There’s a joke about Jewish holidays and it goes like this: “They tried to kill us. We won. Let’s eat!”
But honestly, there is a dangerous side to being an ordinary person who loves and is loved by God. It’s called jealousy, and fear, and even hate. And sometimes, an attempt at total annihilation.
Enter Haman, villain of the biblical book of Esther. One Jew won’t kowtow to him because of a silly religious scruple? Let’s not be stingy: all the Jews will die!
Or not. Thanks to a girl called Esther — and God’s rescue-mission through her, we have the Jewish people, and a rollicking holiday called Purim. (Complete with costumes, and yes, lots and lots to eat).
That’s life. Snatched out of certain death.
It’s spring around here, for the moment. That means bliss-making sunshine, and flowers (and flowers and flowers!) — even in the Judean Wilderness. Even by the Dead Sea. Where it’s barren and rocky and hilly. And hot. And dry. And only dotted with scraggly bushes and lonely acacia trees, and wound around by the trails of hungry goats.
But where the winter-torrents ran, and where the spring rain fell
There’s life.
Elisabeth Adams 