The meaning of Purim this year is not complicated or hard to understand.

Haman sees a people mefuzar u’mefurad — scattered and divided. He sees not just a geographically dispersed nation but one which is mefuzar u’mefurad against itself. 

Mefuzar: We are scattered from one another, we do not know each other. We do not interact with each other. We do not understand the other.

Mefurad: We are divided against ourselves, consumed by our differences, expending our energy on fighting those who are supposedly part of our family. 

A people such as this is easy prey, Haman tells Achashverosh. They are too weakened by internal disagreements to put up a fight. They won’t fight for one another. In fact, they probably won’t even realize the designs that those on the outside have against them.

Esther does not at first appear to view the fate of the Jewish people as her priority. The palace is comfortable. To beat the Jewish drum is uncomfortable. And perhaps this people divided against itself isn’t worth the energy and commitment of an upwardly-mobile young woman.

But finally she gets it and decides to act. And her first words upon making the decision are “Go and gather all of the Jews” (4:16).

Toldot Yaakov Yosef — the very first published work of Chassidut from 1780, written by a leading disciple of the Baal Shem Tov — makes the following comment: Esther commanded “Go and gather all the Jews” so that there should be a connection and unity between them. With this she overturned Haman’s observation that “There is a people scattered and divided” (3:8), which is to say there is division between them.

Esther’s decisive commands are aimed exactly at repairing the weakness that Haman identified. If the Jewish people’s disunity and division is what makes their destruction a possibility, then it will be overcoming that estrangement — building bonds of care and unity between the many parts of the people — that will give them a fighting chance against their enemies.

One doesn’t need to be a genius to see the relevance of this for our own situation. Hamas, like Haman of old, identified our weaknesses. Its leaders didn’t need to be geniuses either. Jewish and especially Israeli self-loathing was everywhere — on the streets, in the Knesset, all over social media and even at Yom Kippur services. Why wouldn’t those who dream of our demise seize the opportunity?

The battle since Oct. 7 has been in Gaza and in Lebanon, in Iran and Yemen, on land, underground and in the air. But it has also been within Israeli society. 

Can we govern ourselves? Can we live together? Can we overcome differences and realize that our shared fate overrides whatever divides us? Can we articulate a shared vision of the society that we would like to build together?

If we look at the macro, the answer is not good. Our politics is as toxic as ever, and social media does the same damage here that it does around the world, amplifying our worst tendencies.

And yet on the micro level, this has not been my experience at all. 

We — our wonderful and ever growing community — have forged genuine connections and friendships with groups we would never expect to meet. With evacuees from Kiryat Shmona and Sderot, with Druze from the Galil, with Bedouins in the Negev and with our twinned community of  Kibbutz Nir Am who were attacked on Oct. 7. 

I am consistently overwhelmed with admiration for the people we meet, for what they have been through, for what they continue to go through, for what they have achieved and the strength of their spirit.

But most of all I am struck by how open and enthusiastic they are to forge friendships with those who are not like them — and that this must be one of the central lessons of Oct. 7.

One image of thousands of potential ones sticks in my mind. Two young women, arms around each other, smiling. One is Noa, a member of our community in Tel Aviv. The other is Bar, a mother of two from Kibbutz Nir Am. They have been paired together through our initiative which matches individuals between the two communities — each helping the other with their Hebrew or English language skills and just generally sharing life together.

But who are they? 

Noa made aliyah from New York to Tel Aviv less than six months ago, moving her life across the ocean and throwing herself into a new culture. 

Bar is the commanding officer of the Sderot police station who fought for hours in the infamous battle there on Oct. 7. She was knocked out early on in the battle, came round again and continued to fight, only passing out again at 8PM on October 7th when she learned her children were safe.

And now they are friends.

Esther got it right: Go gather the Jews. Make a connection between them. Overturn the designs of Hama(s/n). If we can do that, we’ll be OK.

Esther succeeds, and Haman fails. The Jews are saved. 

How is Purim celebrated and remembered? By creating a mechanism to repeat Esther’s strategy of bringing the Jews together: reading the Megilah and eating a seuda (festive meal), and bridging between them mishloach manot and matanot l’evyonim (gifts to the needy).

It’s a missed opportunity if we simply give mishlochei manot to friends in our neighbourhood and matanot l’evyonim to a faceless website or a synagogue collection plate. Both mitzvot invite us to meet people, to go beyond our comfort zone and to fulfil the mitzvot of Purim in joy with others with whom we might otherwise be mefuzar u’mefurad — distanced and divided from them.

The great Rabbi Yechiel Yaakov Weinberg, author of the Seridei Eish, wrote (chapter 1, verse 61) that the reason there is no blessing over mishloach manot is because the formula of a blessing on a mitzvah uses the phrase “v’tzivanu,” has commanded us, and although mishloach manot is a commandment, that is not how we should approach it:

“It is preferable that one gives out of free will, from a sense of love for his fellow Jew. If one gives merely because of a commandment, it diminishes the measure of love.”

When I was young, I thought that Purim was all about fun. When I grew older, I thought that Purim had deeper, darker messages of living in a world and finding faith even when God’s face is hidden.

Both of these are true, but neither is the point. Purim is a survival guide for our people. Of learning not to be our own worst enemy. Of coming together after having been divided. Of building the muscles that bridge the differences.

That message was always present in the Megilah. Now we need it more than ever.

Rabbi Joe Wolfson is the rabbi and co-director of JLIC TLV, a traditional and inclusive community of young people from Israel and around the world dedicated to building a stronger, more connected Israel. JLIC is a program of the Orthodox Union.