Coming Sunday, March 20, 2011 is Purim - a joyous celebration for Jews, and non-Jews alike. We learn about Purim by reading the Old Testament Book of Esther. The King of Persia (modern day Iran) wanted a new Queen. Hadassah won the title and took the name Esther (YAY !) so the King did not know she was a Jew. Later on the wicked Haman (BOOOOO) influenced the King to issue an irrevocable decree calling for the extermination of all the Jews. Esther’s cousin Mordecai (YAY !) urged Queen Esther to stop this terrible genocide and told her that she had become Queen “for such a time as this” (Esther 4:14). In other words “this is your purpose as queen, Esther – to save your people”. Esther (YAY!) saved her people, at great risk to her own life. The wicked Haman (BOOOO) had plotted to have cousin Mordecai (YAY !) hanged on a towering gallows almost 80 feet high, however this plan backfired on him and he, Haman, was hanged on the gallows instead. (what goes around comes around ?) So, the Jews were saved, Haman (BOOOO) received the execution he had planned for cousin Mordecai (YAY !), and the story ends there. Right? Here are some lesser-known facts ---
1. Purim is a minor festival, meaning that it is not one that was commanded at Mt. Sinai but it is a festival, like Hanukkah, that came to be an honored tradition. Purim is one of the many times Yahweh (God) has saved His people from extinction.
· 2. The book of Esther is unusual in that it is the only book of the Bible that includes virtually no reference to God. Mordecai makes a vague reference to the fact that the Jews will be saved by someone else, if not by Esther, but that is the closest the book comes to mentioning God.
· 3. The modern movie “One Night With The King” thankfully does not show the details of wicked Haman’s punishment. The Jews killed the ten sons of Haman and hung their bodies with Haman. Haman’s punishment, that he had intended for cousin Mordecai, was not noose-hanging as we think of it.( ALERT - Next 3 sentences may be too graphic for sensitive or young readers.) In Persia, the method of execution was impalement – an act of torture whereby the victim was pierced by a long stake through the side,rectum, or mouth. The stake would usually be planted in the ground, leaving the victim hanging to die a hideous death. In some forms of impalement, the stake would be inserted so as to avoid immediate death, thereby deliberately extending the victim's agony for many hours. Esther 7:10 very clearly says in the original Hebrew that “Haman was impaled on the wood he had prepared for Mordecai”.
· 4. Ancient Rabbis wrote that Haman probably had an idolatrous image embroidered on his garments, so that those who bowed to him bowed also to the image, therefore, cousin Mordecai infuriated Haman when Mordecai would not bow to him.
· 5. Haman, believed by Hebrew sages to be an astrologer, “cast lots” (like a lottery) to determine the proper date for the extermination of the Jews. The word pur ( pronounced - poor) means “lots”.
· 6. Wicked Haman was an Agagite – a people notorious for their hatred of the Jews.
· 7. In the Book of Esther, the bodies of Haman's ten sons were hanged. In 1946, ten of Hitler's top henchmen were put to death by hanging for their war crimes. One of the condemned “ten sons of Hitler” recognized the irony. Julius Streicher, on the way to the gallows shouted "FEAST OF PURIM 1946!" The execution of the ten Nazis did not take place, however, during Purim as some believe. They were actually executed on Hoshana Rabbah, the solemn Jewish day on which we pass before God for review and He seals our judgment.
· 8. In early 1953, Stalin was planning to deport most of the Jews in the Soviet Union to Siberia, but just before his plans were carried out, he suffered a fatal stroke. The stroke occurred the night after Purim, on March 1, 1953, and he was dead only a few days later. His wicked plan to deport Jews was not carried out.
· 9. The primary custom related to Purim is the reading of the book of Esther. It is customary to boo, hiss, stamp feet and rattle noisemakers whenever the name of Haman (BOOOO) is mentioned to "blot out the name of Haman” and the custom is to cheer when the names of Esther (YAY !) and Mordecai (YAY!) are heard.H
10. Just as in the days of Esther, a ruler of Persia issued a decree to annihilate the Jews. Today, in Iran, which is modern-day Persia, President Mahmud Ahmadinejab, truly a modern-day Haman, constantly calls for the extermination of the Jews. He would do well to remember that, as Churchill said, “Those who fail to learn from history are doomed to repeat it.”
