
Purim is the day of greatest levity in the Jewish calendar.
It is a time to get out of our selves, to let go, to laugh, to engage in
good-natured mocking. That is why we dress up, costumes the order of the day
for adults as well as children, all indeed as children. Learning to let go, to
step out of our self-imposed restraints on laughter and levity, is all part of
the Purim theme of turning reality on its head. It is part of the Purim nature
of creating an
olam hafuch/an upside down
world. The upside down world we come into is meant to be the truer, clearer
world. The impetus to create a different reality is taught on Purim largely in
regard to externals, the trappings of costume, of plumes and pageantry. It is
from there that we come to think about the deeper meaning of turning reality on
its head, creating a world that isn’t yet, but might be.
When I think of the phrase olam hafuch on Purim I quickly recall a Talmudic story set in a
very different context than Purim. In what we might call a “near death experience,”
Rav Yosef son of Rabbi Yehoshua was gravely ill and fell into a coma. Regaining
consciousness, his father asked him, mai
chazit/what did you see in the next world? Rav Yosef said to his father, olam hafuch ra’iti/I saw an upside down
world. The ones above in this world are below in the world to come, and the
lowly in this world are above in the world to come. R. Yehoshua said to his
son, olam barur ra’ita/you have seen a
clear world (Bava Basra 10b).
While I prefer to take the vision of what Rav Yosef saw a
little further and imagine no one with the upper hand, but all equal in the
world to come, the story is deeply telling. The world as we know it, one of
pain and strife caused by human inequality and injustice, of violence and greed
and hate, this is the upside down world. The vision that we seek to fulfill of
a repaired world is the world of clarity, of the vision brought into focus
through the lens of time and made real. In all of its craziness and zaniness,
this is the deeper message of Purim.

Our own festivities in my synagogue on Purim night this year
helped to draw me out into that place of vision by realizing how much fun we
can have together. We danced and paraded in costume and song, a moment
ostensibly meant to be for children saw children and adults all gleefully
dancing and strutting their costumed selves in gleeful delight. Our
Megillah readers graciously chanted as
children all but climbed upon the old Scroll of Esther spread out on the low
table. Our Purim
shpilers, the Purim
playmakers who mock and poke good-natured fun, outdid themselves, creating
themed lyrics worthy of Broadway, so much heart and love for who we are, all
the while gently mocking and making us laugh at ourselves. To learn to laugh at
our selves is the best way to learn to embrace each other and others for whom
each one is, frailties and strengths woven together as one.
And yet, there is still the challenge of the Megillah, its
own lesson found in learning to hold at once all aspects of reality, the seamy
and sordid with the sublime and beautiful. There is still such violence in the
Megillah, hate directed at us and then our own murderous response when given
the chance, tens of thousands of Persians killed at our hand when the genocidal
edict is reversed. And as the scroll unwinds, we are challenged to see the
turning of the world, wondering as we go which is up and which is down, which
the real world, which the one that is upside down, which the inverted and which
the one of vision clarified.

Late on Purim afternoon it is my custom to go to a nearby Chassidic
community whose kind and joyful spirit consciously infuses my own synagogue. I
found it hard to let go amid the joy that filled the room, too rooted within
myself and in the world as it is.
Alcohol flowed freely and each one around the
table offered words of Torah with greater and lesser degrees of seriousness,
interruptions of song and
l’chayims
throughout. Pressed to share some words, I offered pure Purim Torah, farcical
interpretations of words and numbers in the
Megillah,
playing on
Shushan Ha’birah/Shushan the
capital become as “Shushan of the flowing beer.” Forced out of myself,
sharing became a way of connection, of opening up, loosening up in a deeper way
than the way of alcohol, quietly nursing my own strong drink slowly over time.
After I spoke, a dear friend and teacher to many began to
teach. I had needed to leave well before this point, or at least I thought I
had needed to leave. Hoping to hear Reb Nehemia’s words, our host asked if I
would stay if Nechemia spoke next. And so I stayed, and I stayed, song and
laughter interspersing deep words of Torah, teaching well beyond Purim and yet
rooted in the most difficult places of the world as it is. R. Nechemia taught
from the Chassidic teacher, the Ma’or Va’shemesh, Rabbi Kalonimus Kalman
Epshtein. I was spell bound as a teaching of violence transformed unfolded at
that table, the world as it is turned upside down, nonviolence replacing
violence. It became a shining instance of the way Torah opens to reveal a new
reality right from within its own “harsh passages,” pointing beyond the Torah’s
own places of violence.

Here in the midst not of the Torah, but in the midst of the
most violent tellings of the Megillah, the Ma’or Va’shemesh looked at the verse
that tells of the Jews slaughtering their would be Persian killers. We are told
in the Megillah that
many of the peoples
of the land became Jews/v’rabim me’amei ha’aretz mit’ya’hadim, for the fear of
the Jews was upon them (Esther 8:17). On that verse, the Ma’or Va’shemesh
says it was not fear as the terror of being slaughtered, but rather it was fear
that came as utter amazement and respect. They saw Mordecai’s wisdom and were
moved to the core. Transforming the slaughter, the Rebbe writes,
they became Jews because they understood and
recognized the wisdom of Mordecai’s Godliness, and they gave thanks for the
faith of Israel…
In the Torah weekly portion that framed Purim, Ki Tissa (Ex. 30:11), we encounter great
wisdom in B’tzalel, the artisan and teacher entrusted to lead the building of
the Mishkan. Guided by the light of
the Ma’or Va’shemesh, we understand what true wisdom means. As B’tzalel weaves
together the gifts of hand and heart as given by all the people, we realize
that the true sanctuary he is building is that of a world whose ways reflect
the vision clarified, not the inverted world as we know it, the olam hafuch, but the world as it is
meant to be, the olam barur. As we
hold all of the harsh realities of the world as it is, in the way of Purim that
teaches us yet to rejoice, may we dance and sing, children all, as we make our
way in costumed parade to the Mishkan
of the world as it might be.
Rabbi Victor Reinstein
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