Purim celebrates the deliverance of the Jews from the plot of the Persian villain Haman to kill them. The name of the holiday is the plural form of the Babylonian or Persian word pur (“lot”), referring to the lots cast by Haman to determine when the slaughter of the Persian Jewish community was to take place (Esther 3:7). The “lots” of Purim have been compared to those cast on the Day of Atonement to determine which of the two goats is assigned to God and which to Azazel. So highly did the Kabbalists esteem Purim, that in the name of Isaac Luria, they stated that Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement, is “like Purim” (yom “ke’Purim”). Maimonides observed that, “Even if all the festivals should be annulled in the messianic era, Purim will never be annulled,” since it is such a perfect example of the Jewish community being protected by divine providence.
While the Passover Haggadah celebrates God’s direct intervention in freeing the Israelites from bondage and leading them out of Egypt, in the Book of Esther the name of God never appears. Instead, God works silently behind the scenes through the agency of Mordechai and Esther. The lack of any clear references to God seriously troubled the rabbis, some of whom refused to admit the Book of Esther into the Jewish canon. In the Megillah, prayers are never addressed to God in times of peril, and the Jews never have a celebration of thanksgiving to God for their deliverance. Furthermore, the stridently militant tone of the concluding chapters led the rabbis to fear that the Book of Esther might arouse the jealousy and hatred of non-Jews. Nevertheless, it was finally admitted as part of the biblical canon.