As our esteemed Hebraic writer notes, it is indeed an ‘Hebraic’ holiday. As discussed here many times as of late, Purim’s bloodlust did not begin with the Talmud and predates the arrival of Jesus Christ by several hundred years. In fact, as the article makes clear, there was Talmudic resistance against Jews celebrating Purim (probably due to the fears that its bloodlust nature would make Jews suspect and thus awaken Gentile enmity towards Jews as a group) and it can be responsibly theorized that some ‘compromise’ was eventually devised whereby it would be celebrated but with costumes and fun as a means of hiding its truly violent underpinnings.
Nor is it a ‘Khazar’ thing. It is a ‘Torah’ thing, which means that anyone running to the defense of the Old Testament as the ‘word of God’ has no business condemning Purim. Rather, such ‘experts’ should be defending the slaughter of 75,000 Persians as recounted in that story in the same manner as they also claim that the Canaanites and others whom the Hebrews were ordered to massacre, specifically leaving ‘nothing alive that breathes’, were doing ‘the Lord’s work’ and were therefore blameless.
Haaretz
Purim is the most mysterious of all Hebraic holidays. It suddenly appeared in the second century B.C.E., though many Jews ignored it for centuries. And the origin of the holiday, let alone its flagship text – the Book of Esther – are just as baffling.
The first reference to Purim is in the deuterocanonical book Maccabees II (15:32), which merely says that on the 14th of the Jewish month of Adar, Jews celebrated a holiday called “Mordecai Day.” Clearly the holiday was celebrated in at least some Jewish communities as early as 124 B.C.E., when this book was written in Alexandria.
Writing in the first century, the Jewish historian Josephus also mentions the holiday, noting that it was widely celebrated.
Yet it seems the holiday failed to gain acceptance by all Jews until the early Middle Ages. For example, Esther is the only megillah not found among the Dead Sea Scrolls, indicating that the desert community didn’t consider it canonical. Yet the Mishna tells that at least from the time of the Bar Kochba revolt (132-136), reading the Book of Esther on Purim was considered a mitzvah.
But is it Jewish?
The Talmud itself refers to some who doubted whether Purim should be celebrated as a Jewish holiday. Still, clearly by the time of the Mishna and Talmud, Purim was ascendant: More translations and exegeses of the Book of Esther can be found in this period than on any other biblical text.
The holiday’s origin is heatedly disputed. A number of pagan holidays – Greek, Persian, Assyrian and Babylonian – have been suggested as candidates, but none really suits.
The story of the Book of Esther as it appears in the Hebrew Bible is as follows: Ahasuerus (aka Achashverosh), king of Persia, wants his wife Vashti to show off her beauty before his guests. She refuses. Ahasuerus’ servants hold an ancient version of “The Bachelor,” bringing the most beautiful women of the kingdom. One is Esther, the eponymous hero of the book, an orphan raised by her uncle Mordecai.
After his niece becomes queen, Mordecai discovers a palace plot to assassinate Ahasuerus. He tells the king, who has the plotters killed.
At about this period, one of the king’s viziers, Haman, rises to supremacy. Everyone, including the other viziers, must bow before him. Mordecai refuses. Furious, Haman somewhat overreacts, deciding not only to have Mordecai killed, but all of the kingdom’s Jews as well. To choose a propitious day to hold this genocide, he holds a lottery and the 13th of Adar is chosen.
Hearing of this, Mordecai urges Esther to talk to the king and have him rescind the execution orders sent throughout the kingdom. Although approaching the king uninvited is perilous, Esther fasts for three days, then does it, inviting him and Haman to a banquet.
At the banquet, the king asks Esther what she wanted. She wants only one thing: That he and Haman come to another banquet the following day.
That night, the king couldn’t sleep. Presumably to help him relax, he asks his servants to read to him from the kingdom chronicles.
As it happens, the servants read how Mordecai saved him from certain death. He asks how Mordecai was rewarded and is told – he wasn’t.
The next morning, Haman rushes into the king’s chamber to ask for permission to execute his evil plot, but the king preempts him. “What shall be done unto the man whom the king delighteth to honor?” Haman, thinking the king is talking about him, tells him that such a man should be paraded in the streets of the capital on a horse in splendor, with a man walking in front announcing that this is what happens to men who the king delighteth to honor.
Naturally, he is frustrated when the king orders this be done to Mordecai, not to him, but he carries it out as commanded.
That night he goes to Esther’s banquet, where Esther tells Ahasuerus about Haman’s plot. The king storms out in anger.
Later, Haman goes to Esther’s room to beg for mercy. But as he lays prostrate on her bed begging, the king walks in and mistakes what he has seen as an attempt by Haman to rape his wife. He orders Haman be hanged, and orders that Jews throughout the kingdom protect themselves from those who come to kill them, as it is too late for the orders to be rescinded.
On the 13th of Adar and on the next day, Jews around the kingdom kill tens of thousands of their attackers. But they themselves are saved.
An elaborate fairy tale?
The historicity of this story is highly contested. Proponents note the great detail in dates, names and objects mentioned – even to seemingly unimportant aspects of the story. They also argue that the description of court life fits what we know about the Persian court from other sources.
But it’s still unlikely. No other ancient texts tell anything like this story, critics snort. Nor does Ahasuerus’ character fit any of the known Persian monarchs (though some supporters think he’s Artaxerxes). And the most convincing argument against the story’s veracity is that a Persian king would have never married an orphan of unknown parentage.
The Mishna is the first text to prescribe how Purim is to be celebrated: The Book of Esther is to be read in public. The Talmud (redacted 500) augments the tradition of reading the Book of Esther in public with drinking wine, making merry – and giving gifts to the poor. That is prescribed in the Book of Esther itself, but seems to be a later addition to the book. Neither that practice nor the name “Purim” itself appear in the earlier version of the Book of Esther, which we know from the Greek translation in the Septuagint, dating from the second century B.C.E.
Of special importance in the Talmud is drinking wine on Purim. We are told we should drink so much that we can’t tell the difference between the evil Haman and the good Mordecai.
Sometime in the late fifth century, celebrating Jews began to burn effigies of Haman. This often got them in trouble with their Christian neighbors, who sometimes thought the effigy being burnt was that of Jesus. This tradition has died out.
A later tradition – that of fasting on the day before Purim in commemoration of Esther’s fast, called Ta’anit Esther – first appears in the writings of Rabbi Akha in the late sixth century.
It was the Tosafists – German and French rabbis in the 13th century – who first mention the act of making noise to blot out the name of Haman (with noise) while reading the Book of Esther in public. At first, this was done by stomping one’s feet. Later, people started using ratchets (also known as groggers).
Enter the Batman costume
But the most widely observed Purim traditions are dressing up and masquerading. These began in the 13th century.
Purim is celebrated at approximately the same time as the Carnival of Venice and other Italian celebrations that began at about that period.
First to mention these traditions was Kalonymus Ben Kalonymus, who wrote of this tradition with some contempt. Still, it spread from Italy to the rest of the Jewish world within two or three centuries.
Baking “hamentachen” (“Haman pockets”) stuffed cookies began in Europe during the early modern period. At first, these were filled with poppy seeds: today, Israeli bakers vie to be creative.
In 18th-century Eastern Europe, a tradition of Purim spiels (performing whimsical plays) began. That birthed a tradition still carried out in some communities.
A new tradition was established in Israel in the 20th century: the Adloyada, a street parade featuring floats. The first Adloyada was held in Tel Aviv in 1912.
