ESTHERS JOURNEY
We can’t experience the geulah in Purim until we have experienced Esther’s journey.
Adapted from RIGSHEI LEV - Women & Tefillah (Feldheim 2001)
Rav Menachem Nissel
Taanis Esther often feels like the calm before the storm. Intellectually we know that it is supposed to remind us that Purim has a serious side, in practice it serves as a chance to lose some weight before the binging and boozing begins. However, if we just scratch the surface of day, we immediately discover than it isn’t only a fast preceding festivity, rather it is a fast that creates festivity.
We can’t experience the geulah in Purim until we have experienced Esther’s journey.
How does it work?
Central to appreciating the events described in Megillas Esther is to understand that every reference to “hamelech”, King Achashverosh, conceals a reference to The King of Kings, HaKodosh Boruch Hu. The story of Purim can thus be read on two levels. When read literally, King Achashverosh is the central controlling player. When read at a deeper level, the King of Kings is manipulating the players like puppets on a string.
Consider the episode when Esther entered the palace of Achashverosh for the unfathomably weighty purpose of saving Klall Yisroel. She had no invitation to the palace and was therefore risking her life. In her own words,
“Uvechen, avo el hamelech asher lo kados, veka’asher avadeti, avadeti, and so, I will come to the King, which is against the law, and if I perish I will perish”.
At a deeper level, Esther entered the palace of the King of Kings to save Klall Yisroel with the power of tefillah. But she had no invitation. In other words, as the representative of Klall Yisroel, she was not worthy of being saved.
Every Rosh HaShana and Yom Kippur, we enter the palace of the King of Kings to ask to be inscribed in the Book of Life. As we begin our urgent prayers in the Shemoneh Esrei of the Yamin Noraim, our opening word is “uvechen”, and so.
Avudraham teaches us that the word uvechen is inserted at this point to invoke the “uvechen” said by Esther before she entered the palace. On the High Holidays, when the question, “who will live and who will die” hovers over us, we all become Esther.
We are all undeserving, yet we have no choice but to follow in Esther’s footsteps and ask for salvation.
Let us learn from Esther, as we take one more look at the dramatic moments when Esther entered the palace of the king.
Esther fully understood the consequences of what it meant to enter the King’s palace without an invitation. It was a guaranteed death sentence. For the king to revoke a law that he himself had formulated was unprecedented and inconceivable. Why would the King make a mockery of himself in front of his whole royal court?
Yet there was always a chance that Hashem would perform a miracle, like He did for Doniel when he was cast into the lion’s den, or when Chananiah, Mishael and Azariah when they were thrown into the fiery furnace.
But this thought gave her little comfort. Even if she miraculously survived entering the palace, and even if she escaped Haman’s decree, her personal life would still be condemned to misery. She was an orphan girl and the only special person she had in her life was Mordechai, the great tzaddik of the generation, her husband and mentor. By willfully submitting herself to the King she would be halachikally forbidden to Mordechai. She would then have to live the rest of her days with the wicked King Achashverosh, who was arguably more evil than Haman himself.
Furthermore, she had spent her whole life perfecting the middah of modesty. Her name, Esther, means hidden. Tznius was her very essence. It was through this middah that she had attained the status of one of Klal Yisroel’s seven women prophetesses. And now she would be perpetually condemned to a man who was notorious for his immoral behavior.
Her life was in tatters.
But there was one thing that no one could take away from her. Even as she was about to enter the valley of death, she knew that Hashem would always be with her. Hashem would be her Rock to lean on.
It was the festival of Pesach, a time for salvation. Esther girded herself with the power of prophecy. The Shechinah, the Divine Presence, would accompany her to Achashverosh’s court. The extreme closeness to Hashem that only prophecy can bring would carry her through her ordeal.
She was on her 3rd day of fasting…
She removed her sackcloth and ashes and donned royal clothing. Perhaps her beautiful attire would help hide her gaunt features after so many days of fasting. She set out towards the royal palace, comforted that the Shechinah was escorting her, yet with constant prayer on her lips.
As she approached the courtyard of the palace she focused all her energies into her tefilos. Her fate, the fate of every man woman and child in Klall Yisroel and the fate of all of Jewish history were on her shoulders. Her big moment had arrived.
Miraculously, the palace guards waived her through. We can imagine the smirks on their faces as she entered the palace. This woman is crazy! Doesn’t she know that coming uninvited to the king is a suicide mission? Of course the guards were unaware of the presence of the Shechinah bringing solace to Esther’s heart.
Disaster struck.
The pure and holy Shechinah, unable to remain in the presence of the Persian idols that permeated the palace, suddenly, without warning, disappeared.
Esther felt totally alone. A deep existential loneliness beyond human comprehension.
There she was, a frail and fragile woman, who had never enjoyed parents or children, with no friends to support her, utterly alone in the most hostile environment on earth at the most critical moment in her life. And in her moment of greatest need, Hashem had abandoned her.
“Keli, Keli, lama azavtani!”, My G-d! My G-d! Why have You forsaken me?
She burst out crying. She cried and she davened and she cried and she davened until her whole body became an ocean of tefillah and tears.
What should she do now? Her voice was too choked with emotion to speak; her eyes were too filled with tears to see and her body too weak from fasting to move. She had a choice, she could turn around and flee. That would have been the sensible choice.
But Esther knew in her heart of hearts that she had no choice. She had to move forward towards the king.
Slowly, she inched her way through the seven antechambers that led to the hall of the king. Although she felt her strength waning, she channeled every ounce of remaining energy into tefillah. She davened like she had never davened before. She begged Hashem to see the afflictions of her soul and the suffering of her people. She invoked every zchus that she had. She implored Hashem to remember the merit of her family, her ancestors, the Avos, all the tzaddikim of all the generations and all of Klall Yisrael. Little by little, step by step, she made her way to the hall of the king.
At that moment Esther embodied all the pain of her people throughout the ages who chose not to abandon G-d despite feeling abandoned.
The pain of the unmarried single at the bar mitzva of her classmate’s son.
The pain of those in abusive marriages who have nowhere to turn.
The pain of happily married couples in fertility treatment watching their friends raising children.
The pain of the sleepless nights of parents with children who did not fit in to the system and who are choosing non-Torah lifestyles.
The pain of families with young loved ones suffering in hospitals.
Esther entered the hall. She looked up and found herself standing directly opposite the king.
Esther knew that she cut a pathetic figure at that moment. All her beauty had disappeared with the trauma of her ordeal. She was a wretched Jewish girl who had just defied the most powerful monarch in the world.
The king was sitting on his throne of judgment. The magnificent hall was filled with courtiers and advisors, aristocrats and nobles. But it was also filled with soldiers and the king’s executioners. Haman and his henchmen were there. Everyone gasped with shock at the audacity of Esther’s entry. How dare she enter the palace uninvited? They all knew the royal decree, Esther now had to be put to death. The hall fell silent as everyone waited for the king’s reaction.
The king was fuming with rage. He started gnashing his teeth while his eyes burned like fiery torches. His wrath was terrifying. There was no question what his intentions were. Haman savored the moment. He was waiting for a nod from the king so that he could unleash his henchmen who were straining to slay Esther.
Esther lowered her eyes. She was shaking inside and her heart was racing. She had to do something. She wanted to move, to speak, to just raise her head, but she could not. She completely froze. After all her fasting, prayers and tears her strength had finally left her.
It was all over.
And then the most extraordinary thing happened. Her head miraculously lifted up, but without any effort on Esther’s part. Her face was suddenly transformed into its full radiance and beauty.
Her eyes and the eyes of the king met. He was overwhelmed by Esther’s charm and grace. He looked at his hand and was surprised to see he was holding his golden scepter, something he had never held while seated on the throne of judgment. Then, to the absolute amazement of everyone present, the scepter started growing, elongating and reaching towards Esther. The scepter stretched to the other side of the hall, touched Esther and then stopped.
The king arose from his throne of judgment and his face was filled with lovingkindness. He ran towards Esther and supported her frail body.
“My dear Queen Esther, why did you go through all this trouble and endanger your life? But have no fear. My laws apply to my people, not to my beloved queen. What is your request? I am prepared to grant you even half of my kingdom.”
And the King of Kings arose from His Throne of Judgment and He was filled with the attribute of mercy, as if He was saying,
“this is the moment of extreme closeness that I have been waiting for.
Know that at that moment when you decided to move forward, during your painful struggle towards Me and at your moments of greatest darkness, I was with you all the time.
But I remained hidden, because I wanted your efforts to be YOURS!
My precious Klal Yisroel! Get up from your praying and fasting, your sackcloth and ashes. Wipe away your tears!”.