123 McKinley Avenue Renssalaer, IN 47978
March 10, 2009 We clap and stamp on mentioning Haman the Amalekite, each time the reader chants his name... As if, the mere mention triggers this explosion of chaos a wild manic stomping and clapping using instruments of noise.... As if, we need to eradicate more than merely the name the evocation of its horror, memories of intended genocide,…. No, this hysterical communal memorializing of that, which we wish to forget, signifies something even more sinister… More than even the command, so paradoxical, to annually “remember: not to forget” to erase the memory of Amalek, by consistently bringing it back to conscious memory, no, more than even this…. This communal controlled chaos limited to ten seconds following the mere mention of “his name” HAMAN-as the scroll unfolds, as the text is chanted, even this is not spontaneous for “we know” we are readers we have read before we foreshadow his mention… SO sinister because of one reason alone, he remains alive and deadly. He persists despite the happy ending of the narrative story the fairytale of Esther. Despite the rolling up of the scroll for another year the sing song and the festive meal his name, is mention, his evocation lingers, haunts us so, despite the merriment and liquor….for he, my friends, is non other than…. You fill in the gap-all I can tell you is he is and is within not without. He remains and persists after all the merriment drink and attempts at drowning out his voice with joy on this special day He works his task, divinely charged, the spoiler, that little voice ever crescendoing, that never rests, the voice, the critic, the doubter, the cynic, the dissolver of simple faith with complex questions and analytical doubts. He, whose volume can only be drowned out once a year with a clapping and a stamping and a drinking This is the joy of PURIM for only once a year a legislated socially sanctioned alcohol binge to drown out his voice for just a moment of relief a relief from that voice within. How could we ever forget him!
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