Wednesday, March 11, 2009

shushan Purim: finishing the job

Why are we all celebrating today just because in Shushan and in Shushan alone they had an extra day to take care of our enemies? I think the answer has to do with a failure that has dogged our people since time immemorial -- the failure to finish the job. Whether it was Shaul's failure to finish off Amalek or Tzahal's most recent venture into Gaza, we always seem to pull back before the job is done, overcome by either our own innate sense of (misplaced) rachmanus or because of outside pressure and constraints. The Jews of Shushan did not leave things half-done by using only the one day everyone else had to fight our enemies; they made sure to take an extra day to finish the job. Perhaps this is why not just Shushan, but walled cities from the time of Yehoshua are included in this celebration. Had Yehoshua finished the job of conquering Eretz Yisrael, who knows how the rest of Jewish history might have turned out. We are in a sense still struggling to finish that original mandate of kibush and yishuv Eretz Yisrael. Let's hope we one day soon figure out how to finally complete that task.

4 comments:

  1. Anonymous9:15 PM

    Allow me to counter with the Ramban Pshat in Meggilah That the reason there are many days for the celebration of Purim is because the People in the cities that where walled felt the first year OK I will go along with the celebration, but after that they said we where in the walled cities we where never in danger so a Klal wide Festival is not needed says the Rambam because they failed to unify under one banner they where punished and had a separate day of Purim here on Shushan Purim we counter this claim of lack of unity and say we are all ass one and Hence the Chassidim dress in Yom tov GArb and we DONT SAY TACHNUN to show we are as One.

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  2. Anonymous9:51 PM

    Wow I made some really bad spelling errors sorry and Its RAMBAN with N on MAASECHTAS MEGGILAH
    He says the part of Punishment for lack of unity of multiple days I added the part about SHUSHAN PURIM

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  3. The idea of celebrating shushan purim to show achdus was last year's topic:

    http://divreichaim.blogspot.com/2007/03/shushan-purim.html

    I figured maybe you wanted something new...

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  4. Anonymous12:19 AM

    In my own Defense I quoted a RAMBAN and MIMICRY IS A FORM OF FLATTERY

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