From the Rabbi

Purim has passed, and even those of us who celebrated together and listened to the story may have missed this verse in Chapter 4. It goes by quickly. Mordechai admonishes Esther, reluctant at first to step into the King’s chamber uninvited to plead for her people: “Do not imagine that you, of all the Jews, will escape with your life by being in the king’s palace.”

We know the story has a happy “ending” — that is, we rejoice and celebrate “as if” a calamitous disaster had been averted. But I hear in this passage an echo of another, more recent admonishment, offered at an actual time in history when our people were facing a calamity.

“First they came for the Socialists, and I did not speak out— Because I was not a Socialist.

Then they came for the Trade Unionists, and I did not speak out—

Because I was not a Trade Unionist.

Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out—

Because I was not a Jew.

Then they came for me—and there was no one left to speak for me.” (Pastor Martin Niemöller)

In the next verse, Mordechai adds: “Who knows? Maybe you have achieved your royal position for just such a purpose.”

Who knows, indeed? It is a question each of us should consider. We share a civic culture besieged these days with pronouncements and declarations, legal decisions rendered, speeches, blogs and all manner of visual productions that invoke our people’s most vulnerable time in the last century.

One thing I do know for sure: we all — all of us, no matter the level of our estate — have an obligation to speak out for the rights of minorities, immigrants, first peoples, and all whose standing in this country is threatened by dint of prejudice and ignorance.

Our purpose is clear. We are here, yes, to tell our story — as we will do with joy and delight on Passover, nourished in preparation by the joy and delight of Purim. We are also here to bear witness, to declare We Are Here/mir zaynen do, a people who knows what it means to stand up to a sovereign force for what is right.