There is not just one story of Purim, but one of the many stories of Purim that is resonating with me this year is the story of the rapid shift from “אבל גדול ליהודים, צום ובכי ומספד/Great mourning for the Jews; as well as fasting, crying, and eulogies” (Esther 4:3) when the Jews of the Persian Empire find out about their impending genocide to “ליהודים היתה אורה ושמחה וששון ויקר/and for the Jews, there was light, happiness, rejoice, and jubilation” (Esther 8:16) when they find out Haman’s evil decree was overturned by Mordecai and Esther.

Purim is, among other things, the story of a rapid dissolving of norms and impending extreme danger, of the incredibly quick change that can happen when people in power seek to harm marginalized groups to what communal protection, aid, and liberation can look like. That liberation can be slow, but it can also come just as quickly as despair and oppression can, and often does, come. At a time right now, when it feels like the rapid descent to fascism has been dizzyingly quick — there were many signs and slow changes, and then so much has happened in the last two months. Purim is that story, but it is also the story of the ways that brave, courageous people mourned, but also refused to despair. We know the story of Mordecai and Esther, but I also need to have enough faith in our ancestors to believe that there were so many other Jews whose names have long been forgotten to history who did things, big and small, to stand up to Haman’s fascism (to be anachronistic for a moment) and Achashverosh’s willingness to be party to his advisors’ every whim.

At a time when our world feels almost irreparably broken, when liberation and the joy it brings feels impossibly far off, Purim is a celebration and a reminder of the fact that liberation one day will come, and that it might come just as quickly as we have descended into the current position in which we now find ourselves. Even if we are stuck in mourning and despair, Purim is an invitation to find joy in the ways that liberation can come.

One moment in Megillat Esther is sticking out to me this year. The Megillah that we read is, self-referentially the igeret, the proclamation that Mordecai and Esther wrote at the end of the Purim story. In Esther 9, we read that this igeret is “דברי שלום ואמת/words of peace and truth” (Esther 9:29). The Jewish community — certainly in Shushan, if not in many other parts of the Persian Empire — knew about Mordecai and his high ranking position in the court of the Persian emperor. But they had no idea about what Esther’s role in the story was until they read the igeret, which becomes the story that we read every year. Liberation will come about from the actions of people we know are doing that important work right now, but we will also not know about the actions and the full extent of the people who are doing things, big and small, publicly and behind closed doors, to bring about the joy, light, and liberation that the Purim story reminds us will come. If nothing else, we should give ourselves a moment to rejoice at that reminder. Indeed, throughout the course of Jewish history, Purim becomes a model for just this — and Jewish communities across history celebrated their own communal Purim celebrations when they experienced deliverance from sudden danger and oppression. Jewish communities would write their own megillot to preserve their stories. We are here, today, because of their resistance to oppression and we are the stewards of their stories as we work to, one day, write our own. There is not just one Purim, but many — and we will, one day, have our own Purim after we emerge from this mess.

There is a famous quote, attributed to several different AIDS activists, that “we would bury our friends in the morning; protest in the afternoon; and dance all night.” Indeed, people said, it was the dancing all night that gave everyone the strength and resilience to continue the fight against a government which sought our community harm and death. Purim is a chance to dance all night, to give ourselves permission to, even for just a day, imagine a world that will be rapidly liberated by actions big and small, so that we might give ourselves the strength to continue to work toward the world that we know we all deserve.