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Your donation will be tax deductible in the US to the extent allowed by the IRS.
To make a tax-deductible donation by wire transfer in the US, please contact:
Avrum Lapin, North American Representative
Toll-free: 1-866-830-3321
Email: schechter@thelapingroup.com
To make a tax-deductible donation in Israel, please contact:
Dina Gudai, Israeli Representative
Phone: 074-7800643
Email: dina@schechter.ac.il
Please mail your check to:
The Schechter Institutes, Inc. (a 501(c) 3 tax exempt organization)
Box #3566
PO Box 8500
Philadelphia, PA 19178-3566
Attn: Mr. Avrum Lapin, North American Representative
Toll-free: 1-866-830-3321
Email: schechter@thelapingroup.com
Please indicate the donation is "for your joint Schechter Institutes program."
Checks should be made payable to the Jewish Theological Society of Canada and mailed to:
Jewish Theological Society of Canada
c/o Camp Ramah in Canada
3845 Bathhurst St., Suite 310
Toronto, ON, M3H 3N2
Phone: 416-789-2193, ext. 2139
E-mail: accounting@campramah.com
Please mail a check to:
The Schechter Institutes
Attn: Dina Gudai, Finance Department
PO Box 16080,
Jerusalem, 9116002
Israel
For assistance, please call Dina Gudai at 074-780-0643 (8:00 AM – 3:00 Israel time Sunday through Thursday).
Purim is a holiday whose meaning is shrouded in mystery. The only clear element is what we are commanded to do on Purim as set forth at the end of the Scroll of Esther: read the Megilla, hold a festive meal, and give gifts to the poor. This last mitzvah is not an administrative detail of a system of social justice. Yes, the Jewish people are commanded to pay a tax of half a shekel, as we read on Shabbat Shekalim, the Shabbat preceding Rosh Chodesh Adar. But gifts to the poor are another matter; giving charity is an expression of the direct, mutual economic responsibility between people. The direct connection between people, even if hidden, has no substitute. On Purim we are commanded to openly give a gift of food; even those of limited means are commanded to do so and to give charity according to their ability (Maimonides, Hilchot Megilla,2:14-19). When a person shares his food and his wealth and feels good will towards others, his self-esteem is increased. He is brought closer to sharing the characteristics of the Creator who has given us life and the world.
Purim is also a holiday of joy, but the joy is incomplete, even forced. Contrast it to the joy commanded to us on Sukkot (Deuteronomy 16:14): this ‘time of joy’ is preceded by a lengthy spiritual preparation during the month of Elul and the High Holidays. For over forty days we experience a deep personal and national process during which we gradually proceed from self-reflection and supplication to joyfulness. Purim, on the other hand, comes – and goes. True, we say when Adar enters that we ‘multiple our joy’ (Tractate Ta’anit 29a), but the obligation to drink wine and liquor indicates the forced nature of the merriment. It is not intrinsic; we must overcome something in order to be glad on Purim.
What is it that holds back the joy? The holiday is based on a threatening and chilling insight, the awareness of Amalek in each generation; that is to say, there exist powerful, sophisticated and hidden forces in the world that seek to erase Jews and Judaism from the face of the earth. This is the conceptual worldview of Haman the Aggagite, descendant of Amalek (Esther 3:6). It is not clear from the Megilla what drives this worldview. Why do non-Jews want a world empty of Judaism and Jews? The Bible does not say. It tells us only that Amalek is the grandson of Esau (Genesis 36:12) and tells of the prophecy of Bilaam, which reveals that the worldview of Amalek is widespread in the world but will disappear at the end of days (Numbers 24:20). How, then, are we to understand the meaning of the commandment to ‘blot out the memory of Amalek’ (Deuteronomy 25:19)? Who is Amalek and how do we blot him out in our day? Our Rabbis taught that in the days of the Messiah, the Creator Himself will fight alongside the Messiah and erase the threat of Amalek from the world (Tractate Sanhedrin20b). But how can we be merry on a holiday that reminds us of the terrible threat that represents a danger to all human civilization, for, according to Judaism, a world without Jews or Torah is not human!
The answer provided by Halakha is that in the face of the threat, we must celebrate and have faith that Amalek can be defeated. Thus we make noise with the noisemaker, we dress up in costume, and we laugh at the mention of Haman’s name when the Megilla is read. We strengthen our family and community ties, by dining together, sending mishloach manot and giving charity. In parallel, of course, we defend ourselves and do what we must to prevent the realization of the threat to Jewish and universal redemption. As the prophets and sages of Israel envisioned: We the People of Israel should not despair of Calamities.’ (Mishna Avot 1:7).
Dr. Einat Ramon is founding director of the academic spiritual care program Marpeh at the Schechter Institute, where she lectures on gender issues, Jewish thought and Jewish history. She has recently published “Lovingkindness and Truth,” an anthology of Jewish Midrashic and modern sources on spiritual care (in Hebrew), as well as peer reviewed academic articles on the topic.
English translation: Penina Goldschmidt
Einat Ramon is a senior lecturer in Jewish thought and Jewish Women’s Studies at Schechter and one of the founders of professional spiritual care in Israel (she is the writer of Israeli spiritual caregivers’ standards and ethical code.) In 2012 she founded the Marpeh program – the only academic program for the training of spiritual caregivers in the context of pluralistic Jewish studies, where she teaches and supervises chaplaincy students and Israeli pastoral education supervisors-in-training. Dr. Ramon writes academic and popular books and articles about contemporary Hassidic spirituality, the philosophy and methods of spiritual care , Zionist and North American Jewish thought, and modern Jewish women’s theology and ethics— particularly concerning family and bioethics issues. She is a third generation native Jerusalemite, received her doctorate in Religious Studies from Stanford University, she is married to (Reform) Rabbi Arik Ascherman and is a mother of two.
