Purim: Celebrating Miracles and Honoring Heroism

I love reading the first chapter of the Megillah. I delight in articulating the word Hodu, the Hebrew name for India, in the very first line. For me, it draws a direct Jewish connection to India that stretches from ancient to modern times.

On Purim, we breathe a collective sigh that we, the Jewish people, were saved from annihilation centuries ago. As we remember the 13th of Adar, the date the lot (Pur) fell on, the date on which Haman planned to initiate the destruction of the Jews of the Persian kingdom, so October 7 is seared into our hearts and souls today. But, the Megillah tells us, the heroism of Mordecai and Esther transformed the 13th of Adar into a date on which the Jews fought back against those who sought to hurt them. They rested on the 14th day, and it became a day of celebration filled with light and joy: Purim.

Over the centuries, special "Purims" were celebrated by the Jews of Baghdad--my ancestors. According to documents in the Sassoon archives, which my father pored over for his doctoral dissertation that was eventually published as a comprehensive history of the Jews of Calcutta (On The Banks of the Ganga), on the 11th of the month of Av, 1638, the Turkish sultan rescued the Jews of Baghdad from cruel Persian rule. A Baghdadi Jew is said to have found secret documents incriminating the Persians and, disguised as a Muslim, risked his life to bring them to the sultan. On reading the document, the sultan gathered his forces and marched on Baghdad. A century later, the Persians tried to retake the city but were repulsed by the reigning sultan, who won a great victory on the 16th of the month of Tevet, 1733.

With anti-Semitism spiking globally today, the Purim story hardly seems ancient. Its contemporary relevance is striking.

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