Commune with Joy

B"H

Purim

24.March.1940.

First Purim Under Nazi Occupation

When I was a child I thought that the holidays were great!  So,it puzzled me tremendously to hear and to read reports that the holiday season is a difficult time for many, many people.  Decades later, a significant number of decades later since I am now middle-aged, I begin to understand in my own way that there exist these difficulties which can burden us when we are supposed to be celebrating. 

All the more so in 1940, among the Jews of the Warsaw Ghetto.  The historian Shimon Huberband says at that time that "the mood was terrible; the predominant spirit wasn't of Purim but of Tisha B'Av."

Rabbi Kalman Shapira said:  "We find in Tikkunei Zohar that Purim is similar to the Day of Atonement, Yom Kippur.  Among other things, this word play may suggest the following parallel.  The fast and the work of repentance on Yom Kippur are mandated not only for the person who wishes to observe them; rather, whether the person wishes to perform them or not, he must fulfill them because of G-d's command.  So it is with the joy of Purim.  The obligation to rejoice is not only for the person who is already happy or merely for the individual who is in a potentially joyful situation, rather, even if the person feels lonely and brokenhearted, with mind and spirit crushed, he must inject at least a spark of joy into his heart. 

Conversely, the Talmud (Yoma 85) citing the view of Rabbi Judah the Patriarch, states that on Yom Kippur the essence of the day effects atonement, so that even if the individual did not complete his work of repentance, he receives atonement nevertheless.  Similarly with regard to Purim; even though one may not have experienced the joy appropriate for the holiday, so that all his spiritual work that day was apparently lacking in fulfillment, nevertheless, the divine salvation and joy with which Purim bestows upon us as a gift of grace, are active and effective even now. 

Nehemia Polen explains that "if there is a religious obligation to rejoice on Purim, it must be capable of fulfillment, even in the circumstances of the Ghetto.  G-d does not ask of us that which we are utterly incapable of fulfilling; so the Rabbi summons his followers to find at least a spark of joy within them.  The effort will elicit the reality". 

Many thanks to Mr. Nehemia Polen for his book, The Holy Fire:  The Teachings of Rabbi Kalonymus Kalman Shapira, the Rebbe of the Warsaw Ghetto.  (See pages 54-55)