Purim Logic

By Yochanan Gordon

I’ve never really written about the tension of having to produce content on a weekly basis. By now, more than five years in, it has become second nature, but the challenge of finding something meaningful to say week after week never fully disappears.

There are, however, a few weeks a year when that pressure eases. The weeks leading up to Purim are among them. The reason is simple: the less structured and logical an idea is, the more Purimdik it becomes.

There is a famous piece of Purim Torah from the Lubavitcher Rebbe. In a farbrengen, the Rebbe noted that yayin (wine) has the same gematria as lekach, the honey cake traditionally distributed by a Rebbe before Yom Kippur. The Rebbe then continued, tongue firmly in cheek:

“If you’ll point out that yayin is 70 and lekach is 138, drink another glass of wine. If it still doesn’t work, eat another piece of lekach. And if the discrepancy remains, drink and eat until it does.”

The first time I heard this, I was struck by the Rebbe’s playfulness. He certainly had a sharp sense of humor, but there was a lightness here that felt unique. And yet, the more I revisit that vort, the clearer it becomes that beneath the humor lies something profound.

A Russian friend once told me that there’s an American aphorism that exists in Russian culture—but with a twist. In America they say, “There’s a little truth in every joke.” In Russia they say, “There’s a little joke in every joke.” The implication is that the truth isn’t secondary to the joke—it dwarfs it.

That distinction is critical to understanding Purim. The common assumption is that Adar and Purim are times when logic and rationality are suspended. But that framing is misleading. Purim is not about descending below intellect into mindlessness; it is about transcending intellect altogether.

Chassidus captures this with a linguistic wink. Aderaba, “to the contrary,” can be read as Adar ba, Adar has arrived. Purim consciousness runs counter to finite human intuition, not because it rejects wisdom, but because it operates from a higher, Divine plane that human logic cannot fully contain.

This is reflected in a curious statement in the Gemara (Megillah). Haman rejoices when the lottery falls out in the month of Adar, the month in which Moshe Rabbeinu passed away. The Gemara adds: Haman did not know that Moshe both died and was born on the seventh of Adar. What’s strange is not only the redundancy, surely it would suffice to say he didn’t know Moshe was born then—but also the order. Death is mentioned before birth, upending the normal flow of time itself.

Purim invites us into that inversion. The end precedes the beginning. What appears as loss is already pregnant with redemption.

This same theme appears in the prayer composed by Reb Elimelech of Lizhensk, which begins with the word Aderaba. While human nature inclines us to focus on the shortcomings of others, he implores us: to the contrary, place in our hearts the ability to see their virtues. Haman, by contrast, is the archetype of prosecutorial logic—fixated on flaws, obsessed with division, always reaching for the lowest hanging fruit. In the end, it is he who hangs from the tree.

Haman represents a descent beneath logic. Purim asks us to suspend logic in the opposite direction—not by abandoning it, but by soaring above it. This is hinted at in the Kabbalistic description of Adar as Reisha d’lo isyada—the unknowable head.

That idea took on new resonance for me this year when we began learning the Rambam’s Yesodei HaTorah. The Rambam famously opens by stating: “The foundation of all foundations and the pillar of all wisdom is to know that there exists a primal Being who brought all existence into being.” The Rambam emphasizes knowledge, not belief.

The irony was striking. We began this chapter just one day before the onset of Adar—the month defined by chayav inish livsumei b’Purya ad d’lo yada, the obligation to reach a state of “not knowing.”

But perhaps there is no contradiction at all. The Rambam speaks of knowing within the limits of human intellect. Purim points us toward a knowing so elevated that it dissolves the very framework in which questions arise.

There are questions in Torah that remain unanswered—teiku, unresolved until Eliyahu HaNavi arrives. And there are questions in life that have haunted us throughout exile: unexplained suffering, premature loss, the prosperity of the wicked and the pain of the righteous. We assume that redemption will come with answers that finally satisfy us.

But Purim suggests something deeper. The highest revelation is not when a question is met with a perfect answer, but when we realize that what once felt like a compelling question never truly began.

That is Purim logic. 

Yochanan Gordon can be reached at [email protected]. Read more of Yochanan’s articles at 5TJT.com.