During Purim, we believe that the world can be turned upside down, and then right-side up. Vulnerability can turn to power. Terror can turn to joy. We celebrate this with revelry and noise and food and drink. We even try on different versions of ourselves as we dress in costume and yell during the public reading of a biblical text. We tell our children a story that includes attempted genocide and tremendous violence. But then we assure them that Esther’s bravery and cleverness helped save the Jews of Persia.

Pesach requires a different kind of belief. While the Book of Esther never mentions God, the haggadah certainly does. God’s power is evident in the plagues and the parting of the Sea and the eventual revelation at Sinai. We are asked to believe in divine miracles. Or at least to believe that the seemingly impossible can happen.

This year, as we transition from Purim to Pesach, our world feels upside down. We are living in a time of tremendous violence and suffering in Europe and across the globe, we are aware that the climate crisis could cause mass extinction and create a refugee crisis on an unprecedented scale, and we are still living with a global pandemic that has claimed millions of lives and demonstrated that human inequality continues to worsen. And yet. And yet human beings have demonstrated bravery and cleverness. There are countless stories of bravery in Ukraine and Eritrea and Yemen. Human beings working together across the globe developed a vaccine that prevented hundreds of millions of people from dying from COVID. And, I believe, if we actually made it a priority, we could find ways to avert the worst of the climate crisis.

And although I don’t know that God will directly intervene, I do know that seemingly impossible things can happen. Enslaved people can become free. Impenetrable passageways can become open. Wisdom can be revealed when we least expect it.

I still believe that the world can be turned right side up. I still believe that impossible things can happen. And as our community puts away the megillah and reaches for the haggadah, I hope that you will, too.