PURIM – FESTIVAL OF LOTS
14th March 2025
Jewish
Purim is a carnival festival which recalls how the Jewish community of Persia was saved from being massacred through the actions of a young Jewish woman, as is retold in the Book of Esther. The whole book, in the form of a handwritten scroll, the Megillah, is read twice in the synagogue, once on the evening of Purim and then again on the following day. Colourful costumes and masks are often worn amid lots of noise as the name of Haman (the villain of the story) is drowned out by the congregation with rattles and hooters and boos when it is read out. Many people come for the reading of the Megillah in fancy dress. Hamantashen (triangular cakes filled with poppy seeds, or with jam or chocolate) are baked and eaten at this time, so named after the triangular pockets or hats or ears said to be in courtly fashion at the time.
Purim means Lots and stems from Haman’s use of lots to determine the date of the pogrom he was planning of all Jews throughout the Persian empire. Since Moredechai, the leader of the Jewish community in Sushan, the capital city, had refused to bow down to Haman, who was the Prime Minister of Ahasuerus, the Persian King, Haman vowed ‘to destroy, kill and annihilate all Jews, young and old, infant and women, in a single day.’
King Ahasuerus had sought a new wife to replace his previous wife, Vashti, whom he had rejected for disobedience. His new Queen, Esther, who was Jewish and Mordechai’s cousin, prayed and fasted along with her fellow Jews for three days, and then risked her life by visiting the King unbidden to invite him to a party where she appealed for the life of her fellow Jews. The King listened to her and Haman was found guilty and hanged on a gallows he had previously erected for Mordechai. Mordechai, who had earlier exposed a plot to assassinate the King, now became the king’s new Prime Minister.
The book of Esther is read aloud in its fullness in the evening of one day and the daytime of the next, in what has become the most joyous day in the Jewish calendar. It celebrates divine deliverance from oppression and marked a new sense of purpose for the Israelite community, who from that time became known as ‘Jews’.
On this day, which always follows a fast throughout the previous day in memory of Esther’s three days of fasting, Jews are expected to observe four commands or mitzvots: to listen to the reading of the Megillah; to give money to at least two poor people in the community, so as to stress the unity of all Jewish people; to send gifts of at least two kinds of food and drink to at least one friend; and to share in a festive meal where food and drink are taken ‘until each person present cannot distinguish between ‘cursed is Haman’ and ‘blessed is Mordechai’.