Purim is above all about deliverance from suffering, which comes when it seems that there is no hope left
The building of Odesa Museum of Western and Eastern Art was damaged in one of the Russian missile attacks on the city. A valuable exhibit of the museum, Paul Leroy’s painting Haman and Mordecai, survived, but as long as the war continues, it is in danger every day.
“In the difficult moments of the trials in which your country finds itself, I would be glad to show, albeit modestly, that I am with all my heart with those who hope while suffering” — those words were not about the current war. With those words, Paul Leroy, or Pavel, as he was known in Odesa, donated his painting to the Odesa Museum in 1904.
The trials of which Leroy spoke were the Jewish pogroms then sweeping the south of the Russian Empire.
Paul Leroy was born in Paris, but he spent his childhood and youth in Odesa, where his parents had a fashion accessories store on Deribasivska Street. It was namely in Odesa, where his mother was from, that he began to learn fine arts.
The painting he donated is one of the best illustrations of Purim in the world art. The head of the Persian Jewish community, elderly Mordecai, refused to bow down to the arrogant nobleman Haman, who was close to King Ahasuerus. In revenge, Haman decided to exterminate all the Jews of Persia.
It turned out the other way around. Esther, Mordecai’s adopted daughter, who had been the king’s favorite wife, exposed the treachery of Haman to her husband. Haman was hanged. All his servants, who wanted to kill the Jews, were also slaughtered together with him.
The holiday of Purim is not just a triumph of good over evil. Purim is above all about deliverance from suffering, which comes when it seems that there is no hope left.
Chag Purim Sameach!
