Toward the end of the book of Esther we read, “[Mordecai]…sent letters to all the Jews…to have them celebrate annually the fourteenth and fifteenth days of the month of Adar…as the month when their sorrow was turned into joy and their mourning into a day of celebration…” (Esther 9:20-21).
The book of Esther does not end with victory in battle. It ends with a call to remember. One tradition is the baking of a three-cornered, jelly-filled pastry. The hidden jelly recalls the hiddenness of God. I like the idea that God’s presence, scrumptious and unseen, is baked into the story of redemption. And I appreciate the value of a two-day celebration in which people of faith revisit the way their God prevailed. We tend to forget. We forget that God is for us, not against us. That God can make beauty out of ashes. We need memorials that jog our memory.
