Purim Under the Masks

Judaism and Hinduism: Twin sisters of Purim and Holi

After I came back from celebrating the Jewish holidays of Purim and Passover in Dharamsala, India many years ago, my mother remarked that I was a Jubu Hinju, meaning a Jewish-Buddhist and Jewish-Hindu. I felt tickled and pleased that she was really trying to understand me. I take this fluidity of identity into the Jewish festival of Purim this week.

Last week I asked Reena Ginwala, my friend and Nonviolent Communication colleague in Dharamsala, India, when was the Hindu festival of Holi this year. Holi, like Purim. is a festival that celebrates the triumph of good over evil by masking. In Purim we mask ourselves. In Holi we mask others by covering them, especially those in authority, with colored water and powders.

Holi is tonight, like Purim.

This confirmed what I discovered years ago in Dharamsala- that the Jewish festival of Purim and the Hindu festival of Holi are always on the same full moon. It’s especially remarkable because sometimes it’s the third full moon in the solar calendar and sometimes its the fourth. Holi and Purim always travel together.

Both holidays are celebrated with special foods and rituals that push the bounds of identity. Here’s what Reena sent me about the sacred Hindu calendar:

The concept of Adhik Maas is one of the most accurate methods to adjust the gap between Solar and Lunar Year. … Extra Month, or Adhika Māsa falls every 32.5 months on an average. The solar year is made up of 365 days and about 6 hours, and the lunar year is made up of 354 days. https://indianexpress.com/article/religion/the-science-behind-adhik-maas-purushottam-month-5216097/”

Holi, like Purim, celebrates the triumph of loyalty over power. In Holi, a demon king by the name of Hiranyakashyap has won over the kingdom of earth. He commanded everybody in his kingdom to worship only him. But to his great disappointment, his son, Prahlad became an ardent devotee of Lord Naarayana (Vishnu) and refused to worship his father. Hiranyakashyap tried several ways to kill his son Prahlad but Lord Vishnu saved him every time.

Finally, the king asked his sister, Holika cum Holi to enter a blazing fire with Prahlad in her lap. (In fairness to Hiranyakashyap, he knew that Holika had a boon, whereby, she could enter the fire unscathed.) Treacherously, Holika coaxed young Prahlad to sit in her lap and she herself took her seat in a blazing fire. The legend has it that Holika had to pay the price of her sinister desire by her life. Holika was not aware that the boon worked only when she entered the fire alone. Prahlad, who kept chanting the name of Lord Naarayana all this while, came out unharmed, as the lord blessed him for his extreme devotion.

In the Purim story an evil king is ruling the Persian world. He decides to eliminate anyone who doesn’t worship him. Esther, saves the day and then the victorious Jews go on to slaughter 70,000 Persians.

Neither Attached Nor Ignoring

I learned from many teachers this week new ways of staying present with the scary and troubling aspects of Purim, most notably, the ending of the Book of Esther, where 70,000 Persians are slaughtered.

Melila Hellner taught a teaching parable from Bereshit Rabbah, a talmudic-era exposition on the Book of Genesis. 2:2 The teaching is aptly called the Confounded and Bewildered Earth. It poignantly puts before us the suffering of Earth herself from the injustice that is embedded in the scheme of the world we know and asks, how do we stay present and witness suffering and injustice in a way that contributes to transformation:

Rabbi Abbahu and Rabbi Yehudah son of Simon: Rabbi Abbahu said there is a parable about a king who bought for himself two male slaves, both of them on one bill of sale and for the same price. He ordered that the first be cared for at public expense and the other, he ordered that the second work hard for his food. The second one sat, confounded and bewildered, and he said “both of us were on one bill of sale and for the same price; this one is supported at public expense and I, if I do not work hard, I do not eat!”. In this way the earth was confounded and bewildered…

What do we do today in the face of continual injustice, inequality and suffering. How do we understand it and how do we meet it? I want to meet it as a call to action. As a sign that the meaning and purpose of our being here is to engage with the injustice and dedicate our lives to enhancing life by creating a world where all resources are shared.

Rabbi David Ingber pondered in our daily class this week that when we edit out the troubling parts of the megillah (scroll), in this case the very troubling ending where the Jews achieve their freedom and then kill 70,000 Persians, we deny the generations that come after us the opportunity to wrestle with this and to experience for themselves the transformation of leaving violence and revenge behind.

This hearkens to the purpose of retelling the Passover story every year, where we are to actually experience enslavement in Egypt and liberation from enslavement, each of us, every generation, so that we can know for ourselves the pain of enslavement and the treacherous walk to freedom.

We are reinterpreting, rather than suppressing, the ancient texts, to encourage and nurture each generation to find for itself the imperative to transform our world from war, violence and hatred.

Distinguishing Needs from Strategies to Meet Needs

I found in Sarah Yehudit Schneider’s talk on Purim a Talmudic (3rd century Jewish text) illustration of a key principal of Nonviolent Communication that also speaks to this: the creativity and possibility that opens up when we distinguish between our deepest needs and values, and the strategies we employ to meet these needs.

The Talmud says that one born under the astrological sign of Mars is destined to have blood on his hands, but there are options: He could become a mohel (circumciser), a surgeon, a shochet (butcher) or a murderer. These four (very different) lots-in-life emerge at the interface of choice and destiny. They illustrate the power of choice to control how a decree materializes even to the point of neutralizing its negative impact. There are exceptional choices that can even sweeten the unfolding of a bitter fate to such a degree that gladness eclipses the sorrow that would otherwise (naturally) have ruled.

What strategies can i employ to meet my needs to participate in the evolution of humanity away from violence, revenge and punishment? One strategy would be to abandon, even suppress, troubling texts. There are troubling costs to that. Trust and safety between me and those who deeply value each generation knowing their tradition, as a door to belonging, safety, beauty, many other needs.

A different strategy is to pause and introduce troubling texts with a new intention (Heb. kavannah) that is an invitation to the listeners to enter into dialogue with the text and the tradition, to wrestle with any tendencies to violence and hatred it may generate or condone.

May our celebrations of Purim and other troubling aspects of spirituality be uplifted in each generation to move us closer to a world without war, hatred and violence. To a world where resources are freely shared to meet everyone’s needs.

Masking or Unmasking Identity?

There is a deeper confluence between Holi and Purim. When we switch up power relationships, who are we masking and unmasking? Are there any disguises that are truly foreign to any one of us? One of my most profound experiences of Purim was a few years ago in the Jewish quarter of the old city of Jerusalem. I decided to dress up the way I would dress in my then hometown of Woodstock New York. This is different than the disguises I wear when I’m walking through religious quarters of most traditions. In Buddhist monasteries, Muslim and religious Jewish homes, when I travel through Hindu and Moslem villages in India, I put on the disguise that is associated with “modesty.” Here in another epicenter of what appears to me to be patriarchal modesty, I dressed as myself.

And I experienced an incredible freedom because I knew that my disguise was really revealing myself. But no one else knew that. I was accepted and invited into the revelries because of my disguise. Which wasn’t a disguise.

And of course on a deeper level, it’s all a disguise.

May we in all of our spiritual festivals recognize the beauty of all life forms under all the masks and disguises and may we work for the day when disguises are only part of the play, the Hindu Maya, so that we never feel threatened or repulsed by people’s disguises. Only connection and compassion.