After Oct. 7 massacre, fulfilling the mitzvah of Purim will be different

This year, Purim will be unlike previous years, although not necessarily outwardly. The joy of the holiday conflicts with the aftermath of the Oct. 7 massacre and the knowledge that soldiers are continuing to fall in battle, while 130 hostages remain captive in Gaza.

Nevertheless, perhaps also as a sign of defiance, the festivities will continue as usual in most of the country. It is customary to wear costumes on Purim, and many children will reportedly be dressing up as IDF soldiers.

According to the Jerusalem Municipality website, the annual late-night event for teens will include a performance by rapper Vibe Ish from Tel Aviv. 

Jerusalem Adloyada, a huge Purim parade in the city center, will be held for the first time in over 40 years: “The parade will spotlight the ‘little heroes’ in our lives, namely our children, who are coping bravely with the current situation and demonstrating resilience and fortitude.”

The Tel Aviv-Jaffa Municipality “will hold Purim events with a variety of activities throughout the city and in community centers amid the shadow of the war,” according to its website. Events include parades, performances, and dozens of activities in community centers.

“The Haifa Municipality decided to have fewer events,” spokesperson Eliran Tal told the Magazine. “There will be special events in the community centers but not big events – very modest, with mostly local artists. We want the children and teenagers to have the opportunity to go out and have fun, but it will be less than in previous years. For adults, there will be a lot of private events and parties,” and the municipality will be organizing “smaller ones in the community centers.”

ASKED IF HE had mixed feelings about celebrating Purim this year, Jerusalem resident Jacob Maslow said, “This is Israel. We are resilient. Life goes on.”

Arye Dobuler, another Jerusalemite, was emphatic. “Not at all. People need light and uplifting even in the darkest times, but of course it must be done with sensitivity, care, and kindness. I’m against firecrackers, overboard drunks, etc.,” he said.

Dobuler is hosting a family-friendly festival “to uplift the people of Jerusalem and the evacuees.” 

Geek*Station 2024, a festival of science-fiction, fantasy, comics, manga, and role-playing, will take place on Monday from 10 a.m. to 8 p.m. at Jerusalem’s First Station.

Arik Naim, 69, is from Netanya. He and his wife have four children and 10 grandchildren. “Despite the situation in which the country has been since Oct. 7, despite the concern for the safety of our soldiers at the borders, and despite the fear for the lives of the hostages, we are preparing to celebrate the coming holiday of Purim with great joy and without any fear or apprehension,” he said. “We have complete faith in the Master of the Universe, who is watching over each one of us and his people, the nation of Israel.”

Quoting the Passover Haggadah, he added, “In each and every generation they rise up against us to destroy us. And the Holy One, blessed be He, rescues us from their hands.”

“Even today, we are in a period of trial that will very soon turn into a great victory and great joy,” said Naim, who has close family members serving in the IDF. “Therefore, with God’s help, we will celebrate the holiday of Purim with joy, faith, and expectation of God’s salvation because the people of Israel are the people of eternity.”

Lynda and Manny Greenberg made aliyah from Toronto two years ago. Manny is a pediatrician now practicing in Israel, and Lynda used to work as a preschool teacher. Fourteen of their 17 grandchildren also live in Israel.

“From my point of view, it is true that there are more children than usual now who are suffering from anxiety due to the war,” Manny said. “Thankfully, most children aren’t suffering in a severe sense, and simple advice and reassurance are all they need. One thing I try to encourage parents to do is to keep life routines as normal as possible. The more routines change because of the political situation, the more anxiety is fostered.”

Lynda posed a question and then answered it: “How do we celebrate [the joyous Hebrew month of] Adar and Purim with so much happiness when we have soldiers dying and our hostages are still in Gaza? In my opinion, our soldiers are fighting for us so that we can continue to celebrate our holidays. Not celebrating would be giving in to our enemies. That doesn’t diminish the fact that we are constantly thinking of the war and how many people are affected by it.”

She added, “Last night, I did a stand-up comedy routine. I had to talk myself into doing it; how can we be sitting around laughing, considering what’s going on in our country? But it seems that most people I’ve spoken with feel the same way. They say that even though we are all consumed with what is happening around us, it’s okay to enjoy life also.”

Modi’in resident Tzipora Lifchitz said, “I think joy is transcendent, not indulgent. It’s a way to access reality beyond rationale. It’s a sign of resilience in the face of adversity.

“I’m generally not into Purim but feel like it’s imperative this year to affirm Am Yisrael chai [the people of Israel lives] in all ways.”

“The commandment is to observe the chagim [Jewish holidays]. It’s the correct thing to do. And the themes of Purim have a special resonance, since it’s about Haman the Jew-hater directing the Persian [Iranian] empire to wipe us out, and we, with the help of God, turning the tables on him and his plan, just as we today are taking down Hamas, the Jew-haters who, at the behest of Iran, crave our genocide,” said Beit Shemesh resident Mark Bernstein. 

“Nothing could be more relevant. And don’t forget, there were Jewish inmates who secretly baked matzah in Auschwitz for Seder night, and Jews in Mauthausen who would trade their bread ration to borrow a siddur.

“We have an obligation in dark times to live an even more Jewish life in answer to our enemies, not a diminished one. This investment in spiritual energy can only help to protect our soldiers – and the hostages, if they are still in Gaza at Purim – and bring us to victory.”

Dafna Strauss, a Canadian-Israeli cybersecurity analyst based in Tel Aviv, noted that “just recently, at work, we were talking about this year’s Eurovision song and why it has to be a sad song. In fact, I think a happy song is more in the “We will dance again” spirit. But on the other hand, so many hostages are still in a terrible situation, and so many soldiers are dying and in danger.”

She concluded, “I don’t have a strong opinion on this. Everyone should celebrate Purim in a way that affirms their values and reflects their state of mind.”

Adele Raemer, a blogger and educator from Kibbutz Nirim near the Gaza border, one of the main targets of the Oct. 7 massacre, told the Magazine, “We decided to have a Purim celebration for the children as if it’s any other year. It will be different, of course, since we’re not home. Adults aren’t celebrating.”

The Nirim families were evacuated after the attacks, and most of them are in Beersheba. 

Eva Etzioni-Halevy, a professor emerita at Bar-Ilan University, is the author of 12 biblical novels. One of them, Vatemaen Vashti, sheds a different light on the Purim megillah. 

Etzioni-Halevy is a Holocaust survivor who, as a child, escaped Austria with her parents and was subsequently in an Italian concentration camp before hiding in the Italian mountains. Etzioni-Halevy gave the Magazine a unique perspective on the celebration of Purim this year.

“To me, a Holocaust survivor, the Purim story was always a contemporary story: Haman-Amalek wanted to destroy the Jewish people at a time that, according to many researchers, was after the Koresh declaration. This was the ‘Balfour Declaration’ of ancient times, which made it possible for the Jews to return to Israel [Judea] after the Babylonian exile. So, Mordechai, as a Jewish leader, could have called on the Jews to ‘make aliyah’ and defend themselves in their own country. But as a true Diaspora Jew, he preferred to remain sitting on the fleshpot and to send Esther to plead with the king for her people.

“Similarly, before the Holocaust, when Hitler-Amalek was beginning to show his true colors and it was still possible for Jews to come to Palestine, so many preferred to remain in exile, in affluence, and they subsequently perished – and I was almost among them. And this time, there was no Esther to save us.

“Since then, we have been used to thinking of Israel as our safe haven, where we can rest assured that ‘never again’ will there be another Holocaust. Then came the seventh of October, which turned everything upside down. Like in the Purim story, it was venahafoch hu [everything flipped], but the other way around – not from bad to good but from good to bad.

“What makes it so hard to celebrate Purim with joy in Israel this year is that Sinwar-Amalek and his associates, by wreaking on us a small holocaust, demonstrated that Israel is no longer the safe haven for the Jewish people we believed it to be. We will have to work very hard and for a long time to re-establish our confidence in our country before we can feel joyous on Purim again. May it happen in our days. Amen!”

MAGEN DAVID ADOM issued a statement ahead of the holiday that included a long list of safety directives.

“This year more than ever, and especially in light of the Swords of Iron War, children and parents are asked to refrain from using explosives, firecrackers, fireworks, and any device that may simulate explosive sounds,” it said.

“We wish the people of Israel a happy Purim holiday. At the same time, we call on the public to obey the directives of the Home Front Command, to be vigilant and to take extra precautions alongside the holiday entertainment. This year, MDA teams will be on standby throughout the country to provide medical treatment during an emergency,” said MDA Director Eli Bin.

The Magazine asked Rabbi David Milston, the director of the Overseas Program at Midreshet HaRova, a seminary for post-high school girls in Jerusalem’s Old City, whether more safety precautions will be taken this year compared with previous years.

“There’s always a concern for safety, and we’re always taking advice from the powers that be and the security organizations, whether it’s the local police in the Rova [square] or the police in Jerusalem,” Milston said.

“We’re constantly in touch with them and checking before, after, and during any activities. We’re in the Old City; we are extra careful with security on Ramadan, though I have to say that most of the people who come here are coming here to pray, and they don’t come to cause trouble. I’ve been here for 30 years, and in our experience, thank God, it’s generally been fine.

“That doesn’t make us complacent. We have our guards. We have our cameras. We have to carry on living.”

What if the girls go downtown, where there’s lots of partying, and they are unaware of potential danger, such as Arabs posing as Jews?

“In general, the girls are with us on Purim,” the rabbi replied. “On the day before, they have activities, and on Purim itself we have programming most of the time. There is very little time when they’re on their own. They have maybe a couple of hours to go to a seuda [festive meal] in the afternoon, and in the evening they’re with us. Since they’re in Israel for Purim, we want them to have the right experience.” 

IN A video clip ahead of Purim, Safed Chief Rabbi Shmuel Eliyahu said the IDF soldiers fighting the present-day Amalek are fulfilling the obligation to celebrate Purim in the highest way possible.

“What is the greater mitzvah? To actively erase Amalek or to read about what happened when the Jews were victorious in ancient Persia?

“There’s no question that those who are fighting in Gaza and elsewhere to destroy this evil are fulfilling the mitzvah of Purim in the most glorious way.” 

Judaism’s approach to cognitive dissonance

The Magazine discussed the challenges faced this year regarding Purim and the conflicting emotions of holiday joy and wartime loss with Rabbi Baruch Taub, the founding rabbi and rabbi emeritus of Beth Avraham Yosef of Toronto congregation (BAYT), one of the largest Orthodox synagogues in North America. He and his wife are now retired and living in Israel, where he continues his rabbinic activity in many areas.

“Cognitive dissonance is often the source of emotional problems and psychological stress,” he explained.

“In Judaism, however, we can view cognitive dissonance in a positive way. The reality is that Judaism is complicated; the God of Israel expects us to live with conflicting emotions.”

In fact, he said, “One of the qualifications of a prophet, according to Maimonides, is that he must be joyful. That means, said the Hazon Ish [Rabbi Avrohom Yeshaya Karelitz, a leading haredi rabbi, 1878-1953, known by the name of his magnum opus], that when Jeremiah wrote the Book of Lamentations, he was joyful. That’s a very powerful comment.

“The last 70 to 80 years of Jewish history have been a blip on the radar screen. Since the terrible years of the Shoah [Holocaust], followed by the establishment of the State of Israel, almost three generations of Jews have grown up without really experiencing what Jewish history has been like for us.

“But now, the party is over, and we are back in Jewish history. The blip on the radar screen is gone, and the salvation of Purim really speaks to that. Purim is not just a Jewish Halloween. Purim is a celebration of Jewish survival while our enemies try to destroy us, and it’s physical survival, as opposed to Hanukkah, which is about spiritual survival.

“And the story isn’t over yet. Ahashverosh still remains king. But the simcha [joy] of Purim is that we can continue to thrive with that cognitive dissonance. Ahashverosh is not going away, but we can survive. Until the final redemption, it’s not going to be perfect.

“So, how do we get through life? The irony is that for thousands of years, we sat down at the Purim seuda [feast], danced, and sang, and at the Passover Seder, we leaned on our cushions like kings and queens, and so on; but for the overwhelming majority of them, we were in trouble. We were in situations like the one we’re in now, and even worse. That’s the greatness of the Jewish people. We respond to the challenges that God gave us not by asking why; we can’t fully understand what He does, but we know what He wants us to do, which is to step up to the plate.”

Elaborating on the current situation, Taub said that “one of the important messages of Megillat Esther [the Scroll of Esther] is: What motivated Haman to say that this was the right time to strike? The megillah quotes him as saying, ‘The Jewish people are mefuzar u’mefurad [totally disunified].

“When I think of what we’re going through right now, it’s such a bristling passage. The Hamans of today have been quoted as saying that the reason they started the war when they did was because they saw the disunity of the Jewish people.

“They saw what was going on before the last six months – the tremendous rallies, hundreds of thousands of people fighting each other. [Hamas leader] Yahya Sinwar himself – ‘sin’ and ‘war,’ what an appropriate name – was quoted as saying so.

“So, how do we respond to that? I don’t want to sound sophomoric and say, ‘Why can’t we all just get together?’ But it is that.

“It’s about recognizing that I have an opinion, and someone else has a different opinion; we’re a complicated people, but there should be conversation and embrace. One of the great customs of Purim is mishloach manot [sending gifts of food and drink], and one of the reasons for it is to counteract the disunity that Haman saw.”

As for the anti-government demonstrations demanding the hostages’ immediate return, Taub said, “There are two kinds of hostages out there. There are also the holy soldiers, they’re also hostages, and we’ve lost four times as many soldiers as there are captives, who are hopefully still living.

“One cannot be critical of the families,” he stressed. “We cannot imagine the anguish and the pain that they’re going through, and we pray that all the hostages – the captives and the soldiers – come home soon. But the challenge is that we must also celebrate.

“The God of Israel wants us to respond to all of these conflicting emotions. This is our task. This way, we will be embracing Jewish tradition.

“Purim is not just a children’s holiday. We’re adults, and we live with conflicting emotions. And that’s Purim.”