Shabbat Blast

Today is Shushan Purim. We all thought it was over, but think again! Depending on whether your city is walled determines if you celebrated Purim Wednesday night and Thursday, or Thursday night and Friday. This is the only holiday that has a distinction based on the walls around your city. In cities that were surrounded by a wall at the time of the Biblical Joshua, Purim is rather celebrated on the 15th of the Adar on what we call Shushan Purim, since fighting in the walled city of Shushan continued a second day. There is a difference between the fighting and pain of one place and the circumstances on another.

Here in Bellmore, the walls around us are the water to our south. We celebrated Purim, a holiday about defeating the wicked, yesterday, not today. But with the pain and destruction from the terrorist attack in Belgium this week, the world, I sense feels the fighting continue. Walls around the world are broken down because of global communication. We recognize the unique pain of a city and also the universality of loss and the recognition that there is a greater threat in the world that threatens all people. The story of Purim is ongoing with new wickedness in every generation. May we transcend walls and continents to pray for peace and wisdom in action as we attend to the needs and reality of our current world.

Shabbat shalom,

Rabbi Bernstein