Spirit and Story Archive

Welcome to Spirit and Story, where you will find the latest thoughts and reflections by CLAL faculty and associates on the contours of our contemporary spiritual journeys. Every other week you will find something new and (hopefully) engaging here!

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Rainbow Wigs to Matzoh Balls

By Daniel Brenner

As I store my rainbow colored wig for next Purim, my mind wanders to the stock boys in grocery stores worldwide who are now shlepping matzoh and wondering how many crackers the Jews could possibly be eating. Right when Purim ends, the countdown to Passover begins and I’ve always wondered: What meaning can we make of this transition?

I wonder this about all holidays. Halloween goes to Thanksgiving, goes to Christmas, goes to Valentine’s day…. The days that I am most excited by a walk through the local pharmacy are when there exists that weird overlap between days. When, for example, a leftover Santa is now part of a Valentine display, and I wonder if he’s cheating on Mrs. Claus. Or an Easter Bunny is surrounded by American flags as if he’s naturalizing.

The transition time between holidays is acknowledged in Jewish tradition, most notably in the times between Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur, and between Passover and Shavuot. But what about between Purim and Passover? After some thought, here’s how I try to make sense of the days leading up to Passover.

Purim is a wild story of assimilation. The Jews of Persia are first a minority community under threat, but they end up “assimilating” (Esther marries a Persian man and lives in the palace!) and, as a result, having political influence. In the end, they are able to protect themselves and we celebrate Esther’s bravery.

But Passover is different. Moses begins as assimilated as possible – a life as an Egyptian in the palace. However, he does not, like Esther, use his power within the system to help his people. He ends up, after killing the taskmaster, fleeing into the desert, re-uniting with his family, and coming back to fight the power. It is apparent that the only option for the slaves is to break free and create a new society. Revolution and liberation are the paths he chooses and are what we celebrate on Passover night.

From Purim and Passover, we learn the significance of two paths—Esther working within the system, and Moses overthrowing it to create a new one. Together they prepare us for the spring, the time when we not only witness the rebirth of the natural cycle, but also experience such a rebirth on a personal and spiritual level.

There are two spiritually charged questions that emerge from the Purim-Passover time. One asks: What parts of my life can I adjust from within? And the second asks: What parts do I need to challenge and radically break free from?

There is a deep logic in asking the “adjust from within” question first. Once we have reached the limit of our potential for such adjustments, then we have to ask what in our lives needs a revolution or exodus. Or maybe we simply need to remind ourselves of the times in the past when we successfully made adjustments or liberated ourselves from a force that held us back.

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