Weekly Message

6 March 2025

Shabbat Zakhor, the Shabbat of Remembrance, points toward Purim, which begins next Thursday night. The Hasidic masters took Purim very seriously – as seriously as they took Yom Kippur. In fact they equated the two holidays through a play on words. Yom Kippurim (another name for Yom Kippur) can be understood as “a day that is like Purim.”

How are Purim and Yom Kippur similar? As the S’fat Emet explained, the two holidays achieve the same end through different means. On Yom Kippur we fast and pray in order to transcend ourselves. We rise above our own needs, our own egos, so that we can see the world from a higher point of view. On Purim, we drink and masquerade for the same purpose. By blurring our boundaries and making ourselves silly, we deflate our egos and rise above ourselves.

When the hasidic masters taught that Purim is like Yom Kippur, they meant it as a joke of course. But that is exactly the point. Even at the most serious times – perhaps especially at those times – we must resist the urge to take ourselves too seriously, since self-importance is the opposite of wisdom. The world is full of megalomaniacs like Haman. To resist the damage that they cause with their inflated egos, we must do so with humility and humor. Otherwise we risk becoming like them.

On Purim, as on Yom Kippur, may we grow larger by becoming smaller.