Why this Purim is different

This Purim feels different. The air is heavier, the laughter more restrained. In Israel, the war drags on, its echoes reverberating through every home. Hostages languish in Gaza’s tunnels, their families caught in an agonizing limbo. The graves of fallen IDF soldiers—too many, too young—dot our land, each a testament to sacrifice we can scarcely bear. Grieving parents hold photographs instead of children; children who will never know their fathers gaze at a world made dimmer by loss. Mothers, pregnant when their husbands fell, cradle newborns with tear-streaked pride. And beyond our borders, antisemitism surges, a venomous tide lapping at our collective soul.

Hopelessness beckons. It would be easy to succumb—to let the weight of this moment crush us. But if Purim teaches us anything, it’s that despair is not our destiny. This holiday, born of a near-annihilation 2,500 years ago, whispers a truth we must cling to now: we are resilient. We are stronger than we know. With 2,000 years of survival behind us and the G-d of Israel at our side, we will emerge from this shadow.

Walk through any Israeli town this week, and you’ll see it. Amid the costumes and the half-hearted rattle of groggers, there’s a quiet defiance. A mother in Sderot dresses her daughter as Esther, her hands trembling from years of rocket alerts, yet her smile says, We’re still here. A reservist, back from the frontlines, joins his children to bake hamantaschen, his eyes weary but his spirit unbroken. In Jerusalem, a widow lights candles for a husband who won’t return, then lifts her voice in Megillat Esther, because to stop would be to surrender.

This is not the Purim of carefree revelry. The firecrackers—so jarring to veterans with PTSD—crackle less this year, a nod to the wounds we carry. The masks we wear feel less like play and more like armor.

The war tests us. The hostages—our brothers and sisters—haunt our prayers. I think of a child born this month, his father’s name etched on a headstone instead of a birth certificate. I think of the families who’ll set an empty chair at the Purim seudah, a silent cry for those still in captivity. I think of the synagogue in Paris defaced with swastikas, the campus in New York where Jewish students hide their kippot. The world feels unmoored, and our hearts ache with it.

But Purim isn’t about the absence of pain—it’s about what we do with it. Esther didn’t wait for safety; she acted amid peril. Mordechai didn’t cower; he stood tall when bowing was easier. Their story reminds us that survival isn’t passive. It’s the courage to bake mishloach manot for a neighbor who lost a son, to dance even when our feet falter, to hold tight to our faith and to our G-d when doubt creeps in.

We’ve endured 2,000 years of exile, pogroms, and persecution—not because we’re invincible, but because we’re stubborn. Because we’ve learned to find light in the darkest corners. Because the G-d who parted the Red Sea, who shielded Daniel in the lions’ den, who turned Haman’s gallows into his own undoing, walks with us still. This Purim, that faith isn’t a platitude—it’s our lifeline.

So yes, the war rages. The hostages wait. Antisemitism snarls. Our losses cut deep. But we are not hopeless. We are the children of Abraham, tempered by trials, bound by a covenant that no enemy can break. Let's trust that dawn follows even the longest night. We will survive this—not just because we must, but because we always have.