“I am a Jew, part of the Jewish people, and only after that am I an Israeli - Because the State, as I understand it, was created for the entirety of the Jewish people and in their merit. The thing that sustained the Jewish people throughout all of the generations, and brought forth the shaping of the Jewish State, was the messianic vision of the prophets of Israel. It is a vision of Jewish redemption and personal redemption. The State of Israel now is the instrument that fulfills this redemptive, messianic vision.”

So spoke David Ben-Gurion, founding father and Prime Minister of Israel. He was a secular man, and an avowed atheist, but he had a deep and critical understanding of the stubborn dream of our people that sustained us through two thousand years of exile, and the foundations of that dream in the words of our prophets in our Tanach.

We are one people, animated by a dream, a hope, a desperate need to sustain ourselves no matter what challenges we face. We have developed many ways to do that, not least our way of learning and education, our innovative nature, our entrepreneurial spirit. But it started, as most of our history as a nation did, in the desert. It was there that we received the Torah which established the covenant and constitution upon which our first sovereignty was based, and through which we delivered concepts such as equality before the law, love for the neighbor and responsibility for the vulnerable to a cruel, dangerous world.

It was also there where we developed a reputation before God and before all the nations of the earth as a stubborn, stiff necked people. Could we really have survived destruction, exile, persecution, extermination, rape, pillage, murder, torture and never-ending defamation if we were not stubborn? And could we possibly have survived as a people or any kind of distinct community without the structure of life and home that the Torah provided us?

And so, in this roundabout way, we come to this week’s Torah reading of Parshat Zachor, and the celebration of Purim that follows.

In that very same desert, we encountered cruelty, an enemy in Amalek that sought first to ambush our weak and tired, and then to finish us all. We turned, we fought, and with the strong hand of the Almighty sustaining us, we prevailed. And we vowed never to forget. Yet we didn’t complete the victory, and the result was a renewed existential threat, hundreds of years later. King Saul fought again, and won again, but he also left a vestige of this enemy which came back yet again, through Haman, to wipe us out.

A wise man, a valiant Queen, and a prayerful, repentant nation turned to their faith, but they also took up arms, and victory was granted to them once again.

This cycle, our stubborn persistence coupled with our imperfect victories has followed us down through the ages. If that were the only thing that we carried with us, we’d be a truly hollow shell of a people, remembering only our dogged persistence, and licking our never ending wounds.

But we carried much more with us. We carried the covenant of Avraham, the Torah of Moshe, and the messianic vision of Isaiah and Jeremiah. We carried the song of Miriam, the leadership of Deborah, and the courage of Esther.

We remembered the wisdom of Hillel, the brokenness of Elisha Ben Avuya, and the fiery example of Rabbi Akiva.

In every generation they rose up against us to destroy us, but in every generation we found new strength, new ideas, new ways to bring light to the world. We never forgot the vision of the 30th chapter of Jeremiah which describes the battles we face throwing off the yoke of oppression and exile, but we were inspired every day by the 31st chapter which described our return, our joy, growth, and love.

Each of us, in our own ways, from wherever we stand, has a stake in that vision. Each of us can be courageous, each of us can be an Esther. As the Megila tells us, when she hesitated, Mordechai said to her - if you refuse, redemption will come from someone else - and who knows if you were brought to where you stand for this very moment and purpose?

As Ben-Gurion said, the State of Israel is an instrument for fulfilling that vision. But each of us is also a vessel carrying it forward to our children and theirs. ‘The Jewish people live!’, we say, and in saying this we are also saying ‘The Jewish vision lives’; ‘The Jewish covenant lives’; ‘The Jewish responsibility for one another lives’; ‘The Jewish values bestowed on the world live’.

On Purim, we are given not only an opportunity to celebrate redemption and victory, but also to give gifts of amity and friendship, while most importantly taking care of those who do not have their own means to celebrate, or even to eat heartily. May we all learn and carry forward this vision of strength, love and purpose. Chag Purim Sameach!