Torah Learning: Is Purim The Holiest Day?
Watching a video on Aish.com by Oliver Anisfeld, JTV Founder, gave me insight to how a 16th century Rabbi named "the Arisal", found something hidden in the Torah about Yom Kippur (which most Jews believe to be the holiest day). If you look at the name Yom Ha Ki Purim, it means, the day that is like Purim. The holiness and spiritual elevatation of Yom Kippur is "like Purim."
Why is Purim so special?
It's a day of fun and festivity, and we celebrate Queen Esther saving the Jews in Persia from an evil decree of death or ethnic cleansing. We laugh, we dress in costumes, and we drink wine. It's very light hearted.
Purim falls in the Hebrew month of Adar, the month of laughter or joy. What's holy about laughter? In Jewish philosophy, laughter is fundamental. The first Hebrew child, Isaac, is named "he will laugh." We laugh when the totally unexpected happens; when things are going in one direction and suddenly change.
In Judaism, we believe that everything in the physical world is represented in the spiritual world representing a deeper spiritual reality. So laughter represents the transition from this world to the next, going from tragedy and despair to redemption, from our current world to the messianic world. Jews pray for redemption every day, when there will be peace throughout the world and an eternal place of rest where we reap our rewards in (haolam rabah, the world to come).
King David wrote that on the Day of Redemption, our mouths will fill with laughter.
"שׁוּבָה ה' אֶת שְׁבִיתֵנוּ כַּאֲפִיקִים בַּנֶּגֶב sang King David (Psalms 126:4), prophetically looking forward to the end of the exile and the Return to Zion This Psalm is so well-known because it is the introduction to Grace after Meals on every Shabbat and Festival.
This is the imagery which King David uses to allegorise our Redemption:
שׁוּבָה ה' אֶת שְׁבִיתֵנוּ כַּאֲפִיקִים בַּנֶּגֶב: when the Redemption comes, when the Jews who are exiled the world over come home, they will come as swiftly, as inexorably as the אֲפִיקִים בַּנֶּגֶב, those dry river-beds in the Negev Desert which suddenly turn into gushing, overwhelming, life-giving rivers with the onset of the rainy season.
The Return to Zion will be a transformation as complete, as astonishing, as those arid sands which suddenly transform into rivers.
The word רִנָּה, joyous song, appears three times in Psalm 126:
אָז יִמָּלֵא שְׂחוֹק פִּינוּ וּלְשׁוֹנֵנוּ רִנָּה, “Then our mouths will be filled with laughter, and our tongues with joyous song” (verse 2);
הַזֹּרְעִים בְּדִמְעָה בְּרִנָּה יִקְצֹרוּ, “Those who sow in tears, with joyful song will reap” (verse 5);
הָלוֹךְ יֵלֵךְ וּבָכֹה נֹשֵׂא מֶשֶׁךְ הַזָּרַע בֹּא יָבוֹא בְרִנָּה נֹשֵׂא אֲלֻמֹּתָיו, “he who wanders constantly and weeps, bearing his measuring-basket of seed – will assuredly come with joyful song, bearing his sheaves”.
The three-fold use of the word רִנָּה alludes to the three Redemptions – the first Redemption from Egypt, the second Redemption from Persia/Babylon, and the third Redemption through which we are living today."**
On Purim, everything reversed itself, Haman who issued the death decree for the Jews was hung on the gallows he built for Mordechai, the Jewish leader.
"Jews believe that one day, the world will get turned around. The future laugh is what we're waiting for ... it's the secret of Jewish hope. Deep within the laughter is the Jewish hope that joy and redemption are our the final destination." Oliver Anisfeld, JTV Founder
**Israel National News
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