Purim is a holiday that celebrates and informs leadership.  Contemporary leadership.  As hard as it might be to believe, we are still grappling with threats of our annihilation, and what we can do about it. 

Many of us are reluctant to step forward.  We have many reasons and rationales, most of which are valid excuses for not stepping up.  Like Esther, we question our place in history.  Like Mordechai, we feel despondent at the circumstances stacked against us.

Unlike many other Jewish holiday stories, the Purim tale is one with contemporary nuances.  Coming on the heels of the AIPAC conference this year, it is more striking to me that the political maneuvering of the Persian age has not ended.  Once again we are faced with a Persian government official (now Iranian) who wants to wipe us off the map.

Many are feeling despondent like Mordechai about the chances of averting the “building of the scaffold” in these times – nuclear weaponry.  Yet, while Mordechai recognized the graveness of the situation – he dons sackcloth and ashes – he does not allow himself to lose hope in salvation.   Even in his grieving uniform, Mordechai claims that the Jews will be saved – the only question is how.  He pushes Esther to use her access and influence with the King, on the off-chance that this approach might work.  Esther was the Queen, but that position carried no power with it.  And her access was limited – she had to wait to be called.  And her influence was untested – she had never asked anything of the King. 

We sit back and kvetch about our current situation.  What could we do to thwart the plans of someone who seeks our destruction?  We maintain hope that something will happen – just don’t press us on what or how.  Or we relinquish the need to do something to others – particularly Israel.

Maybe our access and influence is untested.  Maybe what we try will not work.   But as Mordechai chastised Esther “Don’t imagine that you will get away with your life when he comes after the Jews just because you are sitting in the Palace.”  Sometimes we can believe in our security because we live in the palace of the United States.  We are the lucky ones who live in prosperity and freedom when so many of our family live in threatened spaces.  It might be that the “King” will shoot us down for approaching when we haven’t been called.  But what is our choice?  We have the access.  We have the influence.  What are we going to do with it?

We are a strange people at times. 

I was baking humantashen for Purim (that’s the traditional cookie for the holiday of Purim – which is celebrated this Sunday) using my associate’s fantastic recipe, which you can find on the pizzabagelschmaltz blog - http://pizzabagelschmaltz.tumblr.com/.

I started thinking about the symbolism of this very tasty food.  Humantashen are basically sugar cookies filled with poppy traditionally, but now the more modern strawberry, apricot, chocolate or even as I am trying – peppermint patties.  They are shaped into triangles.  Why triangles?  Well, there starts the story.

Humantashen represent Haman.

Haman was a high- ranking minister in the Persian Empire (sometime around the 500’s BCE) who got his eyes set on destroying the Jews apparently because one Jew upset him.  Tradition goes that Haman wore a three cornered hat.  I guess that style didn’t really catch on until George Washington’s time because this was a feature that made him stand out from everyone else.

Thankfully, Mordecai and Esther were in the right place at the right time and put a stop to Haman’s plans.  It turned out that Haman was the one who hanged and no Jews were killed.   

So back to our humantashen.  The tradition began that we bake and eat these cookie treats on the holiday – every Jewish holiday comes with food.  This food, however, represents the enemy – Haman – either because of the reference to his hat, or as the word means literally – his ears. Not sure how ears are three cornered, but maybe someone out there has an explanation for us.

We are literally “eating our enemy”.

Is this a Jewish value?  Sure we make sure we are safe and let everyone know that coming after us is not a good idea, but to be eating our enemy 2500 years later?  Isn’t that taking retribution a little far?

Maybe there is value in remembering not only our defeats – we commemorate many in our multitude of fast days – and our smaller victories, like Chanuka, but our triumphs.  And maybe it’s not childish or foolish to do so through a cookie. 

We take the bitterness of an enemy and make it into something sweet.

Leadership lesson: There is a lot to learn from commemorating an enemy’s defeat through a sweet reminder.  We cannot dwell on the bitterness of people that try to hurt us.  Not personally nor professionally.  That would just turn us bitter and vengeful in the end.  Nor do we want to “forgive and forget.”  You cannot turn your back on the history that defines you.  So what to do?  Remember, but with a sense of the accomplishment you had in triumph.  Now that’s sweet.