Rabbi Heller's Blog

This Shabbat is Shabbat Zachor, as we begin observing Purim on Saturday night. As I write, today is a fast day, Ta’anit Esther, which normally precedes Purim. However, its purpose and schedule are both doubly odd this year. The fast is traditionally observed on the day immediately before Purim, but in years like this when Purim starts Saturday night, the fast is adjusted to avoid fasting on Shabbat or even leading into it.  That’s not the odd part. Even in normal years, the fast day does not correspond with history the way people think it does. Understanding the fast gives us new insight into the feast that follows, and into what it means to be Jewish, this Purim in particular.   

The classic explanation for the Fast of Esther is that it commemorates the three days when Esther asked the Jews to join her in fasting before she went to King Ahashverosh to begin the process of lobbying for protection from Haman’s evil decree. The problem is that the decree was made just a few days before Passover, and so Esther’s visit to the king, Haman’s downfall, and the undoing of his decrees all took place during Passover and the weeks following, not at the Purim season. In fact, one Talmudic sage suggests that the days of fasting included the night of seder! So chronologically, the fast does not correspond to the dates of Esther’s fast. Also, according to the Talmud, the day before Purim was a minor feast day, called Yom Nikanor, on which fasting was prohibited. 

In fact, the 13^th of Adar, which we observe as a fast day, was the day on which Haman’s decree was originally slated to go into effect. In the end, the decree was not nullified, only countermanded, and so that became the day on which the Jews were able to rise up pre-emptimvely and kill their enemies. How we think about the fast says a lot about how we think about the world we live in today. We can follow the traditional explanation, and see the fast day as commemorating the tenuousness of life in the diaspora, where our well-being is dependent on lobbying, on navigating shifting alliances, and on not knowing which friends will be reliable in our moment of need. Certainly, as we navigate these times, the feeling of not knowing who our friends are and who will stand up for us, is all too real.

Alternatively, we can note that this day of fasting is the anniversary of our almost-extermination, and of our armed response. In Judaism, we are often halfhearted about celebrating our military triumphs (perhaps because there have been so few). In this case, we intentionally choose to make a day of celebration, not from the day of our victory, but from the following day when we rested and did not have to fight. Some might suggest that when we fast on the 13^th of Adar, it means that we are showing that we are not wholehearted in celebrating our victory because it came with deaths of the enemy. Indeed, I have colleagues who omit the part of the Megillah that describes that victory from their public reading because it makes them uncomfortable. Perhaps the polar opposite view is that we can never play down or forget attempts to annihilate us. Once a day has been associated with our near destruction, no amount of miraculous reversal can undo that underlying tone. We can never forget how close we came, nor can we ever drop our vigilance.

Many wonder whether it is truly possible to celebrate Purim this year in light of all that is going on in the world, when our people at war, still fighting for the return of our captives, andwhen so many are arrayed against us. Of course, the essence of Purim is that we do celebrate, even in the face of our foes. This is not the first, the tenth, or even the thousandth time that Jews have read the Megillah wondering whether their story would end the same way. Our ancestors continued to eat and drink, gragger Haman’s name, and give to others, even when they barely had for themselves. The fast of Esther gives us the opportunity to counterbalance that celebration with an awareness of the seriousness of the time.