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The Purim Anthology recounts the origins of the first Purim, then examines festival observances in different eras throughout the world, laws and rites, and finally provides plays and poems, stories and songs. This treasury includes “The Origin of Purim” by Solomon Grayzel, “The Esther Story in Art” by Rachel Wischnitzer, “Purim in Music” by A. W. Binder (including an extensive compilation of Purim songs), “The History of Purim Plays” by Jacob Shatzky, Purim celebrations in Tel Aviv by Mortimer J. Cohen, and Purim in humor by Israel Davidson—all together a thoughtful and fun-filled literary feast.
Product Details
| ISBN-13: | 9780827612259 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | The Jewish Publication Society |
| Publication date: | 07/01/2018 |
| Series: | The JPS Holiday Anthologies |
| Sold by: | Barnes & Noble |
| Format: | eBook |
| Pages: | 560 |
| File size: | 14 MB |
| Note: | This product may take a few minutes to download. |
About the Author
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CHAPTER 1
THE ORIGIN OF PURIM
Solomon Grayzel
The festival of Purim derives from the biblical story of Esther, one of the most dramatic and best-told stories in all literature. Generations of Jews and Christians have retold it with undiminished interest. History itself has reenacted it time and again; for Hamans have risen against the Jews and Mordecais have appeared to save them in many countries throughout the past two millennia. It is surprising, therefore, that the truth of the original story has in more recent times been called into question.
Almost everything about the story of Purim has been doubted. There are distinguished students of the Bible who assert that the events narrated in the story of Esther never happened, that the characters there mentioned never existed — not Esther, nor Mordecai, nor Haman, nor Vashti — that the story is merely a story and that the holiday was not Jewish in origin. These matters must be looked into before Purim can be discussed as historical fact.
The most obvious difficulty is that none of the names mentioned in the Scroll of Esther has been found in any of the records or inscriptions of Persia. Of course, the available information about ancient Persia is rather meager. Most of the documents and tablets of that period were destroyed in the course of the many wars which were fought in that part of the world. Alexander the Great himself, as early as about the year 340 before the Common Era, wrought a great deal of destruction in this respect. Nonetheless, many scholars argue, some mention of the event or of the people connected with it might have been found, and the fact that not a trace of the Purim story exists is highly damaging evidence. The origin of the Jewish festival must, therefore, they believe, be sought elsewhere than in the story itself.
The Esther story, in addition to lacking external corroboration, also presents certain internal difficulties. Neither Mordecai nor Esther are Jewish names. It is, in fact, obvious that the former derives from the god Marduk and the latter from the goddess Ishtar. At the same time, the story contains not a single mention of the name of God. It is apparently a secular story from beginning to end: the miraculous deliverance is achieved by purely human means; the revenge taken by the Jews and the rewards granted to Mordecai are equally human. Moreover, it is well known that as late as the time of the Maccabees the holiday of Purim was not observed as it was later. Centuries afterwards the rabbis still knew a tradition that their predecessors, the men of the Great Assembly, had refused to agree to Esther's and Mordecai's request for the holiday to be instituted as an everlasting memorial. Finally, certain differences exist between the story of Esther as told in the Bible and the same story as told in the Greek translation known as the Septua- gint. The very name of the day is different, the Septuagint calling it Fruria and omitting the verses which speak of the casting of lots whence the name Purim is derived.
Almost every Bible scholar during the past century has tried his hand at solving these seeming mysteries of the Book of Esther. They sought the solution in Jewish history and in non-Jewish history, among the stories of the ancient gods and among the literatures of Palestine's pagan neighbors. Heinrich Graetz, for example, the noted Jewish historian, himself given to higher criticism of the Bible, argued that the story was mostly invention. It had been written, he held, at the time of the Maccabean revolt against Antiochus of Syria, in order to fortify the spirit of the Jews in that hour of crisis by showing that God does not abandon His people.
Other critics displayed even more remarkable ingenuity in finding parallels, references and novel clues to the identification of the story's original motive, form, time and place.
A recent discussion of the subject deserves special attention, not only because it summarizes and refutes many previous theories, but also because it presents a rather plausible theory of its own. Dr. Julius Lewy, focusing his vast learning upon this little book, traces in it the transformation ot a pagan myth into the Jewish holiday. In the Persian city of Susa there had long lived a colony of Babylonians whose religion, still centering about their ancient gods, Marduk and Ishtar, differed from the religion of the victorious Persians. Naturally, the Babylonian Marduk worshippers (Mardukians) looked upon the Persian gods as hostile. In a manner not uncommon among pagans, the hostility was dramatized by personifying the various gods and telling the story of their conflict so as to permit one's favorite to come out victorious. Mordecai would thus seem to be the embodiment of the entire group of Mardukians. Esther obviously stands for Ishtar, especially in view of the adjective "the queen" usually appended to her name as it was attached to the name of the goddess Ishtar. Ishtar was represented as triumphing over the Elamite goddess Mashti (Vashti). In like manner, Haman represents the anti-Mardukians. Dr. Lewy points out that in the Greek story of Esther, Haman is not called the Agagite, but the Bugite or Bagaite, which is a legitimate characterization for a follower of the Persian god Mithra. This story, current among the Babylonian minority of Susa, must have been well known among another minority of the city, namely, the Jews. Actually, of course, no such story has come down to us; Dr. Lewy merely assumes that the form of a story supposedly current among the Mardukians had the essential elements of the story of Esther as we know it.
Stories about gods were told with special relish near the time when the seasons changed. The end of winter among the pagans of Persia was marked by a holiday, called Far- vardigan, which fell on the fourteenth day of the twelfth month. As a holiday, it was marked by the exchange of gifts and much gaiety. Now, such holidays have a way of being adopted by minorities among the population. In the course of time, this holiday spread among the Jews of the Persian Empire. It was known in Palestine about the time of the Maccabean revolt (167 B.C.E.), though certainly not yet officially recognized. Someone, whether in or out of Palestine, then modified the Mardukian story, giving it a Jewish coloring, in order to give justification to the widespread festivities of the day.
Whether or not one accepts the involved, detective-like reasoning which leads Dr. Lewy to the above conclusions or adopts similar theories on the Book of Esther, the fact remains that the earliest mention of the feast of Purim dates from only the second century B.C.E. This time element is important. Judah the Maccabee won his great victory over the Syrian general Nicanor on the 13 th of Adar in the year 161 and that day was declared a holiday. This would never have been done had the Fast of Esther, which traditionally falls on that day, already been commonly observed. At least in Palestine, Purim was evidently not yet universally acknowledged, although the Purim day itself, under the name of "the Day of Mordecai," was known. The early Greek translation of the Book of Esther, made soon thereafter, concludes with the remark that the translation was the work which a certain Lysimachus, son of Ptolemy of Jerusalem, completed in the fourth year of the reign of Ptolemy and Cleopatra. Historians have calculated that this could have been either the year 177 B.C.E. or about the year 114 B.C.E. Even assuming the earlier date, which would place the translation before the Maccabean revolt, we could only say that the book had become sufficiently popular to merit translation, not that the holiday was then already definitely established.
The festival grew more important with every passing generation. It is clear that Purim was generally observed in Palestine some time before the destruction of the Second Temple. Priests officiating at the Temple service were required to leave their sacrificial duties and listen to the reading of the Scroll. About two generations after the destruction, that is, about the middle of the second century of the Common Era, the famous Rabbi Meir is known to have followed the strict rules which had already become accepted regarding the reading of the Scroll of Esther. A regulation from that period reflects the joyful attitude prevalent at the Purim season. Nevertheless, the rabbis of that age still remembered the doubts which their predecessors had expressed about considering the Scroll as sacred as other portions of the Holy Writings.
Does all this lend countenance to the theory of the story's foreign origin and to the assumption that it has no historical foundation? Many traditionalist Jewish and Christian scholars have denied this and attempted to defend the historicity of the book. None has made a greater and more convincing effort to do so than the late Professor Jacob Hoschander, who published a book on the subject in 1923. Delving deeply into the history of ancient Persia, and reasoning quite as learnedly and as tortuously as those who deny the story any basis in fact, Hoschander presents for his side at least as convincing an argument as do his opponents for theirs.
Hoschander concludes that the Persian king involved in the story was not Xerxes, who is generally assumed to have been the fickle king of the Esther story, but Artaxerxes II, who reigned almost a century later (403-358 B.C.E.). The latter's character, his love of wine, the events of his reign and the extent of his empire coincide with the description of the king in the Scroll. There is also good reason why the feast of his accession should have taken place in the third year of his kingship, as the first verse of the Scroll relates. The identification of the other names in the story seems to be more difficult. Vashti, which in Persian means "Beauty," might well have been the popular name of Artaxerxes' queen, Stateira, who was murdered in a palace intrigue. As to Esther, Mordecai and Haman, it is possible to explain their names but not to identify them with any known character in the extant Persian annals of that period. Dr. Hoschander, however, did not feel that this represented a serious flaw in his argument, since the official titles of such prominent people could have been altogether different from the names they bore in private life. Moreover, in view of our scant knowledge about the history of ancient Persia, our failure to identify these people cannot invalidate the story told by one who lived much nearer the events and was acquainted with the circumstantial details.
Far more important than the identification of the names is the discovery of the motives which underlay Haman's plot to exterminate the Jews. Dr. Hoschander, for example, does not believe that Mordecai's failure to bow before Haman could have been the cause of the cruel edict. He finds a deeper and, on the whole, more reasonable theory to account for the events. The Persian religion, with its belief in the eternal conflict between the force making for light (goodness) and that making for darkness (evil), possessed two qualities which brought it closer to Judaism than most religions of the ancient world: it emphasized ethics and it shunned images. Under the circumstances, Zoroastrians and Jews were favorably disposed toward each other. Most of the rest of the empire's population, however, was still steeped in image-worship. The result was a certain amount of religious disunity in Artaxerxes' vast population. Haman, probably of non-Zoroastrian origin, suggested the reintroduction of images and their compulsory worship. The Jews of the Empire not only objected to this "reformation," but actively opposed it; they did not "obey the laws of the king" and set a bad example to the dominant class of Zoroastrians. An example was, therefore, to be made of them. But before the plan could succeed, Haman fell from favor, due to a palace intrigue not uncommon in that day.
Plausible as such theories seem, are they really necessary? After all the erudite deductions have been considered, the simple, unadorned story which the Bible tells still seems the most reasonable and credible. This was not the only time in the eventful history of the Jews when an enemy plotted their destruction and all but succeeded in his plans; nor was this the only time when petty, purely human motives operated both against them and in their favor. The very fact that their deliverance is not attributed to God speaks for the credibility of the story as an actual, historical event. The story was told in Susa and spread to other parts of the empire, until it eventually reached Palestine. The dark days of Syrian persecution, during the pre-Maccabean period, afforded a favorable atmosphere for its spread. It soon became popular because it proved that, in the last moment, God intervenes to save His people and that He does so through human instruments. This actually happened in the case of the Maccabees. The subsequent loss of Jewish independence to Rome heightened the hopes for a human deliverer and thereby increased the popularity of the story of Esther. The Jews who lived in the midst of pagans, such as those of Egypt, Syria and Asia Minor, had an even more immediate reason for finding the story interesting. There was considerable anti-Jewish feeling in these countries. It was comforting for the Jews to be able to cite an instance — as a source of edification to themselves and as a warning to their neighbors — when a pagan enemy was so thoroughly discomfited.
The 14th of Adar coincided with a holiday period in the pagan calendar in western Asia. Haman may deliberately have chosen a holiday of this sort for the execution of his plans. The merry-making, half-inebriated rabble could the more easily be aroused to join in the slaughter of innocent people, especially if the latter were unprotected by the authorities and if loot were in prospect. Quite possibly, some Jews had participated in the fun and the gift-giving of the pagan holiday before the Haman incident. With the example of Christmas and New Year's festivities before us now, we can readily understand why the Jews of that day imitated their neighbors. They justified their actions after the incident, by pointing to the request included in the Book of Esther that her and Mordecai's victory be commemorated by rejoicing, exchanging of gifts and the giving of portions to the poor — the last probably a purely Jewish addition.
One may well imagine that the religious leaders of the Jewish people in Palestine did not like the growing popularity of the new holiday. They could not easily resign themselves to approving a book in which eating and drinking were encouraged but the name of God was not mentioned. Nevertheless, there was no gainsaying the popular will. In time, the religious guides of the people yielded. They accepted the book into the Holy Writings, made its reading obligatory and gift-giving part of the celebration. For a long time, variations in the observance continued to exist. It is possible that in some Greek-speaking countries the book was read in Greek rather than in Hebrew. For some generations, there was uncertainty about the time of reading, whether at night, in the morning, or both. The latest addition to the observance was the introduction of the Fast of Esther, on the day preceding Purim, which is not mentioned until gaonic times, that is, after the seventh century.
The "beating of Haman" was probably an early feature of the reading of the Scroll in public. It may have been taken over from the pagan festivities, when the communal fool was crowned king for a day. Hanging Haman in effigy soon turned into a popular sport and on several occasions brought trouble to a Jewish community here and there. Cecil Roth has argued that it gave rise to the blood accusation which, in later centuries, so plagued the Jews of Europe.
Miracle plays were introduced later, as were also the Purim Se'udah (feast) and Hamantashen (cakes filled with a paste of honey-sweetened poppyseeds).
One of the incidents in the Purim story to which Christian Bible critics have always pointed with scorn is the "revenge" which the Jews took and the relish with which the Scroll speaks of so many thousands killed in Susa and so many more thousands in the provincial towns. They see in the narrative an expression of blood-lust. Apart from the obvious reflection that such a characterization applies with infinitely greater force to ancient and modern enemies of the Jews, the charge displays complete lack of imagination. What actually happened? Haman was an efficient executive. He laid his plans many months in advance; he promised compensation to his assistants; he put the matter in the hands of local authorities. Every town must have had a band of cutthroats ready for "the day," and a propaganda campaign to enlist volunteer rioters undoubtedly had been put in motion. These orders, having been given under the king's seal, could not be countermanded. Only later did Mordecai's edict arrive giving the Jews permission to defend themselves. Presumably, the police, fearing Mordecai, now risen to power, remained neutral. Many of the would-be rioters, caring only to be on the winning side, joined the Jewish defense forces — the Scroll (8.17) speaks of these as Mityahadim, that is, joining the Jews. It was too late to stop the riots, but there was no reason why the Jews, now armed and strengthened, should not beat them back. The numbers killed were comparatively small, and the Jews proudly refrained from looting.
(Continues…)
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Table of Contents
List of Illustrations,
A Note from the Publisher,
Preface,
Acknowledgments,
Book One The Story of Purim,
I. THE ORIGIN OF PURIM, by Solomon Grayzel,
II. SPECIAL PURIMS,
III. PURIM IN MANY LANDS,
BOOK TWO PURIM IN LITERATURE, ART AND MUSIC,
IV. PURIM IN THE BIBLE,
V. PURIM IN POST-BIBLICAL WRITINGS,
VI. PURIM IN TALMUD AND MIDRASH,
VII. PURIM IN JEWISH LAW,
VIII. PURIM IN MODERN PROSE,
IX. PURIM IN THE SHORT STORY,
X. PURIM IN POETRY,
XI. PURIM IN MUSIC, by A. W. BINDER,
XII. THE ESTHER STORY IN ART, by Rachel Wischnitzer,
BOOK THREE PURIM FOR YOUNG PEOPLE,
XIII. STORIES FOR PURIM,
XIV. POEMS FOR PURIM,
BOOK FOUR PURIM JOY,
XV. PURIM PRANKS,
XVI. THE HISTORY OF PURIM PARODY IN JEWISH LITERATURE, by Israel Davidson,
XVII. THE HISTORY OF PURIM PLAYS, by Jacob Shatzky,
XVIII. PURIM CURIOSITIES,
XIX. PURIM WIT AND HUMOR,
XX. PURIM PARTIES AND PROGRAMS, by Libbie L. Braverman,
BOOK FIVE COMMEMORATION OF PURIM,
XXIII. PURIM IN THE SYNAGOGUE,
MUSIC SUPPLEMENT,
I. Liturgical Music,
II. Hebrew Songs,
IV. English Songs,
V. Parodies in English,
Glossary of Purim Terms,
Bibliography,
Notes,