Where is God in the Purim story? Why don’t we hear God’s name even once? In the story of Purim we are left totally on the human side of things. What are we left with? A human story in all its forms- politics, emotion, and human failings. This human story is a fascinating one, but one piece especially caught our attention. What do characters do who remain neutral? King Ahasverosh is one that we discussed this week. One particular question reads as follows:
“Why might King Achasverosh enjoy having Haman as his right hand man?”
This is a big question for young people to ask- it challenges our ideas about what is often presented as a black and white view of the world- a world of good and evil, and points to the grey. We answered as follows:
-He informed him. He told him the news and what was happening
-He might be a little lazy and that’s why he likes it
We broke down this character. What motivates him to be advised by someone that to us seems to directly and apparently evil? This brings out something that we need to remember. The acts of evil are not only done by evildoers, but also by those that allow their power to be wielded by those that would do evil with it. What an odd story to come back to every year! We can think of each of the characters as being motivated by different things, but we also can look at them as different inclinations within ourselves. After all, not all the actions that are taken in the name of good in this story are done with head held high and total confidence. The will of the “good” characters is shaken quite a number of times. This led us to another question:
“What emotions might be motivating Mordechai to not bow down to Haman? What emotions might be telling him to bow down to Haman?”
Here we flipped the coin. Something tells the characters in our stories to do what is right and what is needed, but these people were just that- people! We discussed:
-He doesn’t like how he’s being treated. Maybe something happened to him in the past that made him not want to bow to Haman”
-He might be suspicious, angry, or scared to bow to him. He doesn’t know what will happen if he doesn’t bow
-He knows that he is friends with the king and that he might perish if he doesn’t do what he said
Moments of courage have consequences for the characters in this story. And when they took action, we have no doubt they had lots of feelings as they rose to the occasion. We want to remember that as we move through our own lives. We will never feel pure courage or pure fear, but we must recognize when to set aside our emotions and step up. Kind words and actions reverberate throughout history. Positive change we bring today helps not only in the moment, but time and time again as we learn the stories of our inheritance and our people.