“Hashgatha Protis,” everything for a reason by God’s design. In recent discussion with my good friend Tim about the covenant between God and the Jewish people, I later reflected on the holiday of Purim whose intensely meaningful story/miracle had been decreed by God in the Torah to be recounted every year.
The story/lessons of Purim, the Megillah of Ester, interestingly has not even one mention of God. In fact, the Hebrew name Ester means “hidden.” Queen Ester in strategy, hides her identity as a Jew and later exposes Haman’s plot to execute all the Jews including her, thereby implementing God’s Purim miracle. She is the heroine of the Purim story, instructed by God in action/deed (as was Moses and many others throughout our history), to facilitate once again the salvation of the Jewish people.
Mordechai, Queen Ester’s uncle, was a member of the king’s court and of the Sanhedrin. It was Mordechai that learned of Haman’s “final solution” to annihilate the Jewish people. It was Mordechai that apprised Queen Ester of Haman’s plot and awoke the Jews from spiritual slumber. A slumber where (once again in history) we were desperate to assimilate (to be like everybody else), to downplay our covenant with God as the “Chosen People.” God chose us and we chose God; we are his “chosen” people — not out of felt superiority to any others, but out of bond, a covenant between God and the Jewish people (Israel) to accept the responsibility, the sanctity and holiness of the 10 Commandments and the Torah (along with the 613 commandments contained therein). This is a covenant of intense and sacred faith and connection between God and the Jewish people we are willing to protect with our lives.
Throughout history, whenever we as Jews digress, we face an evil that threatens our extinction. We term this great evil, “Amelak.” Haman represents “Amelak,” as do so many other persecutory figures/regimes, such as the Pharaoh of Egypt that enslaved the Jews, Hitler, Hamas and as the Iranian Ayatollah — all those whose hearts were “hardened” by God against the Jews.
Why? To shake us, to wake us, to stir consciousness and to expunge “Amelak”; to unify and to renew our sacred covenant with God. In God’s image we were all created — perfect in his creation, imperfect in that life is indeed a constant struggle to better appreciate and strengthen our connection to God and to one another.
May we all enjoy a most inspiring and uplifting Purim celebration. May all the dark forces that seek to undermine the Jew, righteousness/ holiness, be not only defeated, but transformed — suffusing God into the darkness with which we find ourselves.
Dr. John Fasbinder
Lenexa, Kansas
