Shabbat Tetzaveh 5784

A year of Adar I and Purim Katan

וְהַיָּמִ֣ים הָ֠אֵ֠לֶּה נִזְכָּרִ֨ים וְנַעֲשִׂ֜ים בְּכׇל־דּ֣וֹר וָד֗וֹר מִשְׁפָּחָה֙ וּמִשְׁפָּחָ֔ה מְדִינָ֥ה וּמְדִינָ֖ה וְעִ֣יר וָעִ֑יר וִימֵ֞י הַפּוּרִ֣ים הָאֵ֗לֶּה לֹ֤א יַֽעַבְרוּ֙ מִתּ֣וֹךְ הַיְּהוּדִ֔ים וְזִכְרָ֖ם לֹא־יָס֥וּף מִזַּרְעָֽם        

Consequently, these days are recalled and observed in every generation: by every family, every province, and every city. And these days of Purim shall never cease among the Jews, and the memory of them shall never perish among their descendants – Megillat Ester 9.28

Once upon a time in the pre-modern world, a custom was widely practiced that had to do with the precarious existence of Jewish communities that lived as small minorities within non-Jewish societies. It was called Purim sheni, “second Purim.” In places where Jews had survived a near disaster brought about by antisemitism, they commemorated the date yearly just as Esther and Mordecai created the first such commemoration in ancient Persia.

There’s a special Purim that was celebrated by the community for generations in Ancona, in Cairo, in Florence and in Fuoco; there’s one known to the Jews of Narbonne, Rhodes, Saragossa and Shiraz. There’s even one that was observed by the Jews of Tiberias.

In each case – and more than this – our people recognized their contemporary experience as resonant with our ancestors’ and found shared meaning in what was otherwise simply brute suffering and trauma. A close call became an opportunity for yearly rehearsal and celebration, rather than simply stocking up jangled nerves and the development of maladaptations to future dangers.

How? by insisting on hope as an essential Jewish ethic. Lurianic mystical teachings from 15th century Sefat offer the image of little sparks hidden in larger “shells” that obscure them, shells of evil and suffering within which there always can be found a spark of hope, of holiness, of meaning. One such spark appears in our Jewish calendar today.

Today, 14 Adar I 5784, is Purim Katan, “little Purim,” a small intimation of what we celebrate one month from now. Every time the Jewish calendar adds the leap month of Adar II, seven times in a 19 year cycle, Purim is put off until the second month of Adar, and Adar I becomes a time of anticipation, and the deferred gratification of all that spring promises. We have to wait another month to celebrate the beginning of spring hopes, but on the date that would have been Purim in a non-leap year, we hint at it: add a bit of festivity to the day, the meal, the otherwise perhaps cloudy, dark and wet final days of winter.

Purim Katan, with its anticipation of the possibility of joy, is not the same as Purim Sheni, with its overwhelming relief at escape from certain catastrophe. Yet for all of us, it is what life these days is about; the bittersweet knowledge that with every joy comes certain fears (we’ll have security outside for our Purim celebration) and, at the same time, the longing in the midst of our anxieties for the release of a moment of happiness. Both of these states of being exist and they both cry out for expression.

And in the end, one of them is not meant to define us; it’s the dance that embraces them both. A close escape is not just something to seek sympathy for. It’s cause for celebration. Let Purim Katan be the beginning of a practice of seeing daily moments of joy, not sorrow, so that when Purim itself comes along in another month, we’ll be able to fulfill the sunlit words of the end of the Megillah we’ll hear together, G*d willing:

לַיְּהוּדִ֕ים הָֽיְתָ֥ה אוֹרָ֖ה וְשִׂמְחָ֑ה וְשָׂשֹׂ֖ן וִיקָֽר׃ 

The Jews enjoyed light and gladness, happiness and honor. (Megillat Ester 8.16)