Yotam Zimri is a well-known Israeli media personality, satirist and columnist who writes a weekly article for the Makor Rishon Hebrew newspaper. He stars in the popular daily Fathi and Zimri radio show and is a panelist on Channel 14's iconic nightly "The Patriots" program. He usually describes himself as non-observant, but this article defines him as a man of faith.
I looked at him crying in the living room and smiled. But he was really sobbing. "No Purim, there is no Purim because of this war," wept Adam, one of my nine-year-old twin sons. He found it hard to accept that the much-anticipated partying was cancelled. He had no problem handling alerts, sirens, spending a good deal of time in the safe room. He managed all that quite well, but the Purim he knows was not going to happen this year, and he couldn't live with it.
I can understand him. I remember how I felt as a child on Purim in the nineties. In those days, a real Purim festivity was rare, as our "neighbors" loved to wreck Purim for us. But no matter what they did, this is really the most joyous holiday there is. I always say, jokingly, that if every Jewish holiday was like Purim, we would have two billion Jews in the world. We, instead, are concerned with Days of Judgment and the remembrance of historical events characterized by bread that did not rise, to give just one example. And why should people (who were not born Jews) want to buy a fish head?
I remember myself as a child in the nineties watching blood-filled screens and realizing that, once again, Purim would not be Purim, that I would not go to school dressed as a rock artist, would not sit all on edge opposite the table filled with my classmates' mishloach manot, praying to get the giant one Liraz brought (and, since there was a lottery, getting Sagi's vegan one instead...). Terror attack after terror attack murdered my childhood Purim holidays. I also stood in the living room and sobbed. But, as opposed to young Adam, I had a reason to cry. He doesn't yet realize that not only has Purim not been cancelled this year, but he is experiencing the most real Purim there could ever be.
Go explain to a nine-year-old child that Purim is happening right now. In real time. As if the day before Hanukkah, we went out to the garden and found a small flask of oil that would light up our house for eight days. Or that on Pesach, a gang of criminals would be chasing us on the beach, and just as they are about to catch us, the waters part and we run all the way to Cyprus. We are living history. This is the actual Megillah.
The Awakening
Simchat Torah 2023 was the first time I saw G-d's presence with my own eyes. I felt Him in my heart, not my mind, not my intellect. I saw what His anger (charon af) means, what His hiding His face (hester panim) means, I saw what happens when we don't understand omens and insist on angering He who once brought on a flood. The fact that the first time I felt G-d's presence was when He was angry at me, at us, made me feel sad for a long time - but I said to myself, at least I finally felt His presence.
Thi week, I feel how it is when G-d is embracing, listening. Like in the Megillah, He is there behind the scenes. No Heavenly Voice is announcing that this is His handiwork, but even if His Name is not mentioned, you feel that He is there every moment. Your mission is to understand that He is there, realize that by yourself. That there is no hand of coincidence acting here.
This Purim, as it turned out, I attended four small, Civil Defense rule-bound parties. Everyone's eyes were filled with faith, emunah. That is perhaps the greatest change that happened to this nation between that accursed Simchat Torah and this Purim. From a people that sanctifies quiet, a people proud of "the ten quietest years ever - security wise," who only want three vacations a year and two cars, we became a nation which lived for over a month with existential fears that there would be no war against Iran. The people who sanctified quiet became the people praying for the noise of aircraft.
True, not everyone. There are still mainstream media personalities and a few others babbling on about "a political agreement" and "the day after" - but even Mordechai found favor in the eyes of most, not all, of his brothers. Most of us, however, are of the opinion that while it is hard to keep rushing to the shelters, it is much harder to sit quietly knowing that no one is doing anything to thwart the threats we faced.
I wonder who Mordechai and Esther are in our modern day Megillah. Trump and Netanyahu will have to decide that between them, but no matter what, the two are definitely writing the megillah that, with G-d's help, we will read next Purim after the original one. I do hope that neither of them will be awarded the shameful prize misnamed the "Nobel Prize for Peace," but maybe this is the time to inaugurate a new prize in their honor: "The Prize for War". How the left laughed at Netanyahu for his drawing of a bomb at the United Nations, how angry they were when he spoke at the US Congress against Obama's deal with Iran. I remember how on Twitter, they ridiculed his talking endlessly about Iran, and how news anchor Yonit Levy excoriated him, saying there are other subjects to discuss.
Indeed, there were other subjects, and Netanyahu missed some, but when it came to the Iran threat, Netanyahu foresaw what only a statesman aware that he is at the head of a 3000 year old nation could see. And Trump, considered capricious and unreliable, turned out to be the most reliable of all.
Yair Lapid once said that not even a fountain would be named for Netanyahu. That may be so, but how does that compare with changing the enttire Middle East for generations to come? Two days after October 7, Netanyahu promised to change the Middle East for decades. True, this was after a horrible massacre and years of sanctifying quiet. But what he has done since cannot be commemorated by a mere fountain in Tel Aviv.
And don't worry - our Adam calmed down. We organized a nieghborhood costume party and filled the house with mishloach manot packages for neighbors so the children would feel it was Purim. I was left with three such packages forgotten in the back of the car that were meant for the cancelled school party, but although it is a challenge, I am sure that I will finish eating all of them by the end of the war. Perhaps by tomorrow. After all, Pesach is coming. Will let you know.
Translated by Rochel Sylvetsky from Makor Rishon.