Pregnancy and Purim

People associate pregnancy with an enhanced sense of smell, swollen feet, and an achy back more than with a month of the year.  But sure enough, while Gregorian years leap, Hebrew years become pregnant, and not just with an extra day, but an entire month. The real question is why this month, Adar, is the month picked to carry with it the potential for a birth of a second Adar (this year happens not to be a ‘pregnant’ one)?  Further, is it a coincidence that the month with the potential for pregnancy is also a time of enhanced joy and that the name of the month means ‘strength’? 

                If we look at Purim, the holiday that characterizes Adar, to put it mildly, it is strange.  You take a group of rabid intellectuals and tell them to turn it off for a day; turn off the mind and turn on the heart.  It is a time of giving each other gifts, eating and merriment.  How can we make sense of it?

  To begin, our intellects have a foreign feel to them.  In other words, our intellects play a decidedly small role in how we make our decisions.  We make decisions based on our feelings and we consult with our intellects to help shape our feelings in the right direction.  However, at the end the of the day thoughts are outside of ‘us’ and they can manipulate ‘us’ towards countless rationalizations to the point that we are no longer ‘us’. 

Strength is the ability to find an inner voice that transcends external influences, even our intellects.  It is the ability to do things because they are right even if we don’t understand the full ramifications of the decision.   It is no surprise that the month of strength is the month of joy, because joy comes from a feeling that I am not dependent on external forces for my mood- it is feeling that I am in control in spite of external circumstances.  So how does it tie in with pregnancy and Purim?

Purim is the time when a series of unlikely events transpired that didn’t make sense.  A former barber, Haman, suddenly becomes a man of power, means, and a thirst to destroy the Jewish nation.  A modest Jewish woman becomes a queen and a wise sage is put into a position to save the king.  Had any political pundits been around back then, this certainly would not have been the prediction for how the Persian Empire’s power structure would be set up, and that is precisely the point.  Even at times when things don’t fit into the neat molds our mind creates, we find a deeper voice that is unwavering and tells us to hang on.  The potential to create a mindset from within ourselves despite external factors is represented by pregnancy.  Obviously, pregnancy starts with two, but at the end of the day, pregnancy is the ability to create life from within. And that is the idea that resonates strength, creates joy, and saved the Jews on Purim- the ability to stay true to an inner voice that knows what is right even when our intellect may say otherwise.