Rabbi’s Message – March 2, 2023
Next week we will celebrate the festival of Purim. We will toast to Jewish survival in the face of annihilation. As we do so, we will also raise our glasses to Esther and Vashti, two courageous women who took matters into their own hands and stood up to save the Jewish people.
We are commanded each year to tell their story.
First we hear of Queen Vashti. A woman with strength and integrity. She refuses to use her body to entertain the King and his visitors and is banished from the land as a villain. Then there is Esther, who becomes the new Queen and faces an even more dangerous challenge when the King and his henchman, Haman, proclaim that all Jews in the kingdom must die. The plot thickens: unbeknownst to the King, Esther, his beloved wife, is Jewish. Now it is up to her to save her people.
Esther spends three days in her room preparing to speak to the King, three nights alone getting up the nerve to step forward. When she comes out she speaks truth to power, brings a corrupt leader to justice and saves her people. And for thousands of years after, Jews all over the world celebrate her name.
Esther.
An empowered woman. A strategic thinker.
Esther, who spent three days alone gathering courage to do something we can probably guess no woman had ever done before. A woman summon the king?
In the story of Purim, Esther was not given the floor, she took the floor. And we are here because she refused to turn her back, to turn away from what she knew she needed to do. She believed in herself. And that, perhaps, is one of the greatest gifts she gave us. She didn’t tell us how to make change, she showed us how it’s done.
Esther may have had a bed in the palace, but she wouldn’t sleep until her community was safe. Neither will we. Purim reminds us to be brave – to stand up and use our power and influence to fight for what we believe in.
Join us on Monday night at Temple as we listen to Esther’s story. Let her courage remind us to set our fears aside, take the floor, and make some history.
Temple’s Purim Celebration begins at 6:00PM on Monday, March 6 in the sanctuary with the reading of the Megillah. Afterwards, kids and families are invited to the Purim Carnival in the Great Hall, and adults are welcome to join us at our Wine & Cheese event in Aleph, hosted by Teresa Wyman.