Purim’s Message is Important — but We Need Another Kind of Joy

Purim and Chanukah are very different holidays.

They are different for a whole host of obvious reasons, but one particularly distinguishing detail is the nature of their celebrations. Chanukah, despite celebrating the Temple dedication that happened on a single day, is observed for eight days to commemorate another miracle at the end of the story. Purim, conversely, is a long story consisting of several smaller miracles that culminate in a single day of celebration. 

This distinguishing feature between these rabbinically-mandated holidays speaks to their themes. While Chanukah is about the accumulation of miracles, Purim is about the culmination of them.

Esther 9:1
וּבִשְׁנֵים֩ עָשָׂ֨ר חֹ֜דֶשׁ הוּא־חֹ֣דֶשׁ אֲדָ֗ר בִּשְׁלוֹשָׁ֨ה עָשָׂ֥ר יוֹם֙ בּ֔וֹ אֲשֶׁ֨ר הִגִּ֧יעַ דְּבַר־הַמֶּ֛לֶךְ וְדָת֖וֹ לְהֵעָשׂ֑וֹת בַּיּ֗וֹם אֲשֶׁ֨ר שִׂבְּר֜וּ אֹיְבֵ֤י הַיְּהוּדִים֙ לִשְׁל֣וֹט בָּהֶ֔ם וְנַהֲפ֣וֹךְ ה֔וּא אֲשֶׁ֨ר יִשְׁלְט֧וּ הַיְּהוּדִ֛ים הֵ֖מָּה בְּשֹׂנְאֵיהֶֽם׃

And so, on the thirteenth day of the twelfth month—that is, the month of Adar—when the king’s command and decree were to be executed, the very day on which the enemies of the Jews had expected to get them in their power, the opposite happened [ve-nahafoch hu], and the Jews got their enemies in their power.

One of Purim’s defining themes is emphasized by the point in the Megillah when the Jews’ circumstances suddenly flip in their favor, and it’s only once that moment passes that the holiday is celebrated. Traditionally understood, this underscores a message we’re supposed to integrate into our lives — that our circumstances can change in an instant. 

Circumstances can change from one moment to the next. This is an optimistic message, one that has consistently inspired Jews to survive ruthless oppression and abuse as they held onto the belief that things could change. And yet, the tragic reality is that not everyone gets to see those grandiose ve-nahafoch hu moments the Megillah portrays. More often than not, people facing tragedy and challenges don’t get to see massive turnarounds of the Purim story’s proportions. For many, ve-nahafoch hu moments can even turn sweet situations into sour ones, as they watch the direction of their lives take dramatic turns for the worse like losing a job, failing a test, or — in my case — losing my father. 

Last year, my father passed away from pancreatic cancer after an eleven-month battle. Over the course of that year, he had countless ve-nahafoch hu moments. Some were good, but most were painful — a treatment failing, a medication suddenly unavailable, or a symptom intensifying beyond expectation. Those events never stopped us from trying, but there was a point where the reality of our circumstances sank in. Tragically, I imagine the same is true for the countless families of hostages and/or soldiers, unsure of the conditions of their loved ones, and especially for the families who have learned of the tragic fates of their loved ones in the Israel-Hamas War. Sometimes there is no ve-nahafoch hu, and we need a different message to meet those tragic and real parts of life.

I would never advise against hoping for those ve-nahafoch hu moments. Hope is essential to living, and there are moments of seemingly divine intervention that can completely change your life and almost compel you to celebrate, like those of the Megillah. I’ve been privileged to see such moments — like the day I met my wife and the day I met my daughter. But for people who’ve been through horror and tragedy, it isn’t fair to ask them to wait until the end of the Megillah to celebrate a larger miracle they know isn’t coming. 

Over the course of that year, as my dad fought his illness, my daughter Mila and I regularly visited him in my childhood home for Shabbos. We grew up in a large, quiet house in the woods, and as my dad was increasingly unable to get out of bed, a sadness punctuated the stillness of the air as it rustled through the leaves outside our windows. Those weekends were long and heartbreaking, but as much as people tell me to try and forget those painful memories, I would never trade them for anything in the world. Amidst the pain and quietude of those long Saturdays, often the only sound in the house was my daughter’s laughter as she played with the toys I grew up with, in the house I grew up in, in the room where I played with them, with the father who gave them to me.

Over the course of that year, I got to relive my childhood through hers. I saw the world I once knew and was slowly losing through someone just learning about it, as we took walks to the cow field across the street, and as we ventured through thick snow to the edges of our backyard. She mastered walking in my childhood living room, a space far bigger than our New York City apartment. She learned to say “Zaidy” — and she still asks to see him. Those quiet weekends were long, and there was never a true ve-nahafoch hu moment — but in hindsight, they were so short.

Purim’s story can be about recognizing the possibility of total change. But I have learned that hope for total change should not come at the expense of the smaller moments of joy and beauty that make life worth living, even when they don’t lead anywhere. Especially in times of tragedy, joyful moments can be much smaller and more prevalent than you’d expect, and holding onto them can make the experience meaningful in ways that the grief, surprisingly, does not destroy. Don’t wait for joy — find it — even when it feels impossible.