Purim – Goral

Everyone knows that Purim and Yom Kippur have a lot in common, it even says it in their names פורים and יום כפורים.

But let’s look more analytically at this statement and see what we find.

The Megillah tells us that the Yom Tov is called פורים for the “פור הוא הגורל” that Haman made to decide when to kill us. Now the burning question that really should ruin Purim for all of us is, Why on Earth would we name a holiday for the enemy? Pardon the analogy but imagine if the Rabbanim had made a Yom Tov for when the liberation of the concentration camps and called it Swastika Day, or if Pesach was called יום הנהר since they threw crying Jewish babies into the river. When you think about it, it really sounds crazy, even cruel. And another less problematic question is that it should only be called פור since there was only one lotto, why the plural of פורים?

To find the answer and the message behind פורים’s name we need to get a better understanding of what this גורל was and where it comes from. There is only one time in the חמשה חומשי תורה that a גורל is mentioned and, you guessed it, it’s on the holiest day of the year, יום כיפורים. The Torah tells us that Aharon is to take two goats and to put on their heads גורלות, lotteries. One gets designated for Hashem as a קרבן חטאת and one gets designated to get pushed off the עזעזאל mountain, which has a sharp rocky surface which would shred the goat while it was rolling down.

Wait, what? This was what they did on the holiest day of the year! They pulled a lotto?? A lottery is the sign of Amalek! Leaving everything up to chance, אשר קרך בדרך! What is a lottery doing in the hands of the כהן גדול in the בית המקדש on Yom Kippur?!

The Sforno addresses this question and says that a גורל, especially when performed by a “איש חסיד” is something that is done when people are involved with the dealings of Hashem. People realize that they have no place making decisions of such caliber and they submit themselves to “chance”, but when this is done correctly they realize that “chance” is really nothing more than letting Hashem make the decision for you. יהושע made a גורל when he was deciding how ארץ ישראל should be divided up, because that too was a decision that had roots in the specifics and characteristics of each שבט and Hashem needed to make that decision.

Haman’s mistake is thinking that the גורל itself has power and that “chance” actually exists. In reality we know that it is always Hashem running the show. Even when His name isn’t mentioned and even when the Megillah looks like a collection of political headlines of the cover stories in Persia a few thousand years ago, really it is Hashem holding and pulling the strings.

I think they named this Yom Tov פורים to remind us that yes, Haman made a פור but more importantly we need to remember that the true type of פור is the other type, the type that אהרן הכהן makes when he says, Hashem I know that you are in control of the world and I am submitting myself to you by showing that I don’t even have the power to make a decision, I need to leave it up to You. And paradoxically it is in that submission that we Jews are given the power by Hashem to make the biggest decision of all, קימו וקבלו, to accept upon ourselves a relationship with Hashem forever and ever.

וימי הפורים האלה לא יעברו מתוך היהודים וזכרם לא יסוף מזרעם.

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