Community at Temple Israel
Rabbi’s Message – February 27, 2025
Purim is a joyful holiday, right? It is filled with costumes, candy, noisemakers, hamentashen, games, and more. This year, we are going to be turning the Purim story a bit Inside Out – while Joy will take the lead in the end of our Purim narrative, the middle is packed with complex and layered emotional experiences.
Purim mirrors the lessons of Inside Out: life’s most meaningful moments are mixed with emotions, and it’s the mixture of all of our emotions’ contributions that allow us to fully experience life’s challenges and triumphs.
Esther is certainly a hero, but she too, must have experienced a swirl of emotions that the Biblical text doesn’t tell us directly about.
Fear: As she prepares to put her own life on the line to approach King Achashverosh uninvited, Fear would have been pulling all the stops to make her reconsider.
Sadness: From the safety of her position in the palace, she must have felt deep sorrow over her people’s plight.
Anger: When Esther hears of Haman’s plan, you can easily imagine Anger bursting into flames.
Disgust: When Esther invited Haman to the special dinner banquets as she set her plan in motion, and seeing him when he thought he was about to be honored – yuk!
Finally, Joy: We end with Joy stepping forward, giving Esther the courage to act, to save her people, and of course, celebrate their victory.
And that’s all Esther – what was Haman’s, Mordechai’s, or the King’s emotional headquarters thinking during all of these events? What memories did they pull from long term memory? How did they balance the situations?
During our carnival, planned and led by our teens, we hope you will be able to have fun telling the Purim story with costumes, candy, dinner, and games while also taking a moment to think about the complexities of the story.
And your participation will help our teens as all proceeds from this teen-driven event go back into TIDY’s fund to support our teen-led programming, leadership development and more. A dairy dinner will be prepared along with Hamentashen, $8/adult, $5/child, free for toddlers. Game tokens for pay-per-play and all-you-can-play wristbands will be available for purchase at the carnival. Donations of items for the raffle, prizes, or monetary are also greatly appreciated, whether or not you can attend. We can’t wait to experience Purim Inside Out with you!