TWO KATAN HOLIDAYS
As many of you know, Adar is the month of the holiday of Purim. But what happens in a year when there are two months of Purim, as we have in 5784? We celebrate the big holiday of Purim in the second month of Adar because it is closer to Passover and the linked themes of liberation from our enemies. Apparently, following Chabad.org’s commentary, there was dissension about when to celebrate Purim, with some arguing that it was wrong to not celebrate our liberation from our deadly enemy as soon as possible. But the view of celebrating it later won out, hence our practice and my intent to discuss Purim next month, the month of Adar Bet or Second Adar. The Karaites, a sect of Judaism which rejects Rabbinical authority, still celebrates Purim in the first month of Adar. https://www.karaites.org/uploads/7/4/1/3/7413835/purim_in_adar_i__posted_for_kja_.pdf
Celebrating Purim Katan really has no structure to it at all. In Orthodox communities, there are no funeral elegies and one is not supposed to fast, because either would reduce the joy we are supposed to feel. The Shulchan Aruch, a tremendously important book of Jewish law, suggests a festive lunch. That sounds easy to execute. Maybe some kind of special food or friends over for lunch.
Purim Katan, also called Second Purim (Purim Sheni) has also been celebrated in the form of a special festival day when the community or even a family has been delivered from an impending catastrophe. In this case, the celebration often consisted of elements of reading some kind of specially composed scroll, festive foods, specially composed prayers and the giving of charity. Here’s the article from Wikipedia which lists about fifteen examples of historical celebrations of Purim Sheni. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second_Purim
If you share my political orientation, Donald Trump being defeated in November 2024 would be enough cause for the celebration of Purim Sheni. So get your prayers and narratives of how he came to be defeated ready for a celebration in the middle of November. It’s not that Donald Trump’s defeat marks the end of white “Christian” nationalism and its attendant anti-Semitism in America, but it would be a setback for that movement. And just as we are commanded to never forget Amalek, as if we could, Purim Sheni means that we celebrate when they are defeated.
Yom Kippur Katan is another example of a small or derivative holiday, though it has a very different feeling than the celebratory nature of Purim Katan. Yom Kippur Katan seems to have been started by R. Moses Cordovero in 16th Century Tzfat, and picked up by R. Isaac Luria, a slightly younger and more famous contemporary of his. The holiday is observed on the day before the new month/moon with adjustments for Shabbat when one ordinarily cannot fast or grieve. It’s rooted in the practice in Numbers of offering a sin offering on Rosh Hodesh, the beginning of the month. (Numbers 28:15). Practice consists of optional fasting and supplicatory prayers confessing one’s sins. So a mini version of Yom Kippur, as the name implies. We can conceive of this as a pretty straightforward preparation to come into the new month with a clean slate, washing away the accumulated sins of the past month.
R. Shefa Gold has an interesting take on this, based on the teachings of Reb Zalman. https://www.rabbishefagold.com/yom-kippur-katan/ The idea is to reflect on the absence of the divine and the yearning for her return in the form of Shechinah, the female aspect of the divine, who returns with the return of the moon on the new moon. The day before the new moon is a chance to examine the darkness inside of ourselves.
As I’ve written before, if we want to be full humans, we need to embrace both the dark and the light. The Kabbalists of Tzfat, as R. Shefa Gold says, viewed the darkness as the absence of the divine, but I think that overly identifies the divine with the light. The darkness is just as much a part of the divine as the light. This makes me think that while we might express our gratitude for the return of the moon at the beginning of the month, we should also find ways to express our gratitude for the dark.
QUESTIONS
Looking at the world today, what might cause you to celebrate a Purim Katan? How might you celebrate it?
How do you feel about the idea of a day to wash away the sins of the month? How would you effect that?
To what extent do you feel that the darkness of the night sky at the end of a lunar month echoes the exile and absence of the divine?
How might you embrace the darkness, both within yourself and in the more than human world?
Prayerbook for a short (relative term) version of Yom Kippur Katan