This Purim, another world begins in our imagination

by Rabbi Nate DeGroot

Dear companions in love and justice,

As you prepare for Purim next week, we want to remind you about the Chapter 9 Project, which we released in 2023, but remains relevant as ever.

Chapter 9 of the Purim story tells how, after the Jews of ancient Shushan were spared annihilation at the hands of Haman, they turn around and kill over 75,000 Persians. It’s a dark chapter of Megillat Esther, the story many of us will hear read in just a few days on Purim.

When Jews had no state power and Purim could remain in the realm of satire/fantasy, chapter 9 may not have been such an issue, at least practically speaking. But once Jews did amass state power and with it, the ability to enact mass violence on perceived enemies, the themes of chapter 9 have become a dangerous textual justification for Jewish mass killing, from Baruch Goldstein’s massacre to the destruction of Gaza, plus more in between and since.

At The Shalom Center, we believe we need a different kind of story. A story that offers a new ending, a different tactic. Where being spared annihilation stirs in us not a desire for vengeance, but a steadfast belief that the only way forward is through peace and nonviolence.

IKAR Purim 2023, Los Angeles

That’s why we created the Chapter 9 Project, a compilation of 10 alternative chapter 9's written by 10 incredible folks from across the Jewish world (see the image below for the full list of authors), each uniquely reimagining chapter 9 as rooted in peace and nonviolence.

In an era when Jewish state power is neither hypothetical nor satire, Chapter 9 Project offers creative prompts for us to consider alternative endings to the Purim story and our own relationship to power.

This Purim you may choose, like some communities have, to chant a chapter from this collection to classic Esther trope, instead of chanting the traditional chapter 9. You could act one of the chapters out for your Purim shpiel. You could use the chapters as source material for chevrutah (paired) learning in your community. You could invite community members or friends to write their own original chapter 9's. You could write your own! You could spend some quiet time reading and wrestling with these alternative chapters yourself. Or you may choose to do something else entirely.

Over the years, this resource has made its way from coast to coast America, and as far as Europe, Israel, Africa, and beyond.

We hope you take some time with this incredible work in the days to come, and allow yourself to be guided, challenged, and inspired by the creative and visionary fiction within, with the hopes that by imagining a new story, we might help write a new story together. 

With blessings that this Purim, we all might jump the track,

-Nate