Fiction and Fact: Reflections on an Extraordinary Purim
As I write these lines, I am fasting, abstaining from food and drink in keeping with the strictures of Ta’anit Ester, the fast of Esther on Erev Purim. While I typically adhere to all the fast days of the Jewish calendar, my doing so for this one is tinged with hesitation. The siege of Jerusalem and destruction of the two Temples happened in history. And so whatever my qualms about the Temple, both in the actual past and in a potential messianic future, I recognize the tragedy that these events portended for our people.
Similarly, I have no doubt that in post-destruction Judah, a Jewish governor, Gedaliah, was felled by fellow Jews, an act deserving of far more attention that it receives. But Purim, I am no less certain, is fiction; the Megillah, a brilliant, incisive, even astonishing work of make-believe, a fantasy of threatened Jewish genocide followed by a fantasy of enacted Jewish revenge.
What about the Exodus, you might well interject? To be sure, I have no idea how, or if indeed at all, a Yetziat Mitzrayim transpired. But even if legendary, it is a legend that emerged organically among our ancestors and forms the foundation of our identity. The story of Purim, by contrast, is a creation (or at least a redaction) of individual genius. To fast for fiction strikes me as questionable, even as I typically oblige.
This year, the fictionality of Purim looms even larger in my thoughts, for – to borrow for a moment from the next holiday to come – this Purim is different from all others. Along the same lines, as I texted an old friend after Shabbat, “this was a Shabbat Zakhor to remember.” Never before has Amalek been served up to us on that day as he was this year. And if in the Megillah we read of the death of Haman, his sons, his supporters, as we approach Purim this time around, they are already dead.
It is hard not to take great satisfaction at their demise, to feel justice has been done and future disaster averted. Can Bret Stephens be wrong, when he writes in yesterday’s New York Times that Trump and Netanyahu “are doing the free world a favor”? And yet the seeming enactment of fiction before our very eyes – for I cannot believe that the timing of this tempest is mere chance (and I can well imagine someone flattering Trump by whispering in his ear, “was it not for a time like this that you attained the kingship?”) – gives me great pause.
Is it not dangerous to behave as if we can truly blot out Amalek, as if Mordechai (Israel?) has indeed become second-in-command for Ahashverosh (the United States?)? Do our texts not risk fostering illusions as to the influence and efficacy of our force? If my experience of the world and study of history has taught me anything, it is that success in the short run often leads to failure down the road (to give but four examples: the triumph over Nazi Germany paved way for a half century of servitude for half of Europe; the successful 1953 US and UK-engineered coup in Iran fostered resentments that emerged in the 1979 revolution; Israel’s lightning victory in ‘67 led to the debacle of ‘73 and to the ambiguous liberation/occupation that has endured ever since; the success of the Gulf War prepared the ground for 9/11).
And this presumes that all will go well in the days ahead, itself extremely uncertain at this moment. What impact will this adventure have on the egos of Trump and Netanyahu, on the democratic cultures of their respective nations, on attitudes vis-a-vis Jews and Israel in an increasingly isolationist and xenophobic U.S.? What dangerous forces will the decimation of Iran set in motion? One thing seems clear: when this dust settles, there will still be evil in the world. And the hard questions will not have been answered. On the contrary.
