On Monday night we will start celebrating Purim. It is going to be fun! After a long winter, which still doesn’t want to give way to spring, the continuing recession, the rise in the cost of living, the anniversary of the war in Ukraine, violence and social unrest in Israel, tragic earthquakes in Turkey and Syria….It will be nice to have some fun and humour injected into our community on Monday night, won’t it?
We will celebrate our survival on Monday night, and today’s Shabbat, Shabbat Zahor, makes a meaningful connection for us between the Amalekites and the Purim story. It was they, the Amalekites, who attacked the Israelites, when they were least expecting it from the rear, which meant that the elderly, children and women were the first to be slaughtered. Evil Haman in the Purim story was a descendent from the king of Amalekites, Agag.
We are commanded at the beginning of our Torah reading to remember “זכור” and at the end of it: not to forget “אל תשכח” their evil actions against our ancestors.
Amalek for us, Jewish people, since the time of the Torah, became the epitome of immoral, cowardly and hateful behaviour towards our people.
And indeed we have so much to remember, so much shared trauma in our history, so many big and small Holocausts we have been through. We stop counting and have learnt how to enjoy and appreciate every good day, good week and good year we have.
We, one of the most ancient and persecuted minorities, saw discrimination, humiliation and extermination time and time again: the destruction of the first Temple and the consequent exile, the destruction of the Second Temple and death of the Israelites in their lost war against Rome, the ravaging anger of the Romans, post Bar-Kohba’s revolt in the land of Israel, the expulsion of the Jews from England and Spain and then expulsion from so many cities and lands during medieval times in Europe, the Massacres of the Crusades and the Chmelnitzky revolt in modern day Ukraine, heart-breaking discrimination and antagonism against the Jews in the Russian Empire resulting in horrific pogroms on the territory of the Pale of Settlement and the whole of Russia from the 1880s, – and the Holocaust – to name just a few and the most horrific ones.
It is important to remember our past and to learn from history. It is also important to remember our past because we have so much to be proud of. We have survived. Babylonians came and went, Assyrians came and went, Romans came and went, empires came and went, even the German Nazis came and went but we, the Jewish people, are still here to continue our story and our history.
Cardinal Manning, protesting against horrific Russian pogroms in 1882, said about the Jewish people the following: “Russia and England are of yesterday, as compared with the imperishable people, which, with an inextinguishable life and immutable traditions and faith in God and in the laws of God, scattered as it is, all over the world, passed through the fires unscathed, trampled into the dust and yet never combining with the dust into which it is trampled, lives still, a witness and a warning to us all.”
We, the Jews, know the price of peace in the world and how fragile our lives are. We also know the pain of suffering and violence against us.
We know what it is to rebuild our lives again and again in a new country, in a new city, in a new home after fleeing persecution and injustice.
We know that it is not enough to pray for peace and justice in the world, we have to work for peace and justice in the world: we were hunted but didn’t succumb, we were persecuted but didn’t yield, we were slaughtered but rose from the ashes of despair.
We know from our history that the only way to preserve life is to keep peace. It is with deep sadness I read the reports about the death of three young Israelis at the hands of Palestinians this week: two settlers and an American who made Aliyah to Israel. And the consequent pogrom of the Palestinian village Hawara by the settlers in angry revenge.
Can violence and revenge bring peace and preserve life?
It is with deep sadness I see the social unrest in Israel following the judicial restructuring by the current government and the ongoing fight to preserve the democratic values of the founders of the state of Israel by so many Israelis.
Israel is the only democracy in the Middle East. Can we, the Jewish people, afford to lose it?
It is important for us to stand in solidarity with our sisters and brothers in the land of Israel in their struggle for democracy, justice and peace in the Holy Land. It is important for the progressive Jews in Israel to know that we stand in solidarity with them. The people of Israel, all the people need peace and justice in Israel.
We have survived because of our ancestor’s perseverance, resilience and stoicism in the face of life’s challenges and tribulations, which they passed on to us.
And today, our perseverance, resilience and stoicism helps us to navigate the challenges of our lives as individuals and as a community and to preserve this beautiful but fragile world, our freedom and peace for Rachel and Sam’s children. So that your children and their as-yet unborn friends can enjoy the beauty of this world, living in freedom, peace and prosperity as Jewish people and lead their children by example to work and pray for peace, freedom and justice for future generations.
Remember, we will survive because no Amalek can destroy us but do not forget it is only when we will work together for peace, justice and democracy to make sure that our children and their children will never need to leave their homes or live in fear as our ancestors did but enjoy and appreciate their freedom and that of others.
