Hi,
We celebrated Purim today during a war with Iran, making this holiday with historical symbolism.
In Purim we read out load Megillat Esther (scroll of Esther), that tells the ancient story Jewish survival in Persia — today’s Iran — under the threat of annihilation.
In the scroll, Haman, high-ranking official in the ancient Persian Empire, seeks to exterminate the Jews. Queen Esther and Mordechai (both Jews) reversed the decree, turning near-destruction into victory.
So now we have Iran, heir to ancient Persia, threatens to destroy Israel (land of the Jews).
The war begun just days Purim, echoing the timeline of the biblical narrative.
The head Iran today, Ali Khamenei, had been killed instead of the Israel been destroyed. Just as Haman was killed instead of the Jews been exterminated.
All of those parallels lines between the 2nd war with Iran and Megilat Esther giving many of us in Israel the feeling of living a modern chapter of an ancient drama.
As this is the one Jewish holiday that you have almost no restrictions and you are ordered to be joyful, and drink until you will not know your right from left, we did not give the war to ruin the celebration. We did try to celebrate as much as we could – if we stop celebration, then our enemies win.
Meanwhile Hezbollah had extended its fire range and launched rockets towards the center of Israel. For us it means we might hear a siren alert each minute without any pre-alert we got for missiles from Iran or Yemen (come to think about it, we did not got any missile from Yemen this war…)
Take Care
Gad
Reading Megilat Esther in Bialik underground station of Tel-Aviv Light railway while sirens sounded outside
A direct hit of a Hezbollah rocket hit in Kfar Yuval this morning
Illustration of IAF attacks both in Lebanon an Iran