An evil man rises to power with a grand plan to eliminate the Jews,
until a twist of fate - a miracle! - happens, and the evil man dies; the
Jews survive. Who was that evil man? Well, it depends on what time
period you’re talking about. Turns out there were some similarities
between Haman, the villain of the Purim story, Stalin, the villain of
Communist Russia, Saddam Hussein, the villain of Iraq or Vladimir
Putin with his invasion in Ukraine…
Just days after Purim in March 1953 - the holiday in which we mark
Mordechai and Esther’s rescue of the Jews from Haman’s plot to
falsely accuse and slaughter them from Persia - Stalin was reaching
peak anti-Semitism with a plot of his own: to rid Russia’s 3 million
Jews through mass pogroms and deportations to regions of Siberia.
The day before he was to kick off this plan with the “Doctors’ Trial,”
in which six Jewish physicians were to be (falsely) tried for
attempting to poison him and other Soviet leaders, Stalin “collapsed
in a fit of rage,” and to the relief of Jews everywhere, kicked the
bucket.
It reminds me the story of Rabbi Zilber in Russia, who was
mathematician and religious man, who refused to send his children
on Shabbat to school, but he was sent to Gulag. There he decided to
do Purimshpil with few arrestees –Jews. One of them asked – what
miracle will be there – Stalin can do whatever he wants. Rabbi Zilber
told – Stalin does not know, what will happen to him tomorrow. Next
day, Stalin died.
Kind of miracle had happened with the Exodus of Jews from the
former USSR to Israel and then, during the Gulf War. Again, the end of
the war was on Purim February 28, 1991. How many times they tried
to kill us, but we survived!
Will Putin end his war in Ukraine with the same results as previous
villains’? Let’s pray for another Purim miracle…
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