Toward the end of the Book of Esther (Esther 9:22), our story recounts:
וְהַחֹ֗דֶשׁ אֲשֶׁר֩ נֶהְפַּ֨ךְ לָהֶ֤ם מִיָּגוֹן֙ לְשִׂמְחָ֔ה וּמֵאֵ֖בֶל לְי֣וֹם ט֑וֹב לַעֲשׂ֣וֹת אוֹתָ֗ם יְמֵי֙ מִשְׁתֶּ֣ה וְשִׂמְחָ֔ה וּמִשְׁל֤וֹחַ מָנוֹת֙ אִ֣ישׁ לְרֵעֵ֔הוּ וּמַתָּנ֖וֹת לָֽאֶבְיוֹנִֽים׃
The month which was turned for them from sorrow to gladness, and from mourning into a good day; that they should make them days of feasting and gladness, and of sending portions one to another, and gifts to the poor.
From this, we are taught three out of the four mitzvot we are obligated to perform as part of our Purim celebrations. This week, leading up to Purim itself, we’ll explore each one of these four expectations, and what it might teach us about Purim and about ourselves.
וּמַתָּנ֖וֹת לָֽאֶבְיוֹנִֽים
Gifts to the Poor
Not unlike Passover—which arrives in just a month—the end of the Purim story directs us towards empathy. When the story begins, Esther and Mordechai—and by extension we, as well—are strangers in a strange land. Assimilated or not, they are Jews living in a non-Jewish nation, subject to the whims of a capricious king and his advisers.
While the story ends happily (?) for the Jews of Shushan, it also seems to end with a recognition that it could easily have ended a different way. Because of our experience, then—because we know how badly it could have gone—we are commanded to be generous with our material blessings. Maimonides, in teaching on this mitzvah, urges us to not to be stingy or particular with our giving in fulfillment of this command; rather, he says: “Give to every person who puts out their hand. And one should not use Purim money for another charitable obligation.”
Rabbi Sharon Brous writes:
This mitzvah acknowledges our lack of control over our destinies: Give generously today, for tomorrow it could be you begging for a little spare change. Give because you know in your heart that it is only an accident of history that you are here and the poor are there. Give because it would be intellectually and morally corrupt to tell the story of our people’s miraculous triumph, to celebrate history’s reversibility, without sharing our bounty with those who sit now on the other side of fortune.
We know this in our own family stories and histories, and we see this in the painful images of the hundreds of thousands fleeing—or stuck in—Ukraine, suddenly feeling like strangers in their own land, subject to the whims of a capricious (at best) ruler.
Wherever you choose to direct your Purim giving this year, we hope some will go towards the humanitarian crisis unfolding before our eyes.
— Rabbi Sari Laufer