Zachor: Remembering that change is possible
Devarim 25:17-19
Summary: Haman and his spiritual successors want us to believe that change is not possible - things will be as they now are; we will be as we now are. The Purim story shows that this is not so, and remembering that change is in fact possible is the lion’s share of the battle against this wily foe.
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The local synagogue of which I am a member puts out an annual calendar. In addition to invaluable candle-lighting and havdallah times, Jewish art, and photos of Israel, you would find photographs of member-families.
One day I was (for some reason) leafing through those photos. Most of the families looked nice and proper, men wearing jackets and ties, women in formal attire, people holding snakes. The usual. Suddenly I came to a picture of a family dressed outrageously, and I gasped! “What the hell are they doing dressed like that?” And then, in the next moment: “Oh. That’s my family.”
And I laughed. And laughed and laughed and laughed. And laughed - and not only because we looked absolutely ridiculous (and utterly resplendent) (and completely out of place) in our full-family Willy Wonka costumes (I was Augustus Gloop). I laughed so deeply as one often does when things are going one way and then, suddenly, they are going in quite a different direction.
That’s how funny works. You don’t know if anyone on the plane speaks jive, and then the old lady says, “Oh stewardess. I speak jive” (“Oh good!”). And then you laugh.
And the more surprising the turn, the funnier it is. Someone’s leading someone else around town on the king’s horse! That would be Haman on the horse, right?! Wait - Haman’s leading the horse, and it’s his enemy Mordecai sitting atop the king’s steed. What!?! Crazy!
Wait… Haman is on top of the world, about to put the finishing touch on his master plan for world domination, and now he is hanging from the gallows - the very gallows he made to dispose of his enemy Mordecai! Har har har!
What’s this!? Mordecai was clothed in sackcloth and ashes just a moment ago, and now he is dressed in royal garments. Amazing!
Wait, what’s happening here? Yitzhak’s about to be sacrificed by his own father, but wait! Avraham brings a ram instead! Hysterical! Oh, wait. That one’s not funny. But his name does mean “he will laugh.” I guess we’re not ready for that one yet.
**
Climb up the humor ladder into the heavenly realms and you discover that “things were going one way and now they’re going in quite a different direction” is called emunah b’chidush ha’olam - ‘faith in the renewal of the world.' Essential to the Jewish view of things is that a situation or a life might be going one way, but it could change, because what is happening is not absolute. There is a power that resides above and beyond whatever is happening - “the Renewer” - and the Renewer can renew anything, even if it seems terrible.
Not that we should count on things changing. It is not that the Renewer will certainly turn this situation around - it’s that the Renewer could. We shouldn’t allow ourselves to assume without a doubt that they cannot. We should live life with nine and a half toes in the moment as we see it, dealing with the reality at hand, but also half a toe in the awareness that things could be different.
It’s this very hope/faith/commitment that is victory over Haman. Even if the situation doesn’t change, the deep, embodied sense that Renewal is possible is defiance of that wicked, wicked man. This is the other battle we are fighting, in addition to the earthy battles we are fighting - to remain aware of and connected to the possibility of a new world, of change.
Rebbe Natan of Breslov writes that Haman’s whole game was to convince people that this is not so, that there is no chidush ha’olam. He wants you to think that when you’re down you’re down, and when you’re out you’re out, and when you’re up you’re up. He wants you to think that, once you’ve eaten at the king’s feast and bowed to the idols then it’s over. No hope. Nothing will change. Just another tyrant on the slow and inevitable road to world domination. Eat a hamantaschen, Haman.
And though Purim has (unfortunately) become somewhat of a children’s holiday (when it is definitely the adults who need training in knowing that things could change, not the kids) the message is serious and intense and difficult. You can see why the rabbis recommended intoxication on Purim “until you don’t know” - because all these adults “know.” We are deeply entrenched in a pervasive hopelessness disguised as “reality” and “experience” and blah blah.
Sure, adult who is reading this: life is hard. Haman and his people are very convincing, and they will do whatever they can to convince us that there is no hope of change, because when you give up hope you give up, and then they can do whatever they want.
But I urge you, as an act of defiance against Haman and all other tyrants - work hard to find the faith that things can change. Maybe demonstrate by dressing up as an Oompa Loompa. I’ve got a costume you can borrow.