Purim is, in many ways, the most peculiar Jewish holidays. Jeffrey Rubenstein, in an excellent article entitled “Purim, Liminality, and Communitas,” published in AJS Review 17/2 (1992): 247-77 unpacks the underlying logic of many of the odd customs and texts associated with Purim. Utilizing a theory developed by Victor Turner, Rubenstein convincingly (and brilliantly, to my mind) shows that the rituals and customs traditionally associated with Purim define a time of “liminality,” lying on the margins or interstices, and thus “characterized by equality, immediacy, and the lack of social ranks and roles.” This goes a long way to explaining the phenomenon of “Purim Torah,” which tends to skirt good taste and anti-nomianism. Thus a “release” is especially needed in Jewish communities in which both strict halakhic observance and rigid hierarchies are the norm. It is interesting to compare such communities (e.g., yeshiva communities) with those of modern American liberal Jewish communities, where Purim might well take on a different function.
More daring, from my understanding, is Elliott Horowitz, Reckless Rites: Purim and the Legacy of Jewish Violence (Princeton University Press, 2006). I have bought but not yet read it, but it seems to argue that Purim was a festival used by Jewish communities to express their hostility toward the majority cultures (thus dovetailing with Rubenstein’s argument that Purim expresses liminal or fantastic time). From my knowledge of some anti-Christian Jewish piyyutim, or liturgical poems, this makes some intuitive sense to me.
