Sometimes the search for our true selves takes us to mysterious places. Tonight at sunset, Jews everywhere will celebrate the joyful holiday of Purim, which commemorates a time in history when the Jewish citizens of ancient Persia were fortuitously saved from total destruction.

The festival is observed primarily by the public reading of the Scroll of Esther, which recounts an amazing story of love, intrigue, plot twists and surprise endings. This all took place in the fifth century B.C. during the reign of King Xerxes I. According to various written accounts from the official Hebrew canon, to near contemporaneous finds of archeological artifacts, to corroborative reporting from the first century historian, Josephus, the story of Purim is generally well accepted.

An elaborate and elegant banquet was hosted by the king in his capitol. After much libation, Xerxes demanded the presence of his queen, Vashti. She refused, and pursuant to the advice of the dark-hearted minister to the king, Haman, a search for a new queen was now needed. Many beautiful women were rounded up from all corners of the kingdom to be presented to the monarch for the selection of the next royal first lady. Among those was a stunning girl, an Israelite orphan named Hadassah. However, as she was led away to the palace, her guardian and leader of the local Jewish community, Mordecai, implored her not to reveal her religious and ethnic background and to use her Persian name, Esther.

Meanwhile, Mordecai has a friction-filled encounter with the evil Haman, who decided to exact revenge by planning the genocide of all the Jews in the land's 127 provinces. Haman convinces the king, and he picked a date for the mass murder by randomly choosing a day by lottery. Purim means "lots" in the language of the vernacular of that era and geography, hence the name of the holiday. As the fateful edict became known, the Jews understandably felt hopeless and grief stricken.

Mordecai therefore asked Queen Esther to intercede to save her people. Should Esther reveal who she really was, and risk being killed along with her kinsmen? Or should she continue to conceal her identity and live a full life of luxury and security?

Often, we are faced with difficult choices that force us to decide who we really are, what we believe in and whether it is worth living a life where faith matters.

Esther opted to unmask herself at her own peril. Xerxes, so moved by the love for his wife and her bravery, decreed to undo the deplorable executive order of deathly discrimination, and thus saved the life of not only his beloved, but the legacy and heritage of the descendants of Abraham.

All of us can easily join in the revelry and be glad that in this instance good triumphed over evil. And, it is important to realize that this place on the Jewish liturgical calendar reminds us to find the courage and strength to be genuine to, and about, ourselves.

NAN Religion on 03/15/2014