Tag: purim

Purim 2019 Message

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Chag Sameach!!

Happy holiday! Last night began the festival known as Purim, which is the plural for the word Pur, meaning Lots. It is a very joyful Jewish holiday that celebrates our salvation from extinction, which was orchestrated by the hated Persian Vizier, Haman.

By the way, in case you didn’t know it, Haman was a descendant of Agog, which means he was an Amalekite, one of the ancient enemies of the Jewish people.

If you aren’t familiar with the story, it is the Book of Esther in the Bible. It isn’t very long and is the only book in the entire Bible where there is no mention of God. And that is the basis for today’s message.

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One of the most important parts of this story is when Mordecai (the hero) asks his niece, Hadassah (Esther, the heroine) to go to the king and try to save the Jews from the irreversible edict Haman (the bad guy) fooled the king into signing, which calls for the total destruction of all the Jews in all the 27 provinces throughout the land. Esther initially refuses because she is afraid to go to the king, and through intermediaries tells Mordecai that the law states if anyone approaches the king without him asking them to come, they will be killed- unless the king raises his scepter to allow their visit.

Today’s message is based on what Mordecai says right after Esther’s refusal to go to the king (Esther 4: 12-14):

They relayed Esther’s words to Mordechai, and Mordechai said to relay to Esther, “Do not think that you will escape [the fate of] all the Jews by being in the king’s palace. For if you will remain silent at this time, relief and salvation will come to the Jews from another source, and you and the house of your father will be lost. And who knows if it is not for just such a time that you reached this royal position.”

When Mordecai tells Esther relief and salvation will come to the Jews from another source, that source is never mentioned beyond this vague reference, but Mordecai is clearly referring to God. He is demonstrating the faithfulness that all righteous persons have in God to save his people, no matter how doomed (by human viewpoint) they seem to be. Even when we don’t mention or acknowledge God, he is there. This is what many people don’t understand about him: just because we don’t see clear and absolute evidence of the existence of God, that doesn’t mean he isn’t here. He has been, he is now, and he always will be here, whether he shows himself evident or not.

If you ask me, the reason people say they don’t see evidence of God in their everyday life is simply that they refuse to accept what they see. A flower opening at day and closing at night; bees being able to fly even though science says they are aeronautically incapable of flight; baby prey animals being able to run within an hour of birth whereas baby predators can’t hunt on their own for years; two cells coming together against immeasurable odds and from that joining nine months later a complete human being is born.

These are all miracles and evidence not just of God’s existence, but of his wonderful design. Yet, if someone wants to refuse to accept this as evidence of God’s existence, they rationalize it away convinced that just because use we can understand the science behind the event, it isn’t really a miracle.

Eyes that cannot see.

I also want to talk about when Mordecai tells Esther perhaps the reason she was chosen as queen was specifically for this moment; he is telling her that God put her where she is so she could save God’s people. In other words, God has directed her entire life just for this one moment.

When we read the Book of Jonah (1:17), it says God created a fish to swallow Jonah. Jewish tradition tells us that God created that species of fish, way back on the 5th day of creation, specifically so that it would be there when he needed it to swallow Jonah.

Talk about planning ahead!

Mordecai was certainly a faithful and righteous man: he knew that no matter what the odds were against God’s people, God would, somehow, save them. Clearly, he understood that God has a Plan, and a backup plan, and a Plan C, and probably plans throughout the entire alphabet, all of which are designed so that God’s ultimate plan will be accomplished.

This is the lesson for us from the Book of Esther: God’s is always here, he has his plans for the future and those plans will be accomplished. He has accounted for every single person and creature, each with some part to play in his ultimate plan of salvation, and we all have the option to participate or to sit it out. Esther participated, and through her, God saved his people.

But what if she had chickened out? What if she figured, even though Mordecai warned her, because she was the Numera Una queen and no one knew she was a Jew, she could slide by? If that had happened, there would be no Book of Esther in the Bible. It would be the Book of Mordecai or the Book of Ethelynn, or maybe there wouldn’t even be a book, just an entry by one of the later Prophets telling us how God overcame this threat against his people.

Have you ever wondered how many people that aren’t in the Bible might have been there if they had accepted their role in God’s plan?

Don’t be one of those who never gets mentioned. God’s plans aren’t finished yet, and even though the Bible is complete, when the End Days are ended and we are in God’s presence for all eternity, maybe then there will be a new Bible and you might be in that one. Who knows? You or I may one day be a hero for God, we just haven’t received the call yet.

So keep your ears open and constantly listening for God’s calling in your life. You never know when he may call on you to help accomplish his plan.

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Thank you for being here and until next time, L’hitraot and Baruch HaShem!

Happy Purim!! Chag S’Meach!! Yom Tov!!

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This is one of the happiest festivals we have. Fairs, games, reading the book of Esther (Hadassah) with groggers and shouting.

For those that don’t know the way we read this book in the Synagogue, groggers (noisemakers) are handed out to everyone, adults and children. When we read the book (it’s short) every time the name of Hamen is said, we use the groggers because his name should be blotted out from memory (he who shall not be named!) When the name of Esther is read, we all say, “aaaahhhhhh” because she was so beautiful, and when Mordecai’s name comes up we all shout, “Yay!!” because he’s the hero.

There is a traditional belief that during the celebration of Purim we are to imbibe so much that we get too drunk to know Mordecai from Hamen, and the favorite food of the night is Hamentashen, a cookie that is shaped like a three-cornered hat (which Hamen is supposed to have worn) and the center is filled with prune (traditional filling), or other fruit jellies, such as apricot or cherry, or even poppy-seed.

One of the more interesting facts about the book of Hadassah (I prefer not to use Esther, because even though that is today considered a “Jewish” name, it is actually a form of the Semitic goddess of fertility, Asherah) is that the name of the Lord is not mentioned anywhere in the book. Not even once. The closest we come to even mentioning there is a God is when Mordecai tells Hadassah, who is trying to avoid going to the king, that if she doesn’t stand up for the people, help will come from another place (implying the Lord.) That’s as close as we get to hearing about God.

I have read that this was done because the book was written in Shushan, and as a form of respect to the royalty they left any specific mention of God out of it. I hope that is wrong; Yeshua told us that if we are ashamed of Him then He will be ashamed of us, and I can’t see someone as fearless as Mordecai, who refused to bow before Hamen, worrying that he might upset the king if he mentions God. I think this lack of God’s name or mention is one mystery that we may never solve.

Another thing I speak out about is that Hadassah, who I have always been taught was brave, wasn’t so brave. When Mordecai asked her to intervene on behalf of the Jewish people the first thing she said was no. True, she didn’t come right out and say, “Hey, Unc: I got mine, so tough for the rest of you.” but she used the excuse that if she went before the king, without being called for, she might die. It was only after Mordecai told her just because she is the queen she won’t escape the fate of the other Jews that she relented. I wonder, reading between the lines, if Mordecai wasn’t saying that somewhere, someone (I don’t think it would ever have been him) who knew Hadassah was a Jew would rat her out in order to try to save their own life. From my perspective, Hadassah had to be coerced into saving her people. That doesn’t detract from the fact that she did risk her life, but she clearly wasn’t up to it without a “push” from good old Uncle Mordecai.

And she isn’t alone. Moses needed more than push, Jonah almost had to drown, and Gideon tested the Lord with sheepskin and morning dew. Twice! Not all the great heros of the Bible were heros right from the start. It reminds me of the parable Yeshua tells of the two sons (it’s in Mattitayu.) The one who first said no but changed his mind is the one that actually did what the father wanted, while the other immediately said he would do as asked, but he never did. The first son, who initially was rebellious and disrespectful, was the one who ended up being the more obedient.

Being a godly person isn’t easy, and often we may find ourselves looking for ways to avoid what God calls us to do. If you see this in yourself, there is no need to berate yourself or feel low, so long as you are working towards obedience. In the end, God wants obedience, and He is more than willing (and He shows this to us throughout the Bible) to overlook any initial reluctance. In the end, it is what we do that counts.

How many times do we read in the Tanakh that God is not pleased with the blood of bulls and rams, but desires obedience over everything else? The answer is: a lot.

When I was in sales I learned that people don’t mean what they say, the mean what they do. God wants us to do, and if we say we don’t want to, so what?  I also know that even when I don’t want to do something I know God wants me to do, and even if I do it kvetching and arguing and whining about it, so long as I do it I am pleasing the Lord.

Of course, it would be even more pleasing to Him if I just did it without all the drama. Or better yet, if I did it willingly and cheerfully. Now that, in my case, would be a miracle!

Enjoy this wonderful holiday, and remember what we Jews always like to say as a “short and sweet” condensing of our history:

They tried to kill us, we killed them. Let’s eat!

Take comfort in knowing that the hero’s in the Bible didn’t always start out that way, just as we didn’t start out as Believers. It isn’t what we say, or even what we want, but what we do that will determine our future.

So, nu? What are you doing to determine your future?