The Megillah as a Rorschach test

This year, Megillat Esther is a Rorschach test for Jews around the globe. We are going through different experiences, but Jews everywhere are beset by a sense of uncertainty and worry. As an American Jew living in Israel, but traveling to North America for work, I have had a front row seat to specifically those experiences of vulnerability. And I have become convinced of the healing role that empathy can play within the Jewish people. The Megillah is a helpful prism through which to see each other.

For generations, many have noted the absence of God’s name in the Megillah, but we often miss that this Jewish text also has an Israel-shaped hole in it. The holy land simply is not mentioned. Unlike Daniel, who prayed toward Jerusalem during his Babylonian captivity; unlike Joseph, who made his descendants swear to return to Canaan and eventually bury his bones there; Esther and Mordechai make no reference to the land of Israel. They do not seek to go to Israel when the persecution begins; nor does their story end with any longing or movement towards Zion. This is scandalous, given that 42,000+ Jews had already returned to the land of Israel to rebuild the Temple at the urging of King Cyrus years earlier. Simply put, the Jews of the Megillah are those who chose to remain in exile, rather than return to the land of Israel.

Perhaps their imaginations did not extend to the idea of uprooting themselves and moving elsewhere. Perhaps they had lost or forsaken the theological moorings that might call them back to the land. Perhaps they had jobs and creature comforts that they did not want to leave behind. Maybe they worried about the obstacles that might (and ultimately did) arise. But regardless, they stayed, and stayed, and stayed.

All that is only the plain reading of the Megillah. Rabbinic literature, by contrast, fills in that Israel-shaped gap. Per a major thread within rabbinic literature, the true redemption followed the Megillah’s telling: it was Esther and Mordechai’s success that allowed for a second wave of Diaspora Jews to return to the land of Israel to continue to rebuild the Temple. After all, an influential Jewish presence in the capital of the Persian Empire might go a long way in helping the Jews of Judea, also ruled by the Persian Empire. (Some ancient rabbinic sources even suggest that it was Esther and Ahashverosh’s son who actually commissioned that second return. Historians and some threads of ancient rabbinic literature disagree.) 

And there’s our Rorschach test: is the salvation of Purim the ability to survive and thrive in Diaspora or is salvation the ultimate return to the Jewish homeland?

Some will view the Megillah as satire: don’t Jews who remain in Diaspora realize that Haman is lurking at their door, and next time they may not be so lucky? Don’t they see that persecution is their punishment for not returning home, or at least a direct outcome of it? How many Israeli Purim sermons delivered this year will rhetorically ask when Diaspora Jews will decide to finally come home? 

That said, I also expect so many Purim sermons delivered this year in North America to focus on the Jewish ability to thrive in Diaspora.

Leaders will expound upon how to ensure this thriving — by strengthening Jewish identity in response to the surge of antisemitism, by allying with people of good intention to fight antisemitism and the erosion of democracy, etc., etc. Rabbis will sermonize about our ability to band together and defeat the Hamans of our day. And maybe some will even go part of the ancient rabbinic route toward the influential Jewish presence in America being necessary to buttress support for Israel. 

Personally, I appreciate that the rabbis made Israel explicit in their telling of the Megillah. Israel is the ultimate address of Jewish redemption. And I myself believe in the religious significance of living in Israel, even just for a year. 

At the same time, a sense of Jewish peoplehood (a value that underlies Zionism itself) should inspire Israeli and American Jews to understand each other right now. North American Jews have accomplished so much where they are, and many are worried that it is all slipping away. Whether that is true remains to be seen, but the potential for that to happen is deeply unsettling for many North American Jews — for both local and global reasons. Proud of what they have built, these North American Jews are hoping they can maintain and even renew the strength and viability of their Jewish Diaspora, understanding the global impact of those efforts. 

Meanwhile, for many Israelis, it is so obvious why Jews from around the world should come on aliyah, the sooner the better. And their perspectives are layered. Often, I hear not only ideological disagreement, but a sense of hurt: why would North American Jews choose to face antisemitism in their own societies, rather than join their family at home in Israel? Some Israelis have even expressed to me their anxieties about this being a kind of low/no confidence vote in Israel’s future by North American Jews. And that sense can be deeply affecting, as Israelis themselves work so tirelessly and sacrifice so much to renew Israel’s own strength and vitality.

Purim is a gift. We need the joy that it will afford us this year. But perhaps recognizing the different ways we read ourselves (and each other!) into the story can bring us something even more abiding: deeper relationships.

Happy Purim!