Purim Miracle and Intrigue

PLAINS TWP., PA — More than 200 Jews gathered together Sunday to celebrate the holiday of Purim at the Woodlands Inn & Resort.

“We’re celebrating the victory of the Jews over the Persians,” explained Malka Seewald, wife of Rabbi Mendy Seewald, who helped coordinate the event and who noted the victory occurred nearly 2,400 years ago.

Members of all area synagogues – orthodox, conservative and reform – were invited to the celebration, which was a joint project of the Jewish Community Center, Ohav Zedek, the United Hebrew Institute and Bais Menachem. It began with the reading of the Megillah – “the story of our salvation,” Malka Seewald said.

Raphael Nemetsky, rabbi at Ohav Zedek and principal at United Hebrew Institute, recited the Megillah in Hebrew. Those in attendance, many of whom wore costumes, cheered and spun noisemakers at specific parts of the story, which told of a miracle shrouded in political intrigue.

According to the Megillah, after a Persian king had conquered Israel, destroyed the temple and exiled Jews to various countries, King Achashveirosh had a six-month feast in Sushan to show off the beauty and wealth of his kingdom. When the feast was almost over, his wife, the queen, disobeyed an order, so he banished her and had his nobles search for a new queen.

Many beautiful women were brought before him, and Achashveirosh eventually chose Esther, whom no Persians knew was Jewish. Esther’s cousin, Mordechai, ordered her to keep that fact secret. Mordechai eventually told Esther of a plot to kill the king, and his loyalty was recorded in the royal history book but soon forgotten.

After Mordechai refused to bow to Haman, one of the king’s most trusted advisers, Haman devised a plan to have Mordechai and all Jews killed. The date of the proposed mass genocide was determined in a lottery, called a “pur,” and is how the holiday of Purim derived its name.

Esther and Mordechai foiled the plot, with Esther convincing the king to allow Jews to join together and defend themselves and eventually to make Mordechai his second-in-command. The Jews did so and wiped out any enemy that attacked them, according to the Megillah.

“Part of the idea of the whole story of Purim is that everything was sort of hidden and everything wasn’t the way it appeared to be,” Nemetsky explained after the reading.

“The fact is that the whole miracle is through political intrigue. … It’s a hidden miracle, so we sort of hide ourselves as well,” Nemetsky said in explaining the wearing of costumes.

Nemetsky said the celebration of Purim shows that God maintains the Jewish people “in ways that are completely unobvious. We don’t have the times of Moses with the splitting of the Red Sea or making the sun stand still. But there’s an ongoing salvation to the Jewish people,” he said.

Many people don’t realize the main message of Purim, Nemetsky said.

“Jews today have been in exile 2,000 years, so to us, it’s normal. But the Jews living in (the days of Esther and Mordechai) had just lost their homeland and were completely driven out and they thought everything was over. So this message was: No, you may leave the land, but you never leave God and God never leaves you,” Nemetsky said.

After the Megillah, those in attendance had a buffet dinner, called a Sedua. After dinner, the celebration moved from a ballroom to Club Evolution – renamed “Evolution Sushan” for the evening – for dancing and children’s games.