Topic: Purim

Purim is True

By Jakir Manela on March 17, 2022 in Jakir, Newsletters, Purim, Tzedek/Justice

Friends, What is Purim? And Have We All Gone Mad? Purim is everywhere. A masquerade. A feast. A time of drinking and debauchery. Why? The unbridled joy of early spring? Eat drink and be merry for tomorrow we may die? G!d…not mentioned once. G!d’s deafening absence in our first story of Exile. How do we survive in the Diaspora? Well…no one is coming to rescue us. We must keep faith in the darkness. And accept that empire persists. We reckon again with old, old hatreds. Amalek attacks. Grave danger, violence, evil surrounds us. Will salvation come? Purim is everywhere. Before starting to read the megillah (Book of Esther/Purim story) to the kids at dinner last night, I first read the Torah verses connected with Purim: “Amalek came and battled Israel…G!d maintains a war against Amalek, from generation to generation” (Exodus 17:8 and 17:16). Our son, Shama (12 years old), asked “Where is Amalek now?” Well, one particular dictator comes to mind, but it’s more complicated than that. Yes, Purim is real. In every generation there are those who rise up to destroy us. War rages in Ukraine; people need help. Our Hakhel Co-Directors, Rabbi Aharon Ariel Lavi and Michal […]

Purim: Truths Revealed Over The Past Year by Melissa Hoffman

By Hazon on February 22, 2021 in Purim, Shmita

Many of us anticipated this Purim as the approximate year-marker since our lives changed unimaginably. There’s something apt about the holiday that highlights the topsy-turvy nature of life bookending the beginning — and hopefully the beginning of the end — of the coronavirus in the United States. Purim represents a time of finding happiness and hopefulness amidst great existential uncertainty. It’s also about hidden truths being revealed to us. In the early months of the pandemic, many of us found joy, paradoxically, in hearing tales and seeing images of rejuvenation and rebirth occurring in nature due to the sharp drop in our own activity. With humans in temporary retreat, wildlife proliferated in formerly abandoned habitats and even occupied urban spaces. As motorway traffic plummeted, a dramatic decline in carbon dioxide and nitrogen dioxide emissions allowed all life to breathe more easily again. We got a glimpse of what it would look like to give the land a long-deserved Shabbat, a respite from our anthropocentric reign. Maybe we caught a glimpse of the truth that’s been drowned out by the busy-ness of our typical, frenetic day-to-day: that slowing down is a good look for the world. A key lesson we can […]

Rosh Chodesh Adar, and a preview of the Shmita Prizes

By Nigel Savage on February 11, 2021 in Education, Holidays, Nigel, Purim

February 11, 2021 | Erev Rosh Chodesh Adar Dear All, The Hebrew month of Adar, by tradition, “increases joy.” Those who are used to Jewish tradition may take this idea for granted. But underlying it are presumptions that are worth thinking about, not least because they run so counter to contemporary western presumptions. First amongst these is the Jewish idea that we can choose to determine how we feel. In Western life: don’t we just go with the flow? Isn’t it somehow unhealthy to squelch how I’m feeling? In this particular year – of death and sickness and disruption – aren’t we entitled not merely to feel (choose your words) tired / depressed / exhausted / unsettled / lonely / scared / confused or, indeed, just plain slogging-along-and-wondering-if-things-will-ever-get-better…? A contemporary Jewish response would be to say, yes, of course, we should feel what we feel. And in these times especially, it may be important to share how we feel with loved ones, indeed to let it out a little; not be trapped or further bowed down by our feelings. That’s part of it. But the other part is a different kind of Jewish response, sometimes rooted in chasidic tradition. […]

Vayakhel-Pekudei: Preparing for Pesach during COVID-19

By Leah Palmer on March 20, 2020 in Hakhel Blog, Hakhel Blog, Holidays, Jewish Intentional Communities, Passover, Purim

by Leah Palmer, Hakhel Administrative Director I generally start cleaning for Pesach around January time, much to the displeasure of those living with me. The cleaning takes the form of taking everything out of the cupboard, cleaning up any dust and crumbs, then putting everything back at right angles to each other. Frankly, I’m not that fussed if it’s accessible or not, just so long as it is tidy. I know that schmutz is not Chametz (leavened products prohibited at Pesach), but the cleaning is a ritual that I really enjoy. It’s a time of year where people ask me a lot “Where did you put the…” and I normally don’t know, because I’m not really paying attention to what I’m putting back in the cupboards, but more the fact that there won’t be any crumbs leftover. And like pretty much everything in all of our lives right now, that’s changed this year. With childcare canceled, I’ve become a full-time homeschooling Mom for two hyperactive toddlers and I’m constantly looking for things to do with them. So as I’m cleaning, I’m going through every shelf, thinking about what can be repurposed to make a toy, what can be the focus […]

Now’s the time to plan a cleanse!

By Nigel Savage on March 5, 2020 in In the News, Newsletters, Nigel, Passover, Purim

Thursday, March 5, 2020 | 9th Adar 5780 Dear All, The coronavirus is spreading, and it will get worse before it gets better. Batten down the hatches, wash your hands, follow public safety advice, be considerate to others – and don’t freak out. And the aftermath of the Israeli elections and the ongoing US elections – same advice… But as the velocity of travel, literally, starts to slow, I want to argue that we – you, me, all of us – do a cleanse in the next few weeks. And I get this idea from thinking carefully about the deep lessons from the Jewish calendar right now: First: Purim isn’t an isolated holiday. It comes to help us get ready for Pesach, existentially as well as physically. Purim is “the world turned upside down.” No mention of G!d in the story. Getting drunk. Cross-dressing. Purim comes to shake us out of false certainties. It comes to question the components of our identity, the relationship between inner and outer, the tension between who we are and what we have. And Purim does this because it kicks off an eleven week period from Purim to Shavuot. Seder night is the fulcrum of the whole period. And seder night is the […]

Engage With the Powerful Energy of Adar: Your Chance for Joy

By Hazon on February 26, 2020 in Animals, Holidays, Passover, Purim, Spirituality

By Rabbi Ora Weiss The Hebrew Month of Adar, beginning this year on February 26, has great weight and depth, much more so if one is aware and takes advantage of its powerful vertical energy, Source/God energy. There is a circularity to entering this energy. Each year we step in to start another year long circular journey around its vertical energy, potentially moving us toward greater wisdom. With each circle around Adar we have the opportunity to go deeper within the self to draw ever closer to our God-self. At the same time, Adar invites us to do a review of the past year’s circle which is a review of honor: did we do our work in going deeper, in accessing more wisdom. Are we more able to give answers based in wisdom. Are we living with more responsibility for our growing wisdom, are we bringing it forward in our communication with others. We are able to look back upon each of the looping circles for each year of our lives that we circle Adar, and see what wisdom we have gained. Most often, that wisdom is gained through pain, trauma, sorrow. We can ask ourselves, what did we endure, […]

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