Rabbi Weill's Blog

Dear Friends,

Purim is about shpiels, costumes, and frivolity. But it is much more than that as well. It is also about how we, today, understand “divine intervention.”

Redemption follows miracles in Torah. We came out from Egypt as a result of G-d’s grand miracles. Not so with the Book of Esther, the source of the Purim holiday. No miracles occur in that story. G-d’s name does not even appear – not once!

In the Book of Esther redemption seems far more human than divine. The saving of Persian Jewry, in the words of Rabbi Irving (Yitz) Greenberg, “is achieved by court intrigue and bedroom machinations,” not by a divine miracle. Esther herself, far from being a bold, G-d intoxicated prophet, like Moses, is a frightened young woman.

Some objected to including the Book of Esther in the Bible. It seemed too mundane and prosaic. And yet there it is. By including Esther our Sages seemed to be teaching that we do not always understand – we are not meant to understand – how G-d acts in our lives.

During prophetic times, according to our tradition, G-d’s role in our lives was overt. Today G-d’s role in our lives seems to be more covert. G-d does not, in Greenberg’s phrasing, “crash into history from outside.” G-d is rather present within our lives, within our world: in our efforts to repair the world, in the love we share, in the courage we summon for good causes. We are meant to be like Esther, G-d’s willing partners in the process of redemption.

Wishing you all a Shabbat Shalom and a very happy Purim!

Rabbi Jeffrey Weill