Well. Everyone knows that. Yes. There was some evildoer who wanted to destroy us, to harm us, to harm our connection with the earth and with the sky, call him Haman, Antiochus, Pharaoh or whatever name you want.
After all, it ends with another holiday. And a holiday, as everyone knows, goes with food.
It is always about a miracle. Sometimes masculine, militant and overt. The sea splits in two. The Maccabees dismember the Greeks. And sometimes feminine and hidden. In the threshing floor, Vashti and Tarshish, a feast and also a feast. The latter is so hidden that the name of the miracle-worker, God Almighty in His own right, does not appear at all.
As if that weren't enough, it's nothing more than a drama-free coincidence, turning the miracle into a series of natural, political, and trivial events. Power struggles in the corridors of power and similar upheavals can be found in any self-respecting history book.
But this is actually the message of the holiday of Purim. What seems to us to be the nature of the world is simply God's way of managing the world. All of life is a never-ending conversation between us and God.
Even parking that became available right when I arrived, so that I wouldn't be late for a lecture, or searching for parking for half an hour so that I could meet a friend I hadn't seen in two years - are also part of the dialogue between 'nature', which is God, and us.
You can choose to believe. You can choose not to. And that too is part of the nature of the world.
Some people need a dramatic miracle to recognize the fact that all of reality surrounding us is divine guidance, and there are those who understand and feel that our entire existence is one great drama, and something that is not at all self-evident.
I run the world.
I was invited to give a lecture at the Open University to an audience of employees of the Center for Educational Technology (CET).
It was a lecture on Purim as part of a training day titled "How to Instruct the Younger Generation to Think." I got my head in order and felt completely prepared. What could be easier than lecturing on Purim? The materials are excellent. Miracle, Jews, Esther, Queen, Woman, Relationships, Private Providence, There is a God! What more do you need?
But... the next day the person who invited me called and said: "Look. Miri. There's a problem. This is a mixed audience of men and women, Jews, Druze and Arabs. How exactly do you want to tell the story of the scroll?""
I wondered too. I was as embarrassed as the city of Shushan.
What does a Jew do when he has a question? He turns to a rabbi. In my case, I turned to my 'mashfi' (I'll explain what that is when I get a chance).
What did the influencer, herself a senior figure in the Ministry of Education, tell me? "Don't tell the story itself. Don't talk about Jewish strength and female strength. Talk about the values of the holiday. About giving. About charity. About joy. These are universal messages that anyone, even non-Jews, can connect with.".
I relaxed and prepared myself for the lecture.
Before I entered, I asked the Lord of the worlds to put the right words in my mouth to sanctify His name in public.
But when I opened my mouth, or perhaps even a moment before, I found myself under attack. The classroom full of dozens of men and women seemed to me like a firing squad. The discussion quickly dragged into the feminist-chauvinist battlefield and concerned Queen Esther and the Jewish Mordechai.
I felt that all the preparation was in vain. The lofty values of the holiday melted away in the heat of the moment, and the spirit of Purim became a spirit of war.
That's what I thought as I pulled out into the parking lot. The unexpected rain reminded me that all joy comes with tears. In the back seat of the car were packages of food from Chabad youth that I was supposed to distribute, as part of the activity of spreading Judaism that is incumbent on me as a Chabad Hasid. I gathered myself together on my way to fulfill my mission.
But... the phone didn't stop ringing. More and more women who attended the lecture wanted to thank me for what was said. One of them even said that the Druze who had criticized Queen Esther's 'weak' behavior, at the end of the lecture, expressed appreciation for the Jewish approach I had presented.
In other words, I forgot for a moment that God was in charge and thought that I was the one who determined how the world would run...
Purim will never be canceled!
In an office next to the one where I arrived to deliver the food parcels, sits a dear Jew, formerly a famous sports broadcaster and now a successful lawyer.
Hmm, he's a radical atheist and meeting him isn't a particularly pleasant thing for me. I prayed I wouldn't accidentally bump into him.
A few minutes later, my prayer was answered in a completely unexpected way. My dear husband, Yossi, sent me a picture of that man wearing tefillin. The picture was accompanied by the following text: "This is the first time in his life that he is putting on tefillin.".
It turns out that the shipment of food from Chabad youth that arrived brought him to my husband's office, who took advantage of the opportunity and exempted him from the "Krakfata dala Menach Tefillin" law.
Is there anyone who still thinks that the world operates according to nature?
This is the Book of Esther – the Book of the Secret – it does not include the name of God, the Blessed, not even once. But His essence, the Blessed One, is evident in every line, in every letter, in every word. Because nature is God. Because this is not a paradox. This is the complete reality.
Nature screams divinity and you just have to open your eyes and see it with your senses.
Moreover, when the Messiah comes, the holidays will be canceled, due to the joy of the great revelation of God, but Purim and Chanukah will never be canceled. Because Purim expresses the fulfillment of the purpose in the creation of the world, "God, blessed be He, desired to have a dwelling in the underworld." Here, within the physical - natural - limited and hidden world, the divine light is revealed, the fact that the entire world is one simple reality that is all God.
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Happy Purim, even if you finished it last night. Because this message, the joy of Purim, should be taken with you throughout the entire year.
• Part of the column is based on the talks of the Lubavitcher Rebbe | The writer is the owner of "My Choice", an event host, lecturer, and radio broadcaster. | For comments: [email protected]
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