Can I think of Purim without thinking of Hitler? Many years ago I was taught Haman is an acronym of “Hitler, Melech Natzim”, Hitler king of the Nazis. But even without that acronym, the story of threatened extermination way back when is quite similar to the threat of extermination 70 or so years ago, although Hitler was much more successful than Haman and our Mordecais were quite feeble compared to the uncle niece duo of Mordecai and Esther.
Purim is not only a story of salvation it is a story of vengeance. Some Jew heading towards the gas chambers inscribed “Remember” on the wall. Another Jew inscribed “Nekama” or vengeance. It is interesting to me that the word Nekama and the word Nechama (consolation) are so close to each other. (And even the difference between pronunciation of the kuf of nekama and the chet of nechama requires a lessening of the tension in the back of the throat- as if nekama is the path of the straight backed soldier and nechama is the path of the man who has given up.)
Our rabbis teach that there is no literal Amalek today. The Assyrian world conquerors mingled the peoples together so that the previous nations were erased and reassembled Assyrian style, so that all the nations referred to in the Torah no longer exist except the Children of Israel, the Jews, who resisted the assimilation and maintained our identity. But there are other rabbis today, who speak of the characteristics of Amalek and find them in certain of our adversaries.
The five books of Moses are hardly susceptible to amendments, certainly not from the likes of me. The emphasis on Amalek and revenge and memory are extraneous to my way of thinking. Vengeance and memory are all too easy. We need God for the hard stuff like peace and reconciliation.
A holiday of drinking, eating and costumes is great and pleasant enough not to be erased by the attempt to secularize. The attempt to assimilate will mean that we will drink eat and masquerade on Halloween or Mardi Gras, but the secularized Israelis can and do celebrate the Purim holiday particularly the costumes.
The toxic adult content of Purim will not be sufficiently diluted until the war aspect of our existence can be detoxified through peace or extended cease fire. In other words- not soon.
God’s name does not appear in the Book of Esther. Even the very name Esther contains the root word seter or secret or hidden. We are also told that God engages in a behavior called hester panim, hiding his face. Thus god’s hiddenness is in the very name of the book. (God’s existence or knowledge is not contradicted by nature or reality. The idea that God is a caring God is contradicted and quite hidden if true.)
