Esther and Zelenskyy
Friday night, March 11, 2022
Congregation B’nai B’rith, Santa Barbara
Purim begins next Wednesday evening. Our Jewish St. Patrick’s Day, Mardi Gras, and Carnival, distinguished from every other day of the year by drinking, by masks and costumes, and by subversive comedy. Purim is our festival of chaos and disruption, the silliest day in the Jewish year, and the deadliest.
In the scroll of Esther, we meet the drunken king, Achashverosh; the frightened and vulnerable Esther, hiding the fact that she is Jewish. Mordechai, who knows many things but has no power of his own. And Haman, the embodiment of murderous evil. The world of Shushan feels at first like a big joke, but if we take it seriously the Purim story takes us into the heart of darkness. It is a story for our time.
The Book of Esther is one of only two books of the Hebrew Bible that contain no mention of the name of God. The other is Shir HaShirim, the Song of Songs, the book of love poetry, and a world fully alive with the presence of God. But in Esther God seems absent. The Jews are in Persia, in exile. There is no mention of Torah, or prayer, or Shabbat, or synagogue, or holiness. In the scroll of Esther, the world is broken, God is absent, and Haman launches his campaign of genocide. It is a story for our time.
Our Jewish sages pointed out long ago that the name Esther sounds like the Hebrew word hester, which means hiding. Esther’s name contains a hint that in the terror of the Purim story, and in our own frightening moment in history, God is in fact not absent but is hiding. God’s sacred name does appear, but disguised, in the pivotal moment of the story.
To review. Having learned of Haman’s decree of genocide, Mordechai goes out into the city, and he wails. Vayizak za’akah g’dolah umarah. He cried a great and bitter cry. Mordechai cries a wordless cry of grief and despair, in the face of the death that is coming for his entire people. Then Mordechai communicates with Esther, who is in the palace. He sends her a message, urging her to go to the king and to beg him to save her people. Esther replies: “There is nothing I can do. The law is clear. None may approach the king without being summoned, and the punishment is death…unless the king extends his golden scepter to them. And I have not been summoned in over a month.”
Mordechai responds and, miraculously, convinces Esther to go. She sends him a message: “Have all the Jews fast for three days, and I and my women will fast, and then I will go. I will break the law and approach the king. And if I die, I die.” We cannot understand Esther without fully comprehending this. She is risking her life.
Esther goes and stands in the doorway of the throne room. The king sees her and he thinks “Wow.” The text says that she had dressed herself in malchut, in majesty, and I imagine that she must have looked like the Mesopotamian goddess Ishtar. He lifts his golden scepter toward her. In that moment, her life is saved. The king asks her: “What is your request Esther? Up to half my kingdom, it’s yours.” In that moment, she is safe. This is the pivotal moment.
Esther responds with four words: Yavo hamelech v’Haman hayom. Let the king and Haman come today to the banquet which I will prepare for you. With those four words, Esther steps back into danger. She invites the king to the banquet, where she will reveal herself to him as a Jew… setting herself in direct confrontation with Haman, the king’s most trusted advisor, who has decreed death for her people. At that dinner, on her own, she will need to turn the king against Haman. She chooses, freely, to place herself in mortal danger….in order to save her condemned people. It is a moment of kiddush hashem, of “sanctification of the Name of God.”
What, in practical terms, is kiddush hashem? In kiddush hashem, the sanctification of God’s name, an ordinary human being rises to an extraordinary occasion, exposing herself or himself to mortal danger, in opposition to the forces of evil. In kiddush hashem, a human being risks their life to make our world a place that sustains life, and goodness, and holiness. Kiddush hashem makes the world a home for the presence of God.
In the moment that the king lifts his scepter to her, Esther’s life is saved. But then Esther steps back into danger. She invites the king and Haman to sit with her at dinner with the words: Let the king and Haman come today. Yavo hamelech v’Haman hayom. The initials of those four words are yud, heh, vav, heh. Those four letters spell the name of God. There in that moment of Esther’s choice, risking her own life for the sake of the world, there we read God’s four-letter name. Yud heh vav heh.
In this moment also, in our own terrifying moment in history, a Jew named Volodymir Zelenskyy is recapitulating Esther’s act of kiddush hashem. As the Russian invasion of Ukraine began, President Zelenskyy was offered a safe escort out of his country for himself and his wife and two children. Zelenskyy’s decision to remain in danger, to remain in Kyiv, has inspired not only the people of Ukraine but the entire free world. This ordinary man has risen to this extraordinary occasion and is risking his life and the lives of his family, for the sake of us all. He is making the world a home for the presence of God. This is kiddush hashem.
In our home when I was growing up, my parents had a huge illustrated map of London hanging on our kitchen wall. It included pictures of Buckingham Palace and the Houses of Parliament, St Paul’s Cathedral and Speaker’s Corner in Hyde Park, Trafalgar Square and Kensington Gardens. Hundreds and hundreds of tiny illustrations of both famous and little-known places in London, many of which were destroyed or damaged during the Nazi blitz of London. Emblazoned on that map were the words of Sir Winston Churchill from May 19, 1943 “We would rather see London in ruins and ashes than that it should be tamely and abjectly enslaved.” I grew up reading those words every morning as I ate breakfast and every night as we sat down to dinner. I never grew tired of them.
Churchill’s words on our kitchen wall came back to me as I read an article about the citizens of Ukraine, taking up arms against the Russian invasion of their country. The scenes of death and the reports of the elderly and children facing constant bombardment and shortages of food, water and medicine in sub-zero temperatures have broken my heart, over and over, but I will never forget the words of one Ukrainian mother who said just this: Our children and grandchildren in the future will be proud of us.
That’s true. The people of Ukraine will one day rebuild their country, and those children will tell the story of how their parents and grandparents fought for their freedom and inspired all of us, showing us how to stand up to a tyrant.
When we read the story of Esther next week on Purim, we will laugh and we may have a drink or two, and argue about which kind of hamantaschen is better… poppy, or prune or chocolate chip. Even now, we need to laugh. But in the midst of our laughter, we should stop and reflect, with pride and profound respect, on Esther’s kiddush hashem, and on Volodymir Zelenskyy’s, risking everything to make this world a home for the presence of God.
Shabbat shalom.