The early-spring Jewish festival of Purim—rooted in, or given roots by, the Scroll of Esther—is an expression of the same topsy-turvy view of the world that we see in Mardi Gras and other early-spring festivals of folly. The story is a satire on the stupidity and the violence of rulers.

Even though we are still in wintertime, Purim is the only way to understand what has just happened in the topsy-turvy somersault in US National Intelligence Estimates concerning Iran.

The tale of Esther is about a foolish king of Persia—Iran! But that was when he was the Emperor of the World. Now the same folly is found in another king who wants to make Persia another province in his empire. Who still wants to, even after revelations of the naked truth by the network of officials called VASHTI—Vigilant Affirmers of Security, Honor, Truth & Intelligence.

The time has come to put an end to this farce—this bloody farce. In the light of the Intelligence Estimates revelation, we have revised our multireligious call to the US and Iran to make peace.

But now, let us remember the Purim story, as it comes dancing into our real lives on Hanukkah.

Once upon a time, a pompous, stupid, oily king was clever enough and oily enough to bamboozle his subjects to keep him in power, even when he made disastrous mistakes. He had a prime minister—they called him the President of Vice because he was so vicious—who was extremely clever, addicted to power, and hot to invent new enemies each four years.

That way, he figured, he and his boss (or puppet) the king could keep the populace riled up, not noticing they were being robbed of everything they cared about:

Their privacy; the value of their money; their schools; their medical care; the sweet air of their forests and their mountains; their freedoms; the former joy of their prayers, now corrupted by hatred of the prayers of others; their dignity, respect, and honor in the eyes of other peoples, who now viewed them with contempt as the home of lies and torture; even, for thousands of them, their lives, limbs, minds, and souls.

So the President of Vice decided to make the majority culture of the land subservient to him (and the king his master, or maybe servant) by attacking one of the peoples just barely outside the great Empire. This people prayed a different way, and they owned precious resources that could be confiscated by the Oily Empire that the king already owned so much of. And they had one leader who was as nasty-hearted as the President of Vice. So under the table, the two nasties could cooperate by making enemies of each other.

So the pompous clever/stupid king and the clever/vicious President of Vice lied. They said the foreign nation was hiding terrible weapons. When people stopped believing that lie, they lied again—and said another set of foreigners were making terrible weapons. There too there was a nasty-hearted leader, and once again the nasties collaborated by making enemies of each other.

Said the President of Vice:

Any Lie
To hang these people by,
On a gallows high
That they the quicker die!
And if you ask me why,
To make my
Power high
Higher
Higher
Higher

But deep inside the palace there was a truth-telling network who thought the king and the President of Vice were addicts of the drug called Power and were, in their drug-infested mania, endangering their country. This network called themselves VASHTI—Vigilant Affirmers of Security, Honor, Truth & Intelligence. In the original story, the king tried to force his queen Vashti to dance naked before a great banquet. She refused.

But in our modern story, it was VASHTI who wanted to reveal the naked truth to a puzzled people, and the king who tried to stop them. So VASHTI released to an intrepid reporter (probably named Esther, or maybe Mordechai) the true intelligence about the vicious lies about the foreign peoples.

And even then, the King and his President of Vice insisted they must attack the dangerous foreigners.

**** 

The time has come to end this bloody farce. The peoples of Iran and the United States must insist their governments meet directly to take up all the issues between them, and come to a mutually respectful peace. And the people and government of Israel must learn from the ancient Jewish satire on power turned addictive – and move beyond the knee-jerk resort to threats of war that has characterized the Israeli government's policy toward Iran. Together, we must all seek instead to examine what would be decent terms of peace. See The Shalom Center website for more.

[Ed. Note: This article was co-written by rabbis Arthur Waskow and Jeff Sultar. Technical limitations prevent us from displaying two authors for an article.]

There are three levels of wisdom through which Hanukkah invites us to address the planetary dangers of the global climate crisis—what some of us call "globalIt's No Day on the Beach: Global warming will be a scorcher scorching" because "warming" seems so pleasant, so comforting.

We can encode these teachings into actions we take to heal the earth, each of the eight days.

1. The Talmud's legend about using one day's oil to meet eight days' needs: a reminder that if we have the courage to change our life-styles to conserve energy, it will sustain us.

2. The vision of Zechariah (whose prophetic passages we read on Shabbat Hanukkah) that the Temple Menorah was itself a living being, uniting the world of "nature" and "humanity"—for it was not only fashioned in the shape of a Tree of Light, as Torah teaches, but was flanked by two olive trees that fed olive oil directly into it.

3. The memory that a community of "the powerless" can overcome a great empire, giving us courage to face our modern corporate empires of Oil and Coal when they defile our most sacred Temple: Earth itself. And the reminder (again from Zechariah) that we triumph "Not by might and not by power but by My Spirit (b'ruchi—or, "My breath," "My wind!"), says YHWH, the Infinite Breath of Life."

We are taught not only to light the menorah, but to publicize the miracle, to turn our individual actions outward for the rest of the world to see and to be inspired by.

So we invite you to join, this Hanukkah, to join in The Shalom Center 's Green Menorah Covenant for taking action—personal, communal, and political—to heal the earth from the global climate crisis.

After lighting your menorah each evening, dedicate yourself to making the changes in your life that will allow our limited sources of energy to last for as long as they're needed, and with minimal impact on our climate.

Use wind power: To power your household. No single action will solve the global climate crisis, just as no one of us alone can make enough of a difference. Yet, if we act on as many of the areas below as possible, and act together, a seemingly small group of people can overcome a seemingly intractable crisis. We can, as in days of old, turn this time of darkness into one of light.

Day 1: Personal/Household: Call your electric-power utility to switch to wind-powered electricity. (For each home, 100% wind-power reduces CO₂ emissions the same as not driving 20,000 miles in one year.)

Day 2: Synagogue, Hillel, or JCC: Urge your congregation or community building to switch to wind-powered electricity.

Day 3. Your network of friends, IM buddies, and members of civic or professional groups you belong to: Connect with people like newspaper editors, real-estate developers, architects, bankers, etc. to urge them to strengthen the green factor in all their decisions, speeches, and actions.

Day 4 (which this year is Shabbat). Automobile: If possible, choose today or one other day a week to not use your car at all. Other days, lessen driving. Shop on-line. Cluster errands. Carpool. Don't idle engine beyond 20 seconds.

Day 5: Workplace or College: Urge the top officials to arrange an energy audit. Check with utility company about getting one free or at low-cost.

Day 6: Town/City: Urge town/city officials to require greening of buildings through ordinances and executive orders. Creating change is often easier on the local level!

Carpool with your friends: It's fun and energy efficient.Day 7: State: Urge state representatives to reduce subsidies for highways, increase them for mass transit.

Day 8: National: Urge your Senators to strengthen and pass the Lieberman-Warner "America's Climate Security Act." For easy addressing and a model letter to send them, click here.

Make our planet's Hanukkah a happy one!

Continue reading...