Hear Our Voice

Hatred is actually, simply, and at the most basic level, just ridiculous. And by “ridiculous,” I mean the Dictionary definition:

“Deserving or inviting derision or mockery, absurd; with synonyms such as laughable, silly and ludicrous.”

Hatred is ridiculous because it requires an expense of energy towards something or someone with which we do not want any contact. The irony, of course, is that the emotional expression of hatred draws us ever nearer to the object of our derision.

Perhaps that is why our tradition teaches one to become so inebriated on Purim that he cannot distinguish between Mordechai (good guy) and Haman (bad guy). What if our Kindergarten teachers have indeed been right all along – we don’t reward bad behavior with attention. But rather, we allow it to burn itself out and then when the vulnerable child is what’s left, we embrace him/her as the innocent child who entered the world as an infant. This may come across as over-simplistic, but I am so tired of the other alternatives.

It never seems to fail that right about the time when Purim falls each year, there is soon before or after it, yet another Jew hater rearing his ugly head. Jew hatred seems to never die; at best it lays dormant, ever capable of resurrecting itself in the strangest of ways.

Purim is the time when we as Jews, Jewish families and those who love them, gather to do the most powerful thing we can as it relates to Jew hatred – laugh at it! Laughter is one of our powerful methods of taking back control and undermining its influence.

So join us tomorrow night, as CSK gathers Jews and those who love them at Eight Row Flint in the Heights from 7-9 pm for laughter, joy, merriment and good fun. Our friend, Carlos de Aldecoa, founder and owner of Texas Giant Whiskey will teach us about and lead us in a Whiskey tasting, we will partake of the delicious Tacos and Dips fare of Eight Row Flint and do a dive into textual highlights from the Book of Esther.

Visit our website to sign up now.