National Intelligence Estimates concerning Iran.

The tale of Esther is about a foolish king of Persia -- Iran! But that was when he was the Emperor of the World. Now the same folly is found in another king who wants to make Persia another province in his empire.... Who STILL wants to, even after revelations of the naked truth by the network of officials called VASHTI - Vigilant Affirmers of Security, Honor, Truth & Intelligence.

Worlds of Torah: Unmasking Purim

Wed, 28 Feb 2007 08:34:44 -0500

Rabbi Arthur Waskow, 3/3/2005

Worlds of Torah: Unmasking Purim

Purim approaches (March 24-25).

The Jewish festival of spring fever. Giddy, hilarious, tipsy, masked to hide our ordinary faces and thereby reveal some hidden facet for a flashing moment. Reading a crazy story under the injunction that we must hear every word, and shattering the reading with noisemaking groggers to drown out one of the words we are obligated to hear.

A story where foreboding is forestalled, and all has a happy ending. And God does not appear to wag a monitory finger.

Unless we take off the mask of willed amnesia and remember that on Purim day in 1994, Baruch/Aror Goldstein walked into the mosque at the tomb of Abraham our Father, and gunned down 29 Muslims who were prostrate in prayer, praising the God of Abraham.

From A Dark & Bloody Purim, New Torah

Sat, 08 Sep 2001 21:46:40 -0400

Rabbi Arthur Waskow, 2/29/2004

Almost always, Torah and I have danced together in joy and delight. But on a spring morning in 1994, Torah came in a darker mood, dressed in terror and despair.

I had just awakened from a pleasant sleep after celebra

Nistar/Megillat Esther

Sat, 08 Sep 2001 21:46:40 -0400

Rabbi Arthur Waskow

Nistar b'nistar b'Megillat Esther

Rabbi Arthur Waskow

[After Chapter 9, verse 16 of Megillat Esther:]

And then -- and then --
A Darkness appeared,
Her Head wrapped in mourning,
Her tallit all black,
Her Place on

Renewal of Purim/Fast of Esther

Sat, 08 Sep 2001 21:46:40 -0400

Rabbi Arthur Waskow

THE RENEWAL OF PURIM AND THE FAST OF ESTHER
by Rabbi Arthur Waskow
The hilarity of Purim will be shadowed by the horror of the Purim of 1994 -- the mass murder of 30 Muslims prostrate in prayer, carried out by a rel

Vashti as Feminist Hero

Sat, 08 Sep 2001 21:46:40 -0400

Rabbi Arthur Waskow

PURIM: VASHTI AS FEMINIST HERO

Midrashim found in the Talmud about Queen Vashti set out to denigrate her and explain her behaviors as cruel, base and vain. Such descriptions of Vashti are not found in Megillat Esther itse