In the year 91 BCE, Alexander Yannai of the Hasmonean family succeeded his brother Yehuda Aristoblus to the throne of Judea. Alexander Yannai was a Sadducee who virulently persecuted the Pharisees. At one point during his bloody reign, following a victory he scored on a battlefield, he invited all the Torah scholars for a celebratory feast. During this feast he was slighted by one of the guests, which led him to execute all the Torah scholars in attendance.
A few of the sages managed to escape to the town of Sulukus in Syria. There, too, they encountered anti-Semitic enemies who murdered many of the exiled sages. The handful of surviving Torah scholars went in to hiding, finding refuge in the home of an individual named Zevadai. On the night of the 17th of Adar they escaped the hostile city of Sulukus.
Eventually these surviving scholars revived Torah Judaism. The date they escaped the clutches of death was established as a day of celebration.
In the beginning, a world of twos was created.
Heaven and Earth. Body and soul. Good and evil. Life and death. Light and darkness.
Those who chose Heaven abandoned the earth. Those who chose the body abandoned the soul. Those who chose evil destroyed life.
Those who chose good believed it would only come with death.
Until Torah entered the world.
Heaven met Earth and the two embraced. The soul found meaning within the body. Good found purpose in its journey through darkness. And those who died will return to find truth in this world.
Torah is a way of peace between all opposites, a light to discover the truth within all that G‑d has made. An absolute oneness beyond all binaries.