Passover to Purim: The Theological Progression Through the Holidays

By Hazzan Jacob Sandler.

On the one hand I’m grateful that Haman’s lot landed in Adar and the Jews of Shushan had enough time to undo his plot. On the other hand, did Purim have to be only four short weeks before Passover? How am I supposed to get rid of all the chametz in my mishloach manot in time? How can I kasher a kitchen when I’m still exhausted from months of preparing spiels, seudahs and megillah reading? 

I’m whining, I know. And in part facetiously, but it is a hectic transition. And I think it’s a profoundly meaningful transition as well.

The theology of Passover is one in which God Himself (not a ministering angel, nor a messenger, etc.) performed wonders and miracles to redeem B’nai Yisrael from slavery. God’s power is unmatched, and the generation of the Exodus had an unparalleled experience of God as revealed and imminent. This is further punctuated by the springtime bookend of Shavuot, where the people experience God’s thundering presence to the point of great terror. I imagine, taking all this to be true, that nobody was left questioning God’s existence or involvement. Then again, I know the people must’ve still had doubts because they weren’t quiet about expressing such things as recorded in the Torah itself. Yet, to the reader of scripture, God is very present in the Exodus story.

As the year goes on, we witness destruction and exile in the form of 17 Tammuz and Tisha B’Av. This gets rectified through consolation and in some ways, Rosh HaShanah and Yom Kippur are the perfect middle ground between God as revealed and God as concealed. God’s imminent presence is felt on these High Holidays, and our relationship with God is of extraordinary import as we navigate the work of Teshuva. Our returning to God at this time of year is precisely because we are the most removed from the Passover feeling. It is our reaching out that makes God’s presence felt. On Passover, God took us out with a strong hand and an outstretched arm. On Yom Kippur it is our arms that are outstretched in yearning to be close to God, and forgiven. 

Sukkot we sit in the joy of the ultimate mystery. We go outside and reckon with our vulnerability and though God’s glory is concealed to us, we find revelation not in our triumph, but in our fragility. That we are here at all is a hint that points to God’s grace and love. And then the holidays get a little less God-centric and a lot more human-centric. In Kislev we celebrate Hanukkah and its miracles. But the primary miracle in some ways is that we overcame a human force much greater than ourselves. And finally as the year comes to a close we get to Purim. On Purim we celebrate a holiday of diaspora, during which God isn’t mentioned even once in the story. We see the events of the Purim story as overwhelmingly mundane, implausibly lucky, and ultimately it is human interventions that win the day. The theology of Purim suggests that it is our job to read God into the story. By extension, we are more similar to the Jews of Shushan than we are to the Israelites of the Exodus. We have the challenge of living when God is most concealed, and the responsibility of reading God into our own stories. And in a time like this when we people are so polarized – when the world seems upside-down for the umpteenth time this decade, it is our duty to seek out God. What does God want? Where do we see God working behind the scenes? 

I think this reflects the course of history in some ways. God was so imminent in the early part of history, and seems to be evermore mysterious and concealed. Perhaps the most important reminder as we go from Purim to Passover is that we remember both. We remember, as though we were there, the times when God was irrefutably there for us as a people. And, we remember the times when we took courageous actions only to realize in hindsight that God was there too, guiding our steps and watching our backs. 

May it be a wonderful Passover.