Purim is the holiday that celebrates the G-d Al-mighty’s miraculous salvation of the Jews from Haman in the Book of Esther.
Every man, woman and child needs to know about it.
Rabbi Yonoson Steif lists the obligation to remember what Amalek did to the Jewish People as an obligation incumbent on non-Jews as well.
In the Book of Esther, Haman, an Amalekite, seeks to attack and eliminate the Jewish People, G-d forbid.
But as we learned in a prior post, Amalek only starts with the Jews but then intends to eliminate every human being, including himself.
Haman was gunning for the entire Persian population. First, he wanted to pervert the Persians into being murderers of the Jews, which is a horrible fate for a Persian, a violation of G-d Al-mighty’s vision for the non-Jew. Then he wanted to eliminate the Persians, also a horrible fate.
Amalek starts with the Jews in order to decapitate the world, to remove the source of Divine Light and plunge the world in to greater darkness and chaos. In that darkness and chaos, Amalek can operate unimpeded in destroying humanity.
That’s why the Nazis started with the Jews but intended to widen the circle of elimination.
So every non-Jew needs to know about Amalek, his plans, his methodologies and his identity. Then the non-Jew can both act to protect the Jew and himself and his family and his nation.
Every non-Jew needs to know that the Book of Esther is not a record of a conspiracy from the past but rather the guidebook to the conspiracies of today and the imminent Divine salvation from them. And, it’s a guidebook of what we are called to do.
Start by celebrating Purim. Read the Book of Esther. Better yet, take your family to hear it read in a synagogue. Increase in acts of loving kindness towards your fellow. These are the bonds that Amalek seeks to disrupt, so go all in with gifts of food to your friends and money to the poor. Have a festive meal with family, friends and strangers.
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Happy Purim!
Originally published at RabbiSmith.org.
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