Purim begins today at sundown. It is customary to dress in costume; we read the Megillah (the Book of Esther) and whenever Haman's name is mentioned we make as much noise as possible to drown it out. We are also commanded to get so drunk that we confuse Haman and Mordechai.
Purim is the first holiday not named in Torah, and it is a holiday of exile, of the diaspora.
Esther's story, whether based on facts or not, always makes me think about the place of women in strongly patriarchal societies, especially patriarchal monarchies.
The short version, if you don't know the story:
In ancient Persia, a drunken king brags about his wife's beauty, and orders her to unveil in front of his friends. She refuses, which, when I went to Sunday school, I learned was a sign of virtue, and was banished. The king holds a beauty contest to find a replacement, and the winner is a young Jewess named Esther, who doesn't tell the king that she is Jewish. Meanwhile Esther's uncle offends the vizier Haman, who then plots to kill him and destroy the Jews of Persia. Mordechai tells Esther to plead with the king for her people, and after hesitating in fear, she agrees and is successful.
The women in the story are often criticized, Vashti for disobedience and Esther for her hesitation about helping her people. I always defend them both. Vashti chose virtue over a silly command from the king who was drunk at the time, and took her punishment - sometimes she is assumed to have been sent away, sometimes back into the harem. And I try to put Esther's fear in context. She was probably somewhere between 12 and 15 upon becoming queen, and although a few years have passed by this time, she has not yet had children, and she is still undoubtedly young. After what happened to Vashti, was well aware of the dangers of disobeying her husband or taking the initiative of seeking an audience rather than waiting to be summoned. I always think of the story of Scheherazade - where a king decides to kill wives rather than wait for them to be unfaithful - as the other story showing the absolute power of kings (men) over their queens (wives). It took courage for Esther to hatch her plot and invite the king and Haman to a feast with her, and she rose to the occasion despite the odds.
Chag sameach.