Dear Friends,
I hope this note finds you well during these challenging times.
We enter the month of Purim during what may prove to be a modern Purim story. Today’s Hamans set out to destroy us yet with God’s help the entire story turned around, v’nahapoch hu. What began with a devastating attack on Israel led to the near collapse of Iran and its proxies, fundamentally changing the power dynamics in the Middle East. God’s hand is recognized not only in exploding beepers, intercepted missiles, and buses blowing up empty, but – astoundingly – in the many remarkable stories of hostages and their families recognizing and embracing God from the bowels of Gaza and the depths of despair. Purim is in the making!
The obsessive hatred that the Jewish people have encountered throughout history cannot be explained in geopolitical terms. Our Sages (Shabbos 89b) sourced that hatred in the world’s reaction to the special relationship God established with the Jews at Sinai, causing sinah (hatred) to descend upon the nations of the world. Antisemitism is rooted in our chosenness and seeks to destroy our unique connection to the divine. Even the current war against the Jews – similar to the Hebron and Jerusalem pogroms of 1929 – is characterized by its perpetrators as the Al Aqsa Flood, a reaction to the perceived Jewish return to the Mikdash. Ramban in his introduction to our parsha (Terumah) described the Mishkan/Mikdash as a continuation of Sinai. That is why any restoration of the Jewish connection to the Mikdash reawakens the sinah (hatred) of Sinai.
This same phenomenon is the subtext of the Purim story, occurring as it did in the period between the two Temples. This story of antisemitism was driven by the desire to keep the already exiled Jewish people away from their God, as the narrative begins with Achashverosh throwing a party celebrating the dashing of our dream to return to Yerushalayim (see Megillah 11b), and continues with his constant refrain limiting Esther’s requests to “half the kingdom,” which the Talmud (Megillah 15b) sees as drawing a firm line against allowing her to restart the rebuilding of the Mikdash. Yet despite Haman’s and Achashverosh’s best efforts, the Purim story led to the kiymu v’kiblu recommitment of Klal Yisrael to Sinai (Shabbos 88a) and to the resumption of the rebuilding of the Mikdash under the leadership of King Darius, son of Esther. The nations despise us for our stubborn connection to God, but every effort they make to disrupt that connection is doomed to failure, even if we must find our way back using a different path.
Just as we saw Hashem “face-to-face” at Sinai (Devarim 5:4), a visit to the Beit Hamikdash is described by the Torah (Shemot 23:17) as going to see the face of God, and it is only in the Mikdash that Hashem’s full name is said. During the period of the Purim story when we could not go to the Mikdash to see His face or hear His name, His miracles remained hidden and His name left unmentioned in the Megillah, but that did not mean that He was not there. On Purim we discovered that God remained with us but unseen, acting behind the scenes with hidden miracles, neis nistar. The Talmud (Chullin 139b) underscores this by connecting the name Esther to God’s pledge (Devarim 31:18) to render Himself invisible by hiding His face from us during difficult times, v’anochi hasteir astir (spelled as Esther) panai bayom hahu. This feeds Haman’s ultimate frustration, as he comes to the realization that even without our being able to see God’s face in His Mikdash, we nevertheless remained connected to Him.
That is the true story of Purim, “hide and go seek”. God may hide His face, but we will search for Him and find Him. The Jewish relationship with God is uninterrupted such that when He chooses to go into hiding, we undertake to bring Him out in the open, noticing and acknowledging Him in the hiddenness. That is why as we enter Adar and the Purim season of Divine hiddenness, we read the sections of the Torah instructing us to build the Mikdash, to establish His home and visible presence within us where we will be able – so to speak – to again see His face. And this is what lies at the heart of the Mitzvah of Shekalim that we also read this Shabbos. The Talmud (Megillah 13b) teaches that the national Shekalim campaign to fund the Mikdash was initiated each year on Rosh Chodesh Adar to serve as the antidote to Haman’s scheme in the story of Purim (see Tosfos Megillah 16a). Haman pledged 10,000 blocks of silver to buy the heads of the Jewish people and severe our connection to God. We however pledge that silver to build His home on earth, clinging stubbornly to the connection to God that forges our identity and essence, even as it invites the abiding hatred and resentment of others.
During these difficult days, Hashem continues to send us so many signs of His presence, of the durability of that connection. He seems to be inviting us to help Him emerge from hiding. Let’s respond to that and not keep His kindness a secret. “Shiru lo zamru lo sichu b’chol nifl’otav. Sing to Him, make music to Him, tell of all His miracles.” (Tehillim 105:2)
Have a wonderful Shabbos and a good Chodesh and may we be blessed with besoros tovos, truly good news.
Moshe Hauer