Purim and the Joy of the Future: Why This Holiday Never Ends

Humanity naturally seeks to uncover what is not yet known. People long to know what the future will bring. Throughout history, scientists, prophets, and even clever guessers have tried to calculate the End. Purim reveals the secret everyone wants to know: the future will be joyful. But before we arrive at that future, it is worth asking several questions in the present, through which we can understand what makes Purim unique and why it symbolizes the festival of the future.

Four Questions About Purim

1. On Purim there is a mitzvah to drink, and according to some commentators even to become intoxicated: “A person is obligated to become inebriated on Purim.” As Maimonides wrote: “He drinks wine until he becomes intoxicated and falls asleep in his drunkenness.” Why is there an emphasis on drinking in this way on Purim?

This becomes even more puzzling given the Torah’s general guidance, and particularly regarding the festivals, not to become drunk or lightheaded, but to rejoice with clarity and awareness.

2. A second question concerns the Midrash that states that Yom Kippur will one day resemble Purim. How can a biblical holiday aspire to resemble a rabbinic one? How could a day of seriousness, holiness, prayers, and supplications be considered “less” than Purim?

3. A third question is why “they called these days Purim after the pur,” the lottery and fate cast by wicked Haman. Why not name the holiday after the miracle that occurred for the Jews? Why specifically mention the painful and traumatic part?

4. A fourth, thought provoking question concerns the obligation to drink and rejoice on Purim “until one does not know the difference between ‘cursed is Haman’ and ‘blessed is Mordechai.’” What is the rational basis for such a demand? At first glance it seems to contradict the entire Torah, which constantly seeks discernment: between good and evil, curse and blessing, impurity and purity, sacred and ordinary. The Torah commands us to erase the memory of Amalek, and we recall this in Parashat Zachor read on the Shabbat before Purim. Does the mitzvah of drinking on Purim ask us to forget the command to erase Amalek and to remove all boundaries between right and wrong?

Such indifference to reality may resemble the pessimistic approach of the philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer. Confronted with life’s circumstances and the question of evil and suffering, and influenced by Buddhist ideas, Schopenhauer sought liberation through detachment, negating desire, and rising above reality. Is this indifference truly the goal of Purim?

Why Purim Never Disappears

There are many interpretations of these questions. We will focus on one rooted in the well known statement: “All the festivals will one day be nullified, but the days of Purim will never be nullified.”

In the future to come, a concept requiring explanation in its own right, the familiar festivals such as Pesach, Shavuot, Sukkot, and according to some even Yom Kippur itself, will be nullified. Yet Purim, which at first glance seems childish and humorous, will continue.

In a certain sense, Purim is a holiday that comes from the future. It is a preview that reminds us of the complete joy that is approaching. What grants Purim such eternity? What is so future oriented about it?

There is a deep difference between Purim and the other festivals. Purim is a kind of making the future present, already here and now, a brief illumination from a repaired world.

To illustrate this difference, consider how we relate to death in the present and in the future. When someone dies, we say: “Blessed is the true Judge.” But in the future, “people will bless the bad just as they bless the good.” In the future, even at death and even at moments of joy, Jewish law teaches that we will recite the blessing “the Good and the Beneficent.” In that repaired world, our perception will be unified and harmonious. Then, as Rabbi Kook wrote, “the fear of death will be completely removed.” We will intuitively sense that “everything is for the good,” and that all is one: sacred and ordinary, good and evil.

Rabbi Akiva and the Laughter That Comes From the Future

This perspective, so difficult to apply in our world of ups and downs, disappointments and joys, characterizes Rabbi Akiva. Rabbi Akiva said: “All that the Merciful One does is for the good.”

This is the same Rabbi Akiva who stood before the ruins of the Temple and, contrary to instinct and contrary to the sadness that enveloped his companions, he laughed.

Rabbi Akiva’s laughter did not come from Schopenhauer style indifference. On the contrary, it came from confidence and faith in the good at the foundation of existence and creation, and in the good that is still to come.

It is true that for us, Rabbi Akiva’s laughter does not feel natural. Therefore the Shulchan Aruch rules: “A person should always accustom himself to say: all that the Merciful One does is for the good.” Even if it is not spontaneous, we must practice Rabbi Akiva’s perspective until it becomes authentic and natural. How does all this connect to Purim?

Amalek as Doubt

Purim symbolizes the eternal battle between Amalek and the Jewish people. Haman the Agagite is a descendant and continuation of Amalek. As is well known, the numerical value of Amalek equals “doubt.” Amalek casts doubt. He spreads despair and decadence in the world. In his view, there is no meaning, no purpose. Everything is scattered and fragmented.

Amalek is the grandson of Esav, the first person in Tanach described as weary. Esav is tired of working the field, tired of reality, and does not believe in it. Therefore, in his eyes, it has no value: “Behold, I am going to die, so why do I need the birthright?” Esav is despairing of life in this world. He despises life.

Likewise, Haman sees reality as mere chance, lottery and fate. But the battle against Amalek is not only a battle of ideas. The doubt Amalek seeks to impose upon reality, especially regarding Divine providence, begins earlier, in Bereishit. When Adam and Chava ate from the Tree of Knowledge, they sought knowledge and certainty, but they also received doubts, questions, and fragmentation. Alongside the value and progress that knowledge brings, it can also damage the authenticity of life. When one lives only through intellect and rationalism, something essential and natural is lost. And when the reasons and explanations that the mind craves cannot be found, doubt and sadness often follow.

“Until One Does Not Know”

Purim asks us not to know how to distinguish between “cursed is Haman” and “blessed is Mordechai,” as though we do not differentiate between good and evil. From a future perspective, it seems there is no essential difference.

This is intellectually confusing. To experience it, rather than to know it, one needs a certain setting. One must be joyful and slightly intoxicated. Or in the language of Rabbi Nachman of Breslov, one must “throw away the intellect.” As stated in Likutei Moharan: “The ultimate purpose of knowledge is not to know.” The peak of research and the pursuit of knowledge is paradoxically a state of not knowing, what is called “beyond reason and understanding.” On this Rabbi Natan, Rabbi Nachman’s student, wrote that one must enlarge the joy that comes through the intoxication and joy of Purim in order to reach “the ultimate purpose of knowledge, which is not to know,” the level of “until one does not know.”

“So Shall It Be Done”

On Purim there is an opportunity to attain a level that is difficult to reach rationally, because it is not easily accepted by the mind. As the Megillah says: “So shall it be done to the man whom the king desires to honor.” Why? “So.”

This answer, which seems childish, is actually a glimpse from the future, from an era in which the world will be repaired and harmonious, beyond knowledge. In Kabbalistic language, this is “the crown above all crowns.” In that state, a person is nourished from the Tree of Life, the tree of natural authenticity.

One path to approach this future like level in the present is through drinking. When one drinks not for wildness, but with a desire for spiritual connection, then “wine enters, secrets emerge.” Wine loosens the grip of strict intellect and can enable a person to connect to a unique inner point beyond good and evil.

In that state, a person rejoices for two reasons. First, because “there is no joy like the resolution of doubt,” those doubts Amalek tries to cast. Second, because in one’s natural inner state, and here lies a major psychological and metaphysical claim, the human being is joyful, and the world is joyful. As Rabbi Kook wrote: “The world is joyful; joy is the entire inner being of existence.”

Purim and Yom Kippur

This also explains the difference between Yom Kippur and Purim. Yom Kippur is a day of shabbat rest within our current reality. It is a day of repair, established as a “Shabbat of Shabbats.” On this day of atonement, a person is a small and passive partner. Therefore it contains many halachic prohibitions through which a person tries to detach from earthliness and resemble angels.

Purim, by contrast, is a festival of the future. It is a sunrise of a repaired world, in which the human being actively participates in creating a better reality, what is called an awakening from below. Purim is rabbinic: the human being establishes it, sanctifies reality, and reveals the holiness within nature and within the body.

That is the reason that Purim has no halachic prohibitions. On the contrary, it expresses connection to earthly and human dimensions such as eating and drinking, and the joy of the human heart. Purim is entirely natural joy, the joy of the Tree of Life, the joy of the future.

Why Purim Is Named After the Lottery

Now it becomes clear why one should become joyful to the point of non differentiation. In the present world, there is a real need to erase Amalek’s influence, that decayed atmosphere filled with doubt. But the command is to erase Amalek “under the heavens.” In an ideal reality beyond the heavens, even the root of Amalek will, after a process of refinement, become repaired.

This illuminates the surprising statement of the Talmud in Sanhedrin: “Grandchildren of the wicked Haman studied Torah in Bnei Brak.” Rabbi Kook explains that although Amalek is erased under the heavens, through refinement he ascends to the good root above the heavens, and all becomes included within higher love.

This is why the holiday is called Purim. Even what appears to be randomness is not random fate. Even doubt itself transforms on Purim into certainty and unity.

Purim as a Song That Plays Itself

In everyday life, we truly need intellect and reason in order to repair the world. We must erase Amalek and distinguish between good and evil. But Purim symbolizes a reality beyond reason.

When a person clings to the Tree of Life, there is no need to use the intellect to repair life, no need to fight life or the urges, because life itself becomes naturally repaired.

This can be compared to music. All year long, in order to play, we must read notes and perform with intellect, training, and precision. On Purim, the melody emerges from the heart naturally. It becomes spontaneous and harmonious improvisation, an authentic eruption of powerful life. The musician and the melody become one.

The joy of Purim is therefore both inner and outer. It has no need to create separations, divisions, or value judgments. It is entirely goodness and faith in life. It includes a unified view of all aspects of reality: intellect and emotion, physical and spiritual, immanent and transcendent. One could call it a joy that unites all worlds. This joy, expressing wholeness and repair, is the joy of the future.

As the prophet Yirmiyahu wrote: “Behold, days are coming, says the Lord, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and the house of Yehuda.” This future covenant will be natural, not dependent on external teaching: “They will no longer teach one another, saying, ‘Know the Lord,’ for they will all know Me.”

Rabbi Kook summarizes Yirmiyahu’s idea and explains in one sentence the uniqueness and natural vitality of Purim’s joy: “In the past I gave you Torah; in the future I will give you life.” The future will be joyful.

Dr. Roi Cohen holds a PhD in philosophy from the Hebrew University, is an attorney and mediator, and works as a producer, director, and content creator.