by Rabbi Russ Resnik

"All the king's courtiers in the palace gate knelt and bowed low to Haman, for such was the king's order concerning him; but Mordecai would not kneel or bow low." (Esther 3:2)

As we celebrate Purim we inevitably begin thinking about Passover, which is just one month away. The old definition of a Jewish holiday applies to both: Our enemies tried to kill us; God delivered us; let's eat!

This humorous, if well-worn, definition is sadly relevant in our own time. As we say in the Passover Haggadah, "In every generation there are those who rise up against us to destroy us, but the Holy One, blessed be he, saves us from their hands."

I recently joined an online rally for the town of Sderot in Israel, which has been subject to continuous rocket fire from the Gaza strip for years now. Several speakers made the connection between Hamas, which is responsible for these attacks, and Haman, the villain of Purim. They also linked the Jewish community of Sderot with Mordecai, the hero of Purim. Like Mordecai, who "would not kneel or bow low," the town of Sderot is standing up in the face of evil and refusing to bow down.

Even as I was listening to these speakers, I was receiving urgent emails reporting on an attack on one Messianic family in Israel. Someone had left a Purim gift basket on their doorstep with a bomb triggered inside. When their 15-year-old son bent down to open the basket it exploded, injuring him severely. As I write this, the boy is still in treatment for serious wounds including burns to his head, eyes, neck, chest, hands, and legs. The doctors were able to save his legs and are now deciding whether to operate on his eyes, because his vision may have been damaged by the blast. Clearly this family has experienced a Haman-like attack in our own day. And just as clearly they, along with the rest of the Yeshua-believing community in Israel, are standing in the face of evil and refusing to bow down.

As followers of Yeshua, we believe that ultimate deliverance comes only through him. The deliverance that we have experienced personally and within our Messianic communities is a foretaste of the great deliverance to come, when Messiah returns to vanquish the enemies of God and establish his kingdom over all the earth, as the prophets foretold. In placing our hope in Yeshua the Messiah, Messianic Jews stand in contrast with the rest of our Jewish people. At the same time, despite the paradox, we stand in solidarity with our Jewish people, with Israel, and with its Messianic community. The current events of this Purim remind us how vital this solidarity is.

I am grateful to participate in a Messianic Jewish vision of standing with Yeshua at the same time as we stand with Yeshua's own Jewish people. In the world of politics and nationalism, dual loyalty is considered suspect, but this kind of dual loyalty makes perfect sense biblically. Still, it was unheard-of for many centuries, and is not often expressed even today. Both the wider Jewish and Christian communities generally assume that when a Jew believes in Jesus, he or she converts from Judaism and leaves the Jewish community. But Messianic Jews in the UMJC and like-minded groups believe that we are to remain loyal to Jewish community and traditions and loyal to Yeshua. Perhaps we are like Esther and Mordecai, who appear at times to be estranged from their community, yet prove to be fiercely loyal in a time of trial.

This loyalty means that, like the rest of the Jewish world, we recognize the biblical priority of Jewish continuity. As the prophet Jeremiah declares (31:35-36),

"Thus says the LORD, who gives the sun for light by day and the fixed order of the moon and the stars for light by night, who stirs up the sea so that its waves roar-the LORD of hosts is his name: If this fixed order were ever to cease from my presence, says the LORD, then also the offspring of Israel would cease to be a nation before me forever."

Because of this unshakeable commitment to Israel's survival, the LORD intervenes in the story of Esther to bring a great deliverance, even though he is not directly mentioned even once throughout the book. Because of this unshakeable commitment, Messianic Jews remain loyal to the Jewish community, and seek its continuity from generation to generation, even though it does not yet recognize the Messiah who is central to our very lives.

This week's parasha (Parashat Tsav, Leviticus 6:1-8:36; 6:8-8:36 in Christian Bibles) provides a compelling picture of this continuity. It opens with the law of the burnt offering, which includes the instruction to keep the fire burning upon the altar of sacrifice. This command was so important that the Torah gives it three times, in 6:2, 6:5, and finally 6:6 (6:9, 12, 13 in Christian Bibles): "A perpetual fire shall be kept burning on the altar; it shall not go out." The ashes of the sacrifices are removed day by day, but the fire is permanent. Continuity requires a permanent flame in the midst of all the changes that assail us.

The Torah calls the flame on the altar aish tamid, the eternal flame, as it calls the light of the menorah in the tabernacle ner tamid, the eternal light (Exodus 27:20). Rashi comments that the fire of the aish tamid provides the flame to light the ner tamid. This unchanging light symbolizes the Torah, God's eternal word to Israel. We use the same name for the light over the ark of the Torah in our synagogues - ner tamid, the eternal light, representing the unchanging flame of Torah.

This continuous flame helps explain why "in every generation there are those who rise up against us to destroy us." There are spiritual forces that oppose God's Word and the people who have helped to preserve God's Word through the centuries. These forces oppose Jewish continuity simply because God supports it. But of course their opposition will fail, because "the Holy One, blessed be he, saves us from their hands."

Surely faith in the Messiah of Israel, the one who is the living ner tamid, the eternal light, is compatible with Jewish continuity, even if few have understood this in the past. During this season of Purim and Passover, we can celebrate that we live in a day when more and more people are embracing this two-fold loyalty, and standing up at the same time for the Messiah of Israel and the people of Israel.

Happy Purim and Shabbat Shalom!

Rabbi Russ Resnik
This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it