There is a special quality about Purim and Yom Kippur, a quality that will endure even after the Final Redemption, when the nature of the universe will change. In the time to come, the Maharal explains, the observance of the commandments may take a form other than the one we know today. The Torah is eternal, but in a new world with a heightened level of spirituality, an existence far above our experience and even our imagination, certain elements of the commandments as we know them may be altered.

But not Purim and Yom Kippur. They will remain as they are.

Furthermore, in the familiar dictum of the Zohar, the Hebrew name for Yom Kippur -- Yom KipPURIM -- alludes to the similarity between these two seemingly dissimilar days. Yom KipPURIM [literally means] "a day that is like Purim." It seems incongruous that a day of joyous abandon and a day of awesome introspection should be more similar to one another than any of the other festivals to one another. What is it about Purim and Yom Kippur that create this relationship?

The world of the future will be a world of life. There will be a resuscitation of the dead, and the world will return to the exalted level of Adam and Eve, to the level that the Jewish people attained when they heard the voice of God and received the Ten Commandments at Mount Sinai. During those times, there was no death and no Evil Inclination as we know it today. Truth was so obvious that falsehood had no allure, and people realized that the temptation to sin is nothing more than falsehood disguised by an attractive rationale.

But Adam and Israel allowed themselves to be driven to sin, so death came into being, and it became the task of Israel and mankind to rid themselves of the delusions that had caused them to deny the truth and had dashed them down from angelic heights to vulnerable, painful mortality.

The primary characteristic of the World to Come, therefore, is life. God is the ultimate life, and when man lives up to his ultimate purpose, he will be reunited with the Source of Life. In such an existence, everything associated with man will be of a higher order. But Purim and Yom Kippur will not change -- because they are themselves manifestations of life. Let us see why.

In the time of Mordechai and Esther, it was decreed that every Jewish man, woman, and child be murdered on a single day in the month of Adar. Haman the Amalekite was on the verge of achieving the goal of his ancestor Esau and his malevolent offspring. And his willing accomplice, King Achashverosh, put all the forces of the world's leading power at Haman's disposal. The situation of the Jewish people was hopeless. They had but recently been exiled and dispersed. They had not an ally in the world. Derision and contempt were their lot everywhere. They were as good as dead; the months until Haman's deadline were more a torture than a reprieve.

Yom Kippur, too, would seem to be a time of inevitable death -- according to the rules of logic. By what right can the sinner hope to escape God's judgment? And what human being has not sinned? Would any of us allow a child to keep playing with a tool that he uses to smash our windows? Should God permit us to continue "playing" with a soul with which we flout Him, instead of serving Him?

Repentance pre-existed the world because God knew that man could not exist unless he had the potential of redeeming himself. Thus it is not a concept that we could regard as rational. Indeed, according to the Sages, before creating teshuvah (repentance), God inquired of Wisdom and Prophecy what should be done with sinners. They answered quite logically. Wisdom argued that sinners should be pursued by their evil -- without any hope of forgiveness. And Prophecy argued that the sinful soul deserves to die (Jerusalem Talmud - Makkos 2:6). So the sinner should have no grounds for hope on Yom Kippur. But God decreed otherwise.

Israel survived Haman's threat with renewed vigor, and it survives every Yom Kippur with God's acceptance of its repentance. In place of death there is life. This means that both festivals, Yom Kippur and Purim, transcend human "certainty.” They are united with the ultimate, Heavenly Source of life which is unaffected by the laws of logic or nature. In the World to Come, all existence will rise to that level. But Purim and Yom Kippur are already manifestations of life, so they will never change.