A Hateful Holiday?

So far, our study of Purim has been quite interesting. Everything is so messed up that it makes you rethink everything you've ever known--about Purim. Today, we talked about what I perceive to be the absolute craziest aspect of this whole Purim story. The craziest part is--it happens after zayin! Anyway, Achashveirosh spends the whole beginning of the megillah showing off his power and wealth, but when Esther tells him to saver her people, he says that he cannot rescind a decree, but Esther and Mordechai can make any decree they want and stamp it with his ring. So, they make the same exact decree that Haman did, except this ones gives the Jews the right to defend themselves against their enemies. Now we have a completely legal war where Persians are fighting Jews for absolutely no reason at all. The Jews end up killing 75,000 people in a day of mass murder and now we celebrate this lovely day year after year!

All of this is so absurd that I decided to completely change over the types of articles that give me insight into these types of issues (since I'm sure we will discuss in class) and instead looked into articles that reinforce the dilemma. This type of incident is the kind that seems to make the Jews look pretty bad. If you don't know what's going on and you just read the Megillah, it seems like the Jews are celebrating this mass murder of Persians every year. And many people do think that. I found articles on Iranian.com and one by David Duke, a former member of the House of Representatives on the horrors of Purim. Both point out that each year Jews celebrate the slaughter of 75,000 people as well as the hangings of Haman and his sons. We also yell and curse as his name is mentioned during the reading of the Megillah and apparently, children do "mock hangings" of Haman.

Not only that, but it's also a holiday of cannibalism since we eat food shaped like an ear (hamantashan). The issue of wiping out Amalak is also highlighted. They say that Mordechai knew it was his duty to ensure that we show no mercy toward gentiles and we must wipe out all of Amalek. Jews today must learn from him. Duke brings in the story of a rabbi, who in 1994, killed over 30 Palestinians with a machine gun on Purim. The articles then go off into how Jews are conspiring to initiate another genocide and so on.

My point is that the Purim story is so absurd that we must really understand it so we don't view it as a story that highlights hate and acceptable murder. I'm sure we'll have all the answers soon, but for now I've got a whole lot of questions about this crazy story.