They lived to fight and argue another day. Purim based on the Biblical Book of Esther. That is, there is a hidden hand of god, who acts in a matter of revealed while being hidden; hidden in everything that happens. This of course, is open to interpretations, such as Spinoza and the assertions that god is in everything from kosher spam, to dead carp to the washing machine tossed into the bottom of lake Tittikaka. A deism of delight. And with all Jewish lore, a good deal revolves around death and sex, eccentric behavior, disagreement and finally getting things right after trying everything else.
Read More:http://msmagazine.com/blog/blog/2011/03/20/the-whole-megillah/esther-and-mordechai/
As with anything jewish, there is rarely a dull moment, and with much that is jewish it’s about the in-between moments, neither here nor there in which the drama of life is find an innovative response in this case Haman and how to get rid of the bastard without killing off your people. The blood, the gore, the public spectacle of a good hanging aside, the holiday does reflect the idea of the turnabout. Our turnabout nature and how volatile that can be for good and more problematic consequences. Philip Zimbardo and his Stanford Prison Experiment showed how pacifist, love bead, granola chewers can transform into sadistic prison guards if the context is properly aligned. Or a radical Marxist can become a Goldman Sachs star trader. Or very ordinary people can act heroically when least expected. Its an enigma.
---Valentin de Boulogne ca. 1591, Coulommier-en-Brie, France - ca. 1632, Rome, Italy School: French--- Read More:http://www.friendsofart.net/en/art/valentin-de-boulogne/judith-and-holofernes
But, if the King of Babylon had not found a Jewish girl for a queen, the whole thing might have been water under the bridge. And why did this girl throw herself into the queue to be an object of male gaze? And if she was that hot looking, does it mean that Purim is an ignoble tale in which a Jewish tragedy was avoided through doing the nasty in the royal bed chamber? But was he cute? Did the king’s sister say he looked ugly in the nude? And how come few people knew she was Jewish? And was Ahasueraus himself a jew? and Haman? Usually the worst anti-semites have some jewish gene collecting dust in a closet. Anyway, it must have been one heck of a party, and for so many yids to have attended, you know the buffet table was magnificently sumptuous. And the holiday is also about wearing masks which brings us to the idea of identity:
Hitchens: A riveting recent essay in Commentary described the results of a match-up between the genetic database of the Kohanim — those whose Jewish ancestry is supposedly the strongest and best-attested — and that of a “lost tribe” in Namibia that has long claimed Jewish descent. The fit was amazingly close. So it is with other groups in the Asian diaspora, many of whose folk stories had been thought to be merely legendary. It also turns out that there is a close DNA affinity between Israeli Jews and Palestinian Arabs; a finding that, if it does not confirm Freud’s weird speculations in “Moses and Monotheism,” at least reinforces his theory of the narcissism of the small difference. How long before we can codify Khazar DNA and find out if Koestler was right or if the Ashkenazim have any genetic claim to Gaza? Read more: http://www.forward.com/articles/148147/#ixzz1oRP07aV4
Well, if the Lemba want to make a racket with those infernal noisemakers, make some baked goods and help clean up after the meal. Let them.
---Szyk's second Book of Esther (published posthumously in Israel in 1974) was illustrated in New England post-World War II, after the horrors of Nazism were evident to the world. In the first work, Szyk emphasized the beautiful Esther's ability to inhabit two cultures and stay true to her people. For example, in "Esther and Mordechai" (1925), Esther's fashionable costume and hairstyle show her full participation in Persian culture, even while her attention to her cousin Mordechai shows her loyalty to family and faith. In the later work, Szyk painted swastikas on the wicked Haman, affirming the need to confront evil in every place and every generation. In the illumination where Haman hangs from the gallows that he had prepared for Mordechai, Szyk painted himself into the work observing the scene, with hamantaschen in hand, while inscribing the Hebrew words: "The people of Israel will be liberated from their persecutors." The image "Queen Esther and Mordechai" (1950) reminds the viewer how that liberation was won: Esther sits in triumph, having navigated political intrigue and cultural hatred to secure her people's sovereignty.---Read More:http://www.hadassahmagazine.org/site/apps/nlnet/content2.aspx?c=twI6LmN7IzF&b=5810609&ct=8016479
ADDENDUM:
Bar Kosiba’s success caused many to believe ― among them Rabbi Akiva, one of the wisest and holiest of Israel’s rabbis ― that he could be the Messiah. He was nicknamed “Bar Kochba” or “Son of Star,” an allusion to a verse in the Book of Numbers (24:17): “there shall come a star out of Jacob.” This star is understood to refer to the Messiah.
Bar Kochba did not turn out to be the Messiah, and later the rabbis wrote that his real name was Bar Kosiva meaning “Son of a Lie” ― highlighting the fact that he was a false Messiah.
At the time, however, Bar Kochba ― who was a man of tremendous leadership abilities ― managed to unite the entire Jewish people around him. Jewish accounts describe him as a man of tremendous physical strength, who could uproot a tree while riding on a horse. This is probably an exaggeration, but he was a very special leader and undoubtedly had messianic potential, which is what Rabbi Akiva recognized in him. Read More:http://www.aish.com/jl/h/cc/48944706.html
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Wiki:This is based on the fact that the salvation of the Jews occurred through wine and the Sages of the Talmud stated that one should drink on Purim until he can no longer distinguish between the phrases arur Haman (“Cursed is Haman”) and baruch Mordechai (“Blessed is Mordecai”). Alcoholic consumption was later codified by the early authorities, and while some advocated total intoxication, others, consistent with the opinion of many early and later rabbis, taught that one should only should drink a little more than usual and then fall asleep, whereupon one will certainly not be able to tell the difference between arur Haman and baruch Mordecai. Other authorities, including the Magen Avraham, have written that one should drink until one is unable to calculate the numerical values of both phrases.
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But the favored Purim tune in many Orthodox circles speaks to the festival’s more macabre elements. The lyrics for the yeshiva Purim standard, “Ve-Nahafokh Hu” (“And It Was Upside-Down”), are lifted straight out of that portion of the Megillah from which liberal Jews have tended to avert their eyes: “So the opposite happened, for the Jews themselves overpowered those who hated them” (Esther, 9:1).
This verse is immediately followed by the Megillah’s gruesome account of Jews’ hangings of Haman and his 10 sons, and by their subsequent wholesale massacres of the gentiles of Shushan and its surrounding provinces.
As Elliott Horowitz displays in “Reckless Rites: Purim and the Legacy of Jewish Violence,” his dazzlingly erudite study of the many ramifications of the Purim odyssey from medieval times to our days — when the celebration of Purim has become an excuse for the most violent among the Israeli settlers to abuse, and occasionally murder, their Arab neighbors — the story of Mordecai, Esther and Haman has, over the centuries, accrued the most highly charged symbols of the mutual hatred between Jews and gentiles. While the Megillah’s account of the rivers of blood in which Purim was conceived may have no actual historical basis, its continued recitation has brought many ugly repercussions.
Read more: http://www.forward.com/articles/6694/#ixzz1oRT4O826
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