People in glass houses shouldn’t cast stones and all of the rabbis that I know will be working on Purim. We will be organizing and shushing, introducing and teaching, collecting and giving, answering and asking, and on and on. It will go on from before Purim until it is done.
Yet, honesty dictates that we must answer this question. Should we be working on Purim? Should we answer our emails, look over the stock market, send a note to our team, assess inventory, check marketing (our own and the competition)?
Purim is a day of celebrating with friends, family, community, and even strangers. It is a day of revelry and study, a day to give as generously as we can, a day of recognizing G-d’s watchful providence and love. Can we really do all of those things and work? I understand that we need rabbis to work, just as there are some types of work we all must do in order to make the day possible: we really do need some people to organize minyanim, teach, introduce, answer questions, pull in teens, give gifts to the poor, and work with volunteers to make carnivals and appropriate festive meals. And we really need doctors to be on call, volunteers to man the carnival and security booths, and supermarkets to remain open so that we can get last minute foods for mishloach manot or Purim meals. Emergencies will not stop on Purim and they will need to be tended to, and immediately. And from a purely halachic standpoint, there is no requirement to lose our status at the office (let alone our jobs) on Purim.
But we can aim to make any work we do honor the goals and mitzvot of the day in both law and spirit. “It is permitted to do work,” as the Rambam says, “but it is nonetheless not fitting to do it that day.” If you can take the day off, do it. Spend it with your family, give an absurd amount of charity, shout when our enemies are named – all of them! – and read the Megillah twice. Hashem watches over us now as He did then and our fortunes will reverse upward, just as they did then. On Purim, let us internalize that good feeling and live it most deeply.
– Rabbi Yitzchak Sprung is the Rabbi of United Orthodox Synagogues in Houston, Texas (UOS). Visit our facebook page or UOSH.org to learn about our amazing community. Find Rabbi Sprung’s podcast, the Parsha Pick-Me-Up, wherever podcasts are found.
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While most likely there is nothing wrong halachically with checking emails for work if needed on the day of Purim, I think it underscores a major issue in our world today, and that is the busyness and the preoccupation with our phones. It is something that is beyond description. Within the past 10 years, we went from a free people to enslaved.
If a person would focus on the amount of time we spend daily looking at their phone in their hand and being completely absorbed by it, it is a frightening reality. In that sense I think it is wise to use any occasion to break free from this very very costly habit, and Purim especially would be such a time.
The focus of the day is to be joyful in the salvation of the Jewish nation, and to try to avoid anything that would detract from it, in that sense I think it would be well advised to try to avoid checking email or anything else that would take away from the simcha of the day.
– Rabbi Ben Zion Shafier is founder of The Shmuz and author of 10 Really Dumb Mistakes That Very Smart Couples Make (available at theshmuz.com).
