This morning I woke early to finish baking for mishloah manot [gifts of food], which we will deliver to friends throughout the day of Purim. There is no other mitzvah, for me, that seems both so superfluous and yet so much fun. This year, I want to share the quickening of my heart that surrounds this strange custom.
In my apartment in Jerusalem, the kitchen table is piled high on the morning of Purim with the assembly line of containers, filled with potato kugel, pickles, homemade cookies (oznei haman [Haman's ears] otherwise known as hamantaschen), strawberries, and nuts. My husband Jon and I take pride in how unique we make our little packages, (even while niggling a little over the excessive expense, which we try to at least match in gifts to the poor, matanot le’evyonim). After the morning reading, we clear the table of packages and off we go on our delivery expeditions – some by car, some on foot. But the table will be equally laden by the end of the day with mishloah manot we receive. This year I feel particularly elated about all this hullabaloo and this is why.
In chapter nine of the Megillah, we read:
“….the same days on which the Jews enjoyed relief from their foes and the same month which had been transformed for them from one of grief and mourning to one of festive joy. They were to observe them as days of feasting and merrymaking, and as an occasion for sending gifts to one another and presents to the poor.” (Esther 3:22, NJPS trans.)
What is the significance of the original gifts sent out to one another? Earlier in the chapter, the battle of the Jews in self-defense is described. (Note that we do NOT celebrate the day of victory in battle, but the day after, when they “enjoyed relief from their enemies”). At that point, the biblical text introduces a rather minor detail, that they “did not lay their hands on the spoil [u-ba-bizah lo shalhu et yadam]” (Esther 9:15). Perhaps their restraint suggest that they would not stoop so low as the original decree. Haman’s edict to massacre all the Jews in one day, young and old, women and children, also included plundering their possessions [u-shlalam lavuz] (3:13). So the Jews certainly did not plunder their enemies possessions even when they [the enemy] rose up on the 13th or 14th of Adar to massacre them. Alternatively, the self-restraint signifies the tikkun [repair] of Saul’s mistake when, in his battle against Amalek, he took the best of the livestock and left the king, Agag, alive (1 Sam. 15). But I think there is another aspect to not laying hands on the spoil, which concerns who we are as a people and what, in the end, must draw us together as a community.
When we send gifts to one another to remember the month “when grief and mourning were transformed for them to one of festive joy [nehafakh lahem mi-yagon le-simha, mi-evel le-yom tov],” we embrace giving over taking, life over death. In Persia and Medea, it was only a true transformation from grief to joy when the Jews maintained their ethical integrity, when it was clear that the tragedies of the deaths on the other side were not motivated by plunder but, rather, were acts of self-defense. So the Jews did not take from the spoils of war [lit. "send out their hands - shalhu yadam"]. But they did “send out” gifts to each other and the poor. Mishloah manot then is not only a symbol of the tikkun [repair] against the original decree, but also signifies the way we come together as a people.
We happily and freely feed each other – from our home we send out kugel and pickles. Today, I understand a little better why — bound together in life, not in death, in survival not wanton destruction.
I’d like to add just one last point. The extension of generosity to one another today is not limited to food. It is written in the Sefat Emet (the Torah commentary of Rab Yehudah Leib Alter of Ger, 19th c.) :
After the salvation, [the Jews] gathered in their cities and established [the custom of] sending gifts to one another and to the poor, thereby uniting as a community. So too do the learned [talmidei hakhamim] receive from one another, for each learned person has something unique to give. And each one of us must receive that unique wisdom from his/her friend to unite as a community. [Sefat Emet, Purim 1901, my translation from the Hebrew].
In Jerusalem, I am fortunate to belong to two communities of learned, generous friends — the writers’ workshop (Beit Midrash Kotvim) at Elul and the shul, Mizmor L’David. They have taught me the importance of giving and receiving both food and wisdom. I wish for you all the same. And if you do not have that sense of community, may you find it or make it happen. It is a very special thing.
Check out the following websites:
For Elul: http://www.elul.org.il/index.php
For Mizmor L’David: http://mizmorledavid.org/
