PURIM 4 - MOMENTARILY ESCAPING THE FRAMEWORK

“If you look carefully at my lips… you'll realize that I'm actually saying something else.”

                                    The Naked Lunch

Enter Purim. On Purim we are acknowledging chaos, and even cultivating it. We are acknowledging that our framework neither frames nor works. The story we’ve been telling ourselves about what is going on is simply not accurate. 

Alas. We are in fact quite capable of building and dwelling in alternate universes. It allows us to ignore the inconvenient truths that threaten to intrude from the edges. We get to block other people’s needs out. We get to pretend we are doing our jobs - like Shaul, who tells Shmuel, “Blessed are you to Hashem! I have done what Hashem told me!” As Shaul continues to delude himself - “I have listened to the voice of Hashem, and I have walked in the way that Hashem sent me!” - as he is declaring his perfect adherence to Hashem’s will, King Agag of Amalek is alive, and Purim is born.

On Purim, if we look carefully, we will see that we are actually living in chaos, that our frameworks are more prophylactic than conduit, that our stories are more delusion than description. Maybe we’ll see that our love is self-love, that our service is self-service.

But this is the day. We scramble the signal and for one holy stretch of time we go out of our minds and perhaps - perhaps! - we can learn about a frame that is not-frame.