Why all the noise during Purim?

by Patti Breitman

Sometimes called the Jewish Mardi Gras, Purim is a joyful, animated, raucous celebration to commemorate the time Persian Jews were saved from extermination.

When the King's advisor הָמָן Haman was given the go-ahead to do as he pleased with “a certain people…whose laws were different…and who do not observe the king's laws,” he drew lots to determine which day his massacre of the Jews would begin. The word פּוּרִים purim means ‘lots’, and refers to that sad “lottery”.

The king didn't know that אֶסְתֵּר Esther, the beautiful woman he named his queen, was a Jew. While Haman was plotting to kill the Jews, Esther's cousin םָרְדֳּכָי Mordecai, who had raised Esther as if she were his own daughter, urged her to speak to the king to save their people. But going to the king without having been summoned was not allowed and could lead to death.

To gather her courage, Esther fasted for three days. When she approached the king, he allowed her to speak, and she told him of Haman's plot against her people. The king ordered Haman hanged, and thus saved the Jews.

—from our March-April 2005 Newsletter

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