Purim
an Excerpt from Purim Essay
“Everything has been foreseen, yet permission is given.”
(i.e. Man
is free to act.)
A Fatalist
only reads the first part of this verse. He feels the constant and
oppressive conviction of heaven’s all-pervasive power. He never gets
to the second half.
Influence
moves only in one-direction, in his view. Man is free to do nothing
and determines nothing. Decrees are decreed by the heavens and he is
a plaything in their hands. Such was the situation at Mount Sinai. “God forced the mountain over them…and said: ‘If you will accept
the Torah, well and good. If not, here will be your burial place.’”
The Jews at
Sinai accepted the Torah partly out of fear.
During the
era of Achashveirosh, the Jews “ ‘upheld and accepted’ – they upheld what
they had previously accepted [at Sinai].” They re-committed
themselves to obeying the Torah, and to bearing the yoke of the Torah and
its commandments – out of love.
What
changed? How was fear transformed into love?
It is
popularly explained as being the result of the great gratitude felt by the
Jews for the incredible miracle of rescue that saved their lives and
foiled the diabolical schemes plotted by the evil Haman and his murderous
gang.
It might
appear that the causes behind the emotional transformation experienced by
the Jews could be sought at a deeper level, and perhaps even from the
opposite direction:
The old ways
are gone. Things are perceived differently now: It is no longer a
matter of man’s passive response to what has been decreed on high in
heaven, for better or for worse. It is not just faith in the
Creator’s love for His chosen people, and gratitude for the fact that He
performed miracles for them long ago in those days at this time….
Rather, the
Jews had observed an awesome sight. They had witnessed an incredible
phenomenon. They had seen the mere human beings that were Mordechai
and Esther take control over the swing of the pendulum that is life’s
process.
How had they
done it? Whence their great power? The Jews discovered that the
power wielded by Mordechai and Esther had been acquired through devotion,
through cleaving to their sacred duty, to their task of carrying the
torch, of bearing the Godly light in this universe.
Devotion is
expressed in “…and Mordechai would not kneel and would not bow.”
Cleaving to the sacred duty is expressed in going to supplicate a king
when it is clear suicide, because “…who knows if it is not just for such a
moment that you have reached royalty?”
Such
devotion sanctifies God’s name, and sanctifies all of existence for the
sake of God. Such devotion becomes power, and becomes the ability to
activate, direct and control the movements of reality’s pendulum.
This is
accomplished by first controlling the swings of the pendulum of human
behavior. This movement effects a parallel movement in fate’s
heavenly pendulum.
The
discovery of human power is the discovery of man’s control over his own
fate. It is in his hands to change his fate by making calculated and
courageous changes in his own destiny.
A discovery
of this nature draws man out of the sense of his own helplessness in the
face of fate. It returns him to his lost splendor, to his original
status as the crowning glory of creation. He becomes again the being
who is capable of controlling heaven’s decrees through the choices that he
makes.
Go to top
|