The Book of Volodymyr

To the extent that Americans are familiar with Purim, it’s thanks to filmmaker Christopher Guest. He gave us a Purim for the ages in “For Your Consideration,” where it functions (hilariously) as the play within the play. When you cast Catherine O’Hara as a 1940s Southern Jewish matriarch with Parker Posey as her not-so-closeted lesbian daughter, you get a comic masterpiece that will survive the apocalypse.

Purim, of course, is more than that. It starts this evening on the Jewish calendar, and it will be celebrated with masks and costumes and feasting, along with ritually sanctioned public drunkenness. It’s a tawdry rhinestone on the necklace of the holidays, with shiny surfaces, camp and drag, and irresistible appeal to small children everywhere along with wide-open adults like you and me. If you’re thinking Mardi Gras, you’re thinking right. They are clearly part of the same cultural package of shoulder-season festivals designed to hasten the light. Without Purim, there would be no New Orleans.

But like all the festivals, Purim is also deadly serious. I hate to go all rabbinic, but it’s true. The Book of Esther, its point of origin, is a masterfully imagined political novel, full of Machiavellian intrigue and feminist grace notes long before we expect them in the Bible. The titular hero is Esther, herself, the new goddess of American evangelicals. In the text of the Megillah (Scroll/Book of Esther), she is a reluctant operative who allows herself to be mobilized for salvation. At the climactic moment, she puts everything on the line and manages to rescue the Jews from genocide.

But there is an argument to be made for her cousin/uncle. If I were King of the Jews, I would call it the Scroll of Mordechai. The enemy of the story is clearly the smarmy Haman, a sneering figure with murder in his heart, who demands abject groveling from his toadiess and henchmen. His patron, Achashverosh, is more buffoon than Jaffar, who sits in his yellow upholstered throne in the Oval Office, declaiming nonsense to the cameras across the room. He is a figure of puffery, greed, and flatulence, dreaming of his wealth, his harem, and his empire.

Into this morass steps the noble Mordechai, hero of the Jews and commander of Ukraine. You can probably guess where all of this is going. Just as Mordechai refuses to bow to Haman, Zelensky refuses to bow to Vance. Just as he rejects the authority of Vance, he dismisses, by extension, the gaseous Achashverosh. It is a brilliant, courageous, foolhardy move, as noble as it is ruinous for the Jews of Shushan.

But miracle of miracles, salvation follows. When the Book of Esther ends, the queen is on her throne, Haman is defeated, and the Jews of the empire are saved from their enemies. We are still in the middle of the Book of Volydymer. There will no doubt be setbacks along the way, but every act of courage and nerve produces a measure of good in the world. I hold out abundant hope for Volodymyr Zelensky.