Post date: Mar 17, 2011 3:17:38 AM
עַל כֵּן קָרְאוּ לַיָּמִים הָאֵלֶּה פוּרִים עַל שֵׁם הַפּוּר
Al kein kar’u la’yamim hu’eleh Furim al shem hapur
(9:26)
There are multiple reasons given that explain why the holiday is called Purim. Here are a couple of them:
1) The result of the Pur (lottery) determined the date that the Jews were to be decimated. Due to its random nature, the Pur could have landed on any date on the calendar. But since the date selected was 11 months away, it gave the Jews ample time to accrue additional merit (through their fasting and davening) to be saved.
(Mei’am Loez)
2) A person should always be careful to be not be overly joyous about his current good fortune. Not only that, but a person should never think that his situation is so secure that he need not daven or do Mitzvos. Rather, a person should always be concerned with the uncertainty of his lot (Pur), and he should communicate his concerns through conversations with Hashem.
We see how Haman and Achashveirosh felt tremendously satisfied with how things were going. In fact, no sooner had Haman sent the messengers on their mission to deliver his letters of decimation than he and Achashveirosh were already toasting to their “success,” as the pasuk says “וְהַמֶּלֶךְ וְהָמָן יָשְׁבוּ לִשְׁתּוֹת” (V’hamelech v’Haman yushvu lishtos/and the king and Haman sat down to drink, 3:15). Of course, we all know that there is always time for the outcome to change, and we should always take advantage of that for our benefit and we constantly work on ourselves.
(R. Moshe Feinstein)
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קִיְּמוּ וְקִבְּלוּ הַיְּהוּדִים עֲלֵיהֶם
Kimu v’kiblu hayehudim aleihem
(9:27)
Some fasts are somber days, as they were enacted to commemorate tragedies. (ex- 9th of Av, 10th of Teves, 3rd of Tishrei and 17th of Tammuz.) When we fast on these days, we should attempt to humble ourselves and enhance our own קדושה (Kedusha), and through that, the fasting is hopefully an atonement for our sins.
The intention of other fasts is to heighten our spirituality by purifying ourselves—through the purification, additional spirituality is infused into us. (ex- We don’t eat on Yom Kippur as we attempt to transcend the physical world in our quest for the ultimate spiritual experience. On a smaller scale, we have a restriction on Erev Pesach of not eating Matzah in order to increase our appetite for the Mitzvah of eating Matzah later that evening at the Seder. This restriction adds spirituality to the bodily function of eating.)
Midrash teaches us that Bnei Yisroel fasted the three days before מתן תורה (Matan Torah/the giving of the Torah) in order to sanctify their bodies for קבלת התורה (Kabulus haTorah/receiving the Torah). Likewise, in the time of the Purim miracle, the Jews fasted for three days (on Pesach) at the behest of Esther, ostensibly, to gain merit for Esther. But once Esther’s requests were granted and the Jews were saved, the end result (as our Pasuk points out) was their reacceptance of Torah with a whole heart. So it turns out that their three day fast was actually an exercise in bodily sanctification in preparation of reaccepting the Torah.
(Artscroll Purim)