Twice

By RABBI JOSEPH H. PROUSER

As a child, one of my favorite holiday songs was Ani Purim, which asks, madua lo tavo, Purim, paamayim ba-shavua: “Why, O Purim, do you not come twice every week?!”

While such a proposal seems, at best, impractical, the lessons of Purim should not be restricted to one day a year. Purim celebrates the responsibility of individual Jews in securing Jewish national survival. Purim reminds us that joy and celebration are indispensable to authentic Jewish living. Purim teaches us to be vigilant, lest (or when) bigots and xenophobes ascend to positions of political power… All principles worthy of our continual, year-round consideration!

Perhaps inspired by the Purim song, Israeli politician, past Jewish Agency Chair, and former Soviet refusenik Natan Sharansky once observed, “The only bad part of Judaism is that we don’t have two weekly Sabbaths!” Indeed… would that our everyday lives became increasingly infused with the wisdom of Shabbat: time dedicated to prayer, study, family, community… a refusal to be slavishly bound to either commerce or technology… principled elegance, simple pleasures, and professions of peace.

Purim and Shabbat: we dare not revel in their spiritual gifts merely when the calendar demands it. Twice a week – just for starters – may not be so unreasonable an approach to these fundamentals after all!

(Rabbi Joseph H. Prouser is the rabbi of Temple Emanuel of North Jersey and the National Chaplain of the National Jewish Committee on Scouting.)