The Megillah and the Role of Hashem
Megillas Esther - written in darkest golus. A time of הסתר פנים, of הקב“ה hiding his face, of providence concealed. And the name of Hashem does not appear in the Megillah[1] at all. Hashem’s role was completely hidden.
The mefarshim give many reasons as to why the Megillah had to be written this way. Some[2] say that the text had to pass the scrutiny of the Persian government, or that the Megillah, available as it was to the Persian world of the time, was liable to be treated too disrespectfully to contain Hashem’s name. And other reasons are given.
However, I would like to discuss the impact of this fact: What is being hidden exactly? What might a reader miss?
We think we know the answer. Without Hashem’s involvement indicated clearly in the Megillah, a reader could think that the whole story was - coincidence. What incredible luck the Jews had! So many things worked out just right. Vashti happened to offend the king. Esther, out of so many candidates, was chosen to replace her. Mordechai uncovered a plot against the king’s life. The king slept poorly on just the right night. Haman, ימח שמו, came waltzing in just as the king wanted to reward Mordechai. And so on and so forth: an exciting plot, and remarkable good luck. The reader would miss the whole theme: How Hashem protects his people.
Let me tell you a story[3] I heard about my Rosh Yeshiva, HaRav Yaakov Weinberg זצ“ל. When he was still quite a young man, his even younger brother HaRav Noach Weinberg זצ"ל, Rosh Yeshiva of Aish haTorah in Yerushalayim, came to him with a question. “Yaakov? Who’s right, us or them?” The young man brushed him off: “Noach, first you have to figure out what you’re asking.” Young Noach retreated in confusion, not knowing what his brother wanted. After a few more tries and rebuffs, he came back again. “Yaakov? Who’s right, us or the scientists?” “Ah,” said his brother. “Now that you know what your question is, we can talk.”
We are Torah Jews, but we are affected by our society[4]. In Western society, the alternative offered to Torah is science, and this is how we tend to approach the world. Either the Torah is true, or, חלילה, the world would be nothing but electrons and quarks, nothing more than a very large mechanism. And according to this point of view, if we take Hashem out of the Megillah, what is left is nothing more than chance events.
Now imagine a very different view of the world. This one comes from the time of the Megillah itself. There are no atheists yet, and no scientists. The religion of Persia is Zoroastrianism.
“A certain Persian priest said to Ameimar, ‘The upper half of a human being belongs to Hormiz; the lower half, to Ahormiz.’ Answered Ameimar, ‘If so, why does Ahormiz allow Hormiz to transport water through his lands?’ (Sanhedrin 39a)[5]”
The Persians practiced a (somewhat) more refined form of idol worship. They believed not in many gods, but in two: a good god of spirituality and an evil god of the physical. Man himself is part of their battleground; he contains within him aspects of both. Evil is not man’s doing, but something external.
Don’t think that this belief is foreign to us, some relic of a primitive era. It is actually the theme of a large part of Western literature. Tolkien, Star Wars, Harry Potter! The heros are pitted against a tremendous evil, a universal evil. The evil is far beyond their strength. Their task is to oppose it anyway, to throw themselves into battle though it seems completely hopeless. Somehow, miracle of miracles!, events work themselves out magically and they are successful. Evil destroys itself and is gone. And the reader understands: It wasn’t just luck. (That would actually be very disappointing to the reader.) There is a power of good operating subtly in the background, that does not fight the evil head-on, but by indirection and arrangement behind the scenes. Good wins the day.
And if a Persian, even a religious one, would read the Megillah, that is what he would see! Evil seemed to have everything its own way, was impossible to fight. But the force of good, by subtly arranging traps and tricks in advance, managed to trip up the forces of Evil - just in the nick of time.
Don’t get me wrong. These views of the world are not completely false, neither that of the scientist, nor that of the Persian. Believing Jews can be scientists, and science contains truth. Science does grasp a certain level of the reality of the world. No one who sees the world’s technological advancement should deny that, nor anyone who sees how many things are not only known, but understood, about the workings of Hashem’s creation. Our quarrel with science is not about what it knows, and not even so much about what it thinks it knows. Rather, our quarrel is that the science-eye-view of the world is so limited. There is much more to the world than just electrons. We live in a world of spirituality, a world of mitzvos and of Torah, a world with Hashem.
The Persians are not completely wrong either. As with science, their world-view contains truth. There are forces of good and evil in the world. We call them the powers of tum’ah and taharah, and they are part of the system by which Hashem runs the world[6]. And man himself does contain aspects of both.
Just as with science, though, the Persian view falls short. These forces are not the ultimate truth; they are not independent powers. Hashem Echad is the real power behind everything, and both tum’ah and taharah are his servants. Man is not the product of two conflicting forces, but is a unified whole created by Hashem. As Ameimar pointed out to the Persian priest, the two halves of man are supposed to work together.
“His students asked Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai, ‘What did the Jews of that generation do wrong, that they deserved to be threatened with destruction?...Because they partook of the feast of Achashverosh...and because they bowed to an idol in the time of Nevuchadnezzar.’” (Megillah 12a)
R’ Shimon bar Yochai’s students knew: No force in the universe could ever have threatened the Jews, unless the Jews had sinned[7]. The real threat to the Jews is always our internal failings. And even then, the threat is not punitive, but constructive: “Resh Lakish said, ‘HaKadosh Boruch Hu never strikes Yisroel unless he created for them a cure first. (Megillah 13b)” “The removal of (Achashverosh’s) ring did more to bring Yisroel to teshuvah than all the prophecies of all the prophets. (Megillah 14a)” The threat of the force of evil is itself Hashem’s way of bringing us back to him.
The danger the Jews were in was all their own fault - they had sinned. But the Megillah hides it - we only know it from Chazal. The salvation came through teshuvah and prayer, and a reawakening of closeness to Hashem. But again, only we know that; it comes from Chazal[8]. A Persian would see a Megillah without Hashem, without the only master of the world, master of good and of evil. He would see his god instead, fighting evil secretly. Only a Jew can look past this facade to find הקב“ה waiting for him. They see the world as fundamentally having two characters, the good god and the bad; people are pawns in their battle. But we know that the two real characters in the world are Hashem and us. Everything else in the world, everything that happens, is Hashem’s adjusting the environment, helping his people come close to him.
Even in our secular Western society, there are still many people who believe in G-d. But the G-d that they believe in, it seems to me, is like the one from the Persian religion. They do not see evil as an outgrowth of their own flaws. They see it as something external, a problem to solve or an enemy to fight, not an impetus to change. Though he mentioned G-d’s name often, you never heard President Bush say that the terrorist problem is our fault! Only in the stories of our chareidi brothers in Eretz Yisroel, may they be well, does such an attitude ever reach the media.
May הקב“ה help us to escape the influences of our surroundings. May we be zocheh to absorb the whole story of the Megillah properly, the wonderful love story of Hashem and how he brings his people back to him. If we will do that, then all of our afflictions will have served their purpose, and ונהפוך הוא, Hashem will remove them from us and bring us to our redemption, בב“א.
[1] Maharal, Ohr Chadash, in his הקדמה p. 59, and see p. 125 and p. 19.
[2] Ibn Ezra in his הקדמה. (And מנות הלויby R’ Shlomo Alkabetz, בהקדמה יב• בא“ד בקדמונים טעמים רבים, says it was not k’vod Hashem to be associated with Amalek.)
[3] Rabbi Hoffman at Aish Hatorah verified to me that he had heard the same or similar story.
[4] Rambam, Hilchos Daos, Perek 6.
[5] See Rashi and the Maharsha. And see The Juggler and the King, by my Rosh Yeshiva, HaRav Aharon Feldman שליט“א, for a detailed explanation of the gemara according to the Vilna Gaon.
[6] As an aside, it seems to me that this can explain the idea of a גורל, which features so heavily in the story of the Megillah, and also in the service of Yom Kippur, the division of Eretz Yisroel, and the story of Yehoshua and Achan. It is clear everywhere that the Goral is considered to be an accurate way of finding things out.
To our modern minds, this makes no sense. What worse way could there be of finding anything out than by flipping a coin? That means putting the question up to chance. By definition, it gives no information.
Don’t try to answer by saying “Hashem makes it work.” If so, how could Haman try to use it?
According to what I said above, it does makes sense. Hashem made the world as a complex of forces and powers. In a given situation, one or another of these forces may be dominant and cause the outcome.
מי מפיס? (Shabbos 23a, 54a) Why not? Can’t anyone flip a coin? Not at all. They knew how to devise a analog sensor that could connect to a given situation, weigh the different forces at work, and judge the stronger. Their “coin flip” was somehow linked to the real event it was trying to mimic.
[7] I have heard from HaRav Shlomo Brevda, זצ"ל, that it is very important for מחנכים to present the stories of the Torah to their students in this way. Not to say that Par’oh the Rasha, or Achashverosh the Rasha, or Antiochus the Rasha, came and threatened us, and then Hashem saved us. That would teach children, ח“ו, that reshaim are in charge of events. Instead, say, When we did Hashem’s will, no one could touch us at all. When we sinned, our enemies were given permission to threaten us. And when we did תשובה, they were destroyed. With this presentation, the child learns true בטחון in Hashem.
[8] Esther Rabbah 10(9) “How do we know that the Jews prayed? as it is said...”.