A Twist to Purim

Purim

Rectifying Intermarriage and Secularization

When the Jewish calendar has 13 months instead of the usual 12 and therefore it is known as a “pregnant year.” It is as if the year is pregnant and carrying an additional month in its belly. Thus, the additional month, called Adar I, which is actually the 12th month (not the 13th as one might think), is called the “month of pregnancy” (chodesh ha’ibur). The 13th month is then called Adar II.

Purim katan is not celebrated with the physical commandments performed on Purim proper, but it is nonetheless an occasion of joy and preparation for the transformation possible during every day of the two months of Adar. This transformation can affect both our inner being and our external environs and circumstances.

The occasion of Purim katan brings us to contemplate the reason that the Jewish people required such a great miracle as the one that occurred on Purim, in the first place. The story of Esther and Mordechai occurs during the Persian exile, which was actually a continuation of the Babylonian exile. According to the sages, the reason that we were punished so terribly with the Babylonian exile was because men were engaged in improper relationships with foreign, non-Jewish, women. This desecration of the holy physical being of the Jewish people was then further augmented when the Jews of Shushan ate from the non-kosher food served at King Achashverosh’s feasts described at the beginning of the Book of Esther.

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נשים נכריות = שרה רבקה רחל לאה

This literally says that the value of “foreign women” (1086) is equal to that of the names of our four matriarchs: “Sarah, Rivkah, Rachel, Leah.” This reveals a major point about gematria equivalence. At times, the equivalence denotes that the two sides of the equality are like arch-enemies or arch-rivals. The positive and holy side of the equality is responsible and has the power to rectify the negative side. In this case, the strict identification with and retention of Jewish identity, which progresses down the ages from our four holy matriarchs through all of their daughters, the women of the Jewish people, has the power to rectify the profanity present in the body and incurred from improper physical actions.

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