We end public readings of the Scroll of Esther with a blessing. "Blessed are you, God, who takes up our grievance, judges our claim and avenges the wrongs against us. You bring retribution on our enemies and vengeance on our foes." It's a tragedy when those we have in mind are other Jews.

Purim is the consummate Jewish carnival, and puppetry -- very much at home in the carnival -- is often considered a lowly art, if an art at all. So what can we make of lowly behavior, lowly art and inverted souls?

When it comes to the Bible, it's easy to fall back on standard interpretations year after year, but when we examine a multifaceted story such as Esther's through a modern lens, we see the many ways the story resonates in contemporary life.

Purim is a radical embrace of the uncontrollable nature of life, celebrating the concealment of God through wearing masks, and the confusion of life through intoxication. With faith in the Divine, we go through chaos and transcend into something higher, into a place of Oneness.

We ought to never become oblivious to all that which life has to offer. And we ought to remember that the blessings of life emerge precisely when we learn to synchronize what we want from life with what life wants from us. Herein lies the secret to a life of purpose and meaningful achievements.

I make sure my students end just about every week of term by celebrating a Jewish holiday. We're mostly Protestants, so we're not so good at it; but we have fun, and we learn about Jewish history -- our shared history -- by laughing, eating, dancing and praying, sometimes in botched Hebrew.

In a month where the predictable has vied with the unprecedented, may we be truly surprised by the reversal of policies of intolerance, and the respect for each others' own practices, beliefs and doubts.

Think that Yom Kippur is the holiest day on the Jewish calendar? Guess again....

WASHINGTON (RNS) Debby Levitt's four children are dressing up big time for Purim, one of the more raucous of Jewish holidays, which begins on Saturday...

Most often in our culture God is the address for requests, for the expectation that something that I cannot control will be taken care of by a Higher or Greater Power. What if, in the spirit of Purim and our Torah reading, we adapt JFK's famous statement and ask not what God can do for you, but what you can do for God?