The holiday of Purim will take place Thursday evening, March 24th and Friday, March 25th. As all of us know, it is the story of the triumph in the days of Esther of the Jews over their enemies. The king had appointed a certain Haman as his chief adviser, and Haman, having been disappointed and angered by the actions of one Jew, set out to destroy all Jews. Unfortunately, the same scenario, more or less, has been replayed throughout our history. The action of any Jew, whether we like it or not, often reflects on the entire Jewish community, and the community is scapegoated for the imagined sins of one.

The Rabbis, however, raised an interesting question. Why at this particular time, did these events occur? Why was it that Haman was elevated and the enmity of the Jew spread so swiftly in the upper levels of government? Why did the desire to destroy Jews become a political issue of the first order?

We, from our narrow vantage point, certainly saw some of the same processes in the days of the Second World War. Anti-Semitism had reached the highest levels of our own government and countless Jews lost their lives because the doors to this country were closed. For that matter, even the Haman of our time, Hitler (may his name be blotted out), placed the destruction of our people above the needs of Germany's armed forces so that they suffered for lack of supplies to the Russian front while the trains were busy deporting Jews to the death camps. So our Rabbis asked the same question, Why? Why now?

And they suggested that Hashem was so incensed at Jews debasing themselves, that He sent Haman to teach us a lesson. Aschauerus had invited the Jews of his kingdom to participate in his great feast. At the feast, placed on display to be gawked at, fondled and used improperly, were the sacred objects
of the Temple captured by Nebuchadnezzar. The Jews of Shushan went to that
dinner because after all, the King invited them. How could they not go? And they saw our national and spiritual treasures mocked and profaned, and they
said nothing and did nothing. And so the Sages said, Haman arose.

And we too debase ourselves, and willingly offer our spiritual heritage to those who knowingly deny the historic connection of the Jewish people to its treasures (treasures that pre-existed the coming of Mohammed by 2,000 years). This is what the Rabbis meant. The Jews of ancient Persia behaved in similar fashion and thus were punished through the activities of Haman.

We Americans like to wrap up things in neat little packages with simple solutions. Yet as Jews, we have discovered that our enemies will listen to any
falsehood and to any ridiculous assertion to add fuel to the flame of their hatred to us and the State of Israel. For example, the recent, terrible natural
disaster that occurred off the coast of Southeast Asia has been blamed on us. It has been reported that little Israel, powerful United States and mighty India have collaborated in atomic bomb experiments that are the direct cause
of the Tsunami. It is shocking to believe that such a falsehood could be broadcast as fact over Arab radio and television. Yet the mendancious nature of our enemies is so great that anything will be believed as long as the object of
the falsehood is Israel. This realization should arouse us to the understanding that we cannot deny who we are and from where we come. Doing so will not
advance the peace we all seek. It may just be that peace is not attainable right now - not for us here in the United States in our ongoing conflict with terrorism and its allies, and not for our families in Israel.

I'd like to include some remarks made by Rabbi Stewart Weiss, the Director of the Jewish Outreach Center of Ra'anana, Israel. I have quoted his remarks before but they are just as appropriate now. He was speaking of his son
who was in the army at the time of the Ben Yehuda Pizza Restaurant bombing.
I include this in reference to the section in the Megillah at its very end, which speaks of how the Jews rose up after Esther had won the political battle,
and fought and vanquished their enemies. Questions have been raised as to
why there was a necessity to do this. After all, Esther and Mordechai were the
complete victors in the internal palace intrigue in Shushan. Why couldn't they have let bygones be bygones? I suggest sometimes that that road is more
dangerous than any other. So this is a portion of what Rabbi Weiss wrote:

"What are we doing to our kids? When I was 19, in Chicago my biggest worry was next week's final, or whether I could get the car on the weekend. I had
never held a gun - let along actually USED one - and the only people I thought
about hating were Yankee fans and the occasional skinhead.

"But our young people are surrounded by danger, trained to kill. They experience the semi-torture of rigorous training, night marches, bad food and delayed dreams. They grab their fleeting moments of rest and relaxation in small, hurried doses, and they are perpetually tired and hungry. Yet they - and the good graces of the Almighty - are all that stand between us and the evil
designs of thousands of bloodthirsty murderers who crave our destruction.

"Our kids are good kids, sensitive kids, nice kids - and that is precisely the problem. We Jews have a long tradition of being compassionate, merciful, forgiving. We are called "Rachamim ben Rachmanim" and our first response is
always to seek peace, avoid bloodshed, work for compromise and meet the other guy halfway.

"But we are dealing with an enemy that does not know compromise, which does not seek peace, which has no mercy or compassion. While we were burying the children of Ben Yehuda, they were giving their young people a holiday from school to dance in the streets and celebrate the "great bombing." They seek our blood, not our friendship, and they understand only the language of war.

"And so we have a frightful and difficult task ahead of us: We must re-train
our children to be tough, unbending, uncompromising, even cruel. As long as
they carry a weapon, they must somehow stifle their gentle character, repress their giving spirit, and confront the enemy with no quarter and no compassion.

"My son - a friendly person by nature - is beginning to understand this. "We can't become animalistic towards them, and we can't hate them the way they hate us," he says. "but the time for talk is over; we can't co-exist with these people. Now they have to learn to be afraid of us. When they throw a rock at our heads, and we raise our gun to them, they can't be so sure that we won't fire. We shouldn't let them bury their suicide bombers, and make every funeral an anti-Israel parade. We shouldn't let the terrorist's family be rewarded. There has to be a steep price paid for every attack they launch. It may seem cruel, but war is ALWAYS cruel. In the end, we have to fight this war - which they started - and we have to win, at all costs. When we HAVE won, then we can think about being nice guys again."

Unfortunately, Rabbi and Mrs. Weiss paid a steep price as their son, who was a wonderful young man, lost his life in the Battle of Jenin. We would like to believe that enmity and hatred will fall away. Everybody will be happy and live in peace as long as everybody has a chicken in every pot and a car in every garage. With eternal hope springing from deep within us, some are now claiming that with the departure of Arafat/Haman, an agreement is now possible and peace lies around the corner. In this area of Israeli and Arab relations, I remain the realist. I would like to turn to my enemies and say "Show me!" I would like for them to live up to their commitments for once and then maybe some kind of a truce might be imaginable. But the legacy of Arafat and his Imans - that Jews are to be hated and Israel is to be dismembered has not been addressed, and so I am not so sanguine.

The Jews of Shushan knew that you can't wish enmity and hatred away and they took up arms and vanquished their haters. As Rabbi Weiss suggests, we
may have to do the same. When that is done, then perhaps we might be
able to conduct an autopsy on the catastrophic idea of "land for peace."

Wishing all of you a Happy Purim!