The Purim Story: A Fish Connection (March 1992)

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March 01 1992
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March 1992   



 



 



THE PURIM STORY



A FISH CONNECTION



                       



In a time and place rife with lotteries of every stripe the
holiday of Purim which literally means lots has a special
contemporaneous ring about it. It takes its name from the method of selection
used by the wicked Haman, chief counselor to King Ahashveros in ancient Persia,
in deciding upon the Hebrew month of ADAR as the most propitious time to
execute his diabolical plan to annihilate the Jewish people. Accord­ing to the
Rabbis he determined upon



ADAR because its Zodiac sign is fish which he
believed to be unlucky for the Jew.



 



At first blush, his choice is altogether astonishing. For in
fact, fish have always been looked upon as the most



fortunate symbols of the Jewish People. Jacob blessed his
grandsons, may they multiply like the fish.... (Breishis 48:16). And, of
course, there is that popular folk-metaphor, imbedded in our tradition almost
from the beginning



which likens Israel and Torah to fish in water.



 



Nonetheless, Haman took heart from this fish comparison
because there is another analogy, in this selfsme narrative, of an altogether
opposite thrust. Even as fish are caught by the angler's hook at the throat,
so too are my children caught at the throat. It is a frightening simile which
moved Haman to his choice of ADAR.



 



And what is really conveyed here by this allusion to the
throat, Haman sensed, inchoately perhaps, and what we, however, have to know
surely, is that the survival of our people and their sanctuaries depends, in a
very signal way,  ףn the throat. Whether or not the Shekhina - the
Divine Presence speaks through the larynx of Jewish leadership and



of the Jewish people. If it does, then Israelis invincible.
If it doesn't, no people are more vulnerable.



 



Haman surveyed Jewish life and reality about him in the
Persia of his day and did not hear the cadences of the Shekhina speaking
from the larynx of AM YISRAEL, and, therefore, with much confidence and
happy expectation, he determined on ADAR as the appropriate time to
realize his malevolent scheme: To him, they were fish ready for the angler's
hook.



 



Moses, the paradigm of all of us, was curiously a stammerer
who protested I'm not at all a man of words. Yet, deliberately and
purposefully Hashem chose Moses, and perhaps precisely because he was hard of
speech, to give the world the Ten Words, as the Ten Commandments are
denominated in the Torah. He became this communicator par-excellence of all
time, overcoming sore impediment and honest reticence, because the Shekhina,
spoke through his larynx, demonstrating its irresistible and over­whelming
power.



 



Those Jews here, or in Israel, who publicly denounce the
policies of the Jewish State, no less protesting their solemn human and moral
obligation to do so, are, in fact, echo­ing full voice the sordid bias of its
most vowed enemies, and thus treacherously bringing the angler's hook to the
throat of their own people. How much differently things would be if they heeded
instead King David's cry, If the exaltation of HaShem is in your throat, then
your mouth will be a sword in your hand.



Rabbi Zevulun Charlop



 



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