What Else is Hidden in the Megillah?

by Rabbi Ed Rosenthal, Founder & CEO

Purim is my favorite holiday. OK, I recognize that I say every holiday is my favorite holiday when it comes around (except Yom Kippur), but for Purim, I really mean it. I love Purim for its festive nature, for its call to give to our friends and to strangers, and to come together as community to hear the Megillah being read. What I find most fascinating, inspiring and thrilling, is that Purim is the holiday of hidden miracles.  Nothing is as it appears on the surface. Indeed, the Megillah is the only book in the entire Tanach where the Name of God does not appear at all. How strange! The story of Purim is one of the most miraculous stories in the Tanach. We suddenly went from almost total extermination at the hands of Haman, to being saved by the deeds of Esther and Mordechai; but how is it possible that God is nowhere to be found in this milestone event in the history of the Jewish People?

On the surface, everything in the story of Purim looks political and natural. Everything is grounded in life. There’s politics and palace intrigue. There are egos and conspiracies, but there are no visible miracles. However, while all looks natural on the surface, the miracle of Purim is concealed within ordinary events.

Interestingly, for a story that is so rooted in human events, with no mention of God, something else is missing: Water. Perhaps it's coincidence (or perhaps not), but the Book of Esther is also the only book in the entire Tanach that does not mention water.

Like God in the Megillah, most of earth’s water is hidden. It’s underground in aquafers, it’s in the depths of the ocean, it’s in the atmosphere as vapor, and it sustains us in our mother’s womb. Most of earth’s water is invisible to our eyes.

Just as hidden water sustains life, the hidden presence of God in the Purim story sustained our People. Indeed, the very name “Esther” (אסתר) means “that which is hidden.” And like hidden water, which is revealed to us when we need it, Queen Esther emerged from concealment at the precise moment to save her people; like a spring breaking through rock, or rain falling on parched fields, or a baby emerging from its mother’s womb.

Purim is the miraculous revelation of that which is hidden, and water is the miraculous element that teaches us how that which is hidden sustains the world. In truth, God was never absent from the story of Purim. Like life-giving water, God was moving beneath the surface all along. The surface tells one story; the depths tell another. Life depends not on what is obvious, but on what flows quietly underneath.

Chag Purim Sameach.