“One must drink on Purim to the extent that one cannot distinguish between ‘Blessed be Mordecai’ and ‘Accursed be Haman.’” So teaches the Talmud (Megillah 7b). It is a familiar text – and a puzzling one, especially when we consider how the Jewish tradition otherwise preaches self-discipline, sobriety, and restraint. But there is something in this text even more fascinating than this surprising one-day-a-year tolerance for excess. It was the late Rav Kook, Chief Rabbi of the Holy Land, who connected this passage to another one, a connection that opens up new and important vistas. The Talmud (Eruvin 65a) declares, “Wine in, secrets out.” (In Yiddish we say, “What the sober one has in his lung, the souse has on his tongue.”) This second passage, says Rav Kook, explains the first. Each of us has deep, dark secrets – very deep, very dark. Long before Freud, we knew that evil lurks in the heart of man. At the very beginning of human history, the Torah tells us (Gen. 6:5) that the Almighty proclaimed, “The evil of man is great upon the earth, and every impulse of the thoughts of his heart is but evil continually.” On this one day of Purim, therefore, we are urged to spill out our secrets, to reveal them openly. Such secrets cannot survive exposure; they are photophobic. When you see clearly the nature of your own dark secrets, the very light you shine upon them makes them shrivel up and vanish. The normal sense of shame cannot abide the continuation of the degrading products of the unrestrained id and the weird imaginations of the unbuckled libido. Force your inner thoughts out, face them openly, and the very embarrassment will rid them for you. The ennoblement of character by the purging of the psyche’s deeply embedded secrets is worth the risk of appearing momentarily silly by drinking a bit more alcohol than you are accustomed to on this one day of Purim. I suggest a modification, or elaboration, of Rav Kook’s interpretation of Purim as catharsis. Just as a person pos…

Megillat Esther is one of the sacred writings as part of the Tanakh, the biblical canon. Revered by Jews the world over, it is the only book other than the Sefer Torah that must be read from a parchment scroll. It tells the enduring story of the Jewish struggle against persecution and anti-Semitism. Yet, remarkably, at least one contemporary rabbi described it as “a seemingly unrelated series of events,’’ but, as we shall see, this is far from being the case. Some scholars have also doubted the authenticity of the story, despite significant archeological and linguistic confirmation of details (such as the laws, the runners, the Harem, and the structure of the palace) in the Megillah. These scholars see the Megillah as unreal, no more than a fairy tale. The classical commentators such as Rashi, Ibn Ezra, and Malbim, who do offer, valuable insights into the text, have not always been well understood.Megillat Esther is, in fact, a fascinating historical, political, and national tale rightly cherished by the Rabbis and the Jewish people — a story with logic, coherence, and compelling credibility. There is enormous importance ascribed to the Megillah by the rabbis of the Talmud. The Talmud (Shabbat 88a) teaches that the Torah was accepted twice ־־ once at Sinai and again in the time of Esther. At Sinai, the People of Israel were compelled to accept the Torah, whereas at the time of Esther they accepted it willingly. The Jerusalem Talmud (11:5) goes even further and declares that “the book of Esther and the Torah will never be abolished” even after theadvent of the Messiah (and the Rambam accepts this as well.) For a book to have had such an impact as a guide to the Jews in exile, the Rabbis knew that this was an important and real story that could serve as a guide for the Jewish people.Why, then, have events in the Megillah been subjected to such significant doubt? A major stumbling block to a proper understanding of the text of the Megillah is the concept of the powerl…