Doing Public Work

As (Western) Christians head into Pascha next week, our Jewish brothers and sisters will be celebrating Purim, and the Velveteen Rabbi shares a lovely reflection on Purim, Pesach, and the cycles of the Jewish Festival year. I really liked this bit at the end:

“We begin our festival year by relying on God to save us; we end our festival year by owning our own capacity to transform our world ourselves. And each year we recapitulate the journey from one to the other. In that sense, Purim is the ultimate celebration of human agency. Maybe that’s why the sages of Jewish tradition suggested that in the World to Come, when creation is redeemed, all other festivals will fall away but Purim will remain: it’s the quintessential messianic holiday, because it celebrates our ability to create a redeemed future with our own hands. “

Go read the whole thing.