The miracles we are experiencing these days are closer to Passover than to Purim.
The war with Iran has brought with it another phenomenon. There are media figures who accuse the Jews of causing this war, claiming that they are pushing for it and encouraging it. In doing so, they fuel antisemitism. These statements cause many Jews to feel worried and under pressure.
In Israel the feeling is even more difficult. There it is a daily reality. Every half hour sirens are heard, and people must run to shelters in the middle of the day and in the middle of the night.
Imagine a family with three small children. In the middle of the night a siren sounds. The parents must wake the children from their sleep, take them in their pajamas, and run to the building’s public shelter. In the shelter many people sit together, neighbors from the building, all in pajamas, tired and worried. The children are crying, and the entire situation is very unpleasant.
After a few minutes they return home. The parents put the children back in their beds and try to calm them until they fall asleep… and then the siren sounds again.
A situation like this can easily cause many people to see everything in a very negative way.
A Miracle Hidden Within Nature
We are now in the days between two holidays, between Purim and Passover. When we look carefully, we see that there is a fundamental difference between these two holidays. On Purim a miracle occurred that was clothed within nature, while on Passover there was an open miracle.
What does it mean that a miracle is clothed within nature? Anyone who reads the Megillah of Esther notices that all the events appear, on the surface, completely natural. It seems like a chain of ordinary political and royal events.
The Megillah begins with the fact that “in the third year of his reign” Achashverosh made a great feast. He invited all his ministers and servants, and also the Jews. During that feast he asked Queen Vashti to appear before him, but she refused. As a result she was removed from her position.
Five years later, “in the seventh year of his reign,” Esther was chosen. It is certainly surprising that a Jewish woman was chosen as queen instead of Vashti. But again, on the surface, it seems like an event connected to palace life.
Another five years passed. “In the twelfth year of his reign” Haman rose to greatness and became the most powerful minister in the kingdom. Then the entire story of Haman’s decree unfolds, “to destroy, to kill, and to annihilate.”
If we think about a Jew living at that time, far from Shushan the capital, hearing the news the way people receive news in a newspaper, each event would seem separate. First he hears that the king made a great feast and that there was a dispute with Queen Vashti and she was removed. To him this is simply a political story in the royal palace.
Five years later he hears that a new queen has been chosen, and her name is Esther, and she is Jewish. If he is Jewish, this certainly makes him happy, but it still does not seem like a miracle.
Then another five years pass and he hears about the rise of a man named Haman to power in the kingdom. Suddenly the terrible news arrives about a decree to destroy all the Jews. Later he hears that Queen Esther went to the king and pleaded before him, and in the end the decree was canceled and the people were saved.
The ordinary person living at that time does not see a miracle here. He does not connect all these events together. Each thing appears to him as a separate event.
But when the sages of Israel come and connect the entire story, we see that everything that happened earlier led to that moment. The removal of Vashti led to Esther becoming queen, and she was the one who was in the right place at the right time to save the Jewish people. When all the events are connected and viewed as a whole, the miracle becomes visible.
This is also one of the reasons that the name of G-d is not mentioned even once in the Megillah. The Megillah is one of the twenty four books of the Torah, and it is the only one in which G-d’s name does not appear at all.
One explanation is that the miracle of Purim is not an open miracle. The name of G-d does not appear openly within the story, but is hidden within the natural events. Only someone who looks carefully and connects all the events together sees the hand of G-d working behind the scenes.
The miracle of Purim is a miracle clothed within nature.
In contrast, the miracle of Passover is a completely open miracle.
On Passover there is no need to explain or convince anyone that it is a miracle. When the Red Sea split in two and the entire nation passed through it on dry land, there is no room for argument. Everyone who was there saw the miracle with their own eyes.
The manna that fell from heaven every day in the desert was also an open miracle. The same is true of the ten plagues that G-d brought upon Egypt. These are clear miracles. On Passover everything is open and obvious, while on Purim everything takes place within a natural framework that appears ordinary.
In 1991, during the Gulf War, when the war ended on the holiday of Purim, the Rebbe spoke about this. He said that the fact that G-d saved the Jewish people from the enemy of the Jews at that time, Saddam Hussein, were miracles similar to those of Passover, open miracles.
First Born Uprising
The Rebbe then added an interesting point connected especially to the time before Passover. Before Passover we mark “Shabbat HaGadol,” the Great Shabbat. The question is asked: why is this Shabbat called “the Great Shabbat”?
The Alter Rebbe explains in the Shulchan Aruch (Siman 430) that it is because of the miracle that occurred on that Shabbat before the Jewish people left Egypt. On the first day of the month of Nissan, Moses was told that the Jewish people were commanded that on the tenth day of the month they must take a lamb, which was the idol of Egypt, bring it home, and on the fourteenth day, slaughter it and prepare the Passover offering. Why? Because on that night G-d would pass through the land of Egypt and kill all the Egyptian firstborn.
On the tenth of the month, when the Jewish people took the lamb into their homes, the Egyptians asked them why they were doing this. The children of Israel told them what Moses had informed them, that in four days G-d would strike the firstborn of Egypt and the Jewish people would leave Egypt. When the Egyptian firstborn heard this, they believed that it would indeed happen. The nine plagues that Egypt had already suffered convinced them that Moses was credible, and if he said something, it would happen.
They ran to Pharaoh and demanded that he send the Jewish people out of Egypt. Pharaoh strongly refused. The firstborn began to protest and riot. Pharaoh sent the Egyptian army to suppress the rebellion. A fierce battle broke out between the Egyptian firstborn and the Egyptian army, with the firstborn fighting for the freedom of the Jewish people from Egypt. All of this happened on the Shabbat before the Exodus. Because of this miracle, that Egyptians fought on behalf of Israel, that Shabbat is called Shabbat HaGadol.
The Ring of Fire
Something similar is happening in our own time. The greatest power in the world, which is the “firstborn” among the nations, has mobilized to fight the war on behalf of the Jewish people. It is waging a determined war against those who have sworn to destroy everything. This is the clearest of open miracles.
On October 7, 2023, Israel was surrounded by a “ring of fire”: Hamas in the south, Hezbollah and Syria in the north, the Houthis in Yemen, and above them all Iran, the main sponsor of terrorism in the world. In those days all the generals and leaders feared what was coming. The whole world seemed against us. And now only a little more than two years have passed and a reversal has taken place. The ring has sunk in fire.
How are we supposed to react to these miracles? We also learn that from the Torah.
Many visitors to Israel have walked through Hezekiah’s Tunnel, the underground passage that brings spring water beneath the houses of the City of David. People walk through it in knee-deep water, which makes the visit unforgettable. King Hezekiah built this tunnel about 2,700 years ago to prepare Jerusalem for a possible siege.
At that time the Assyrian Empire had already conquered the Kingdom of Israel and parts of Judah. In 701 BCE, Sennacherib, king of Assyria, marched toward Jerusalem with a massive army of 185,000 soldiers. When he arrived on the eve of Passover and looked at the small city, he mocked it and planned to destroy it easily the next day.
His general, Rabshakeh, a Jewish apostate, stood outside the walls speaking Hebrew and tried to convince the Jews to surrender. Inside Jerusalem there was debate. Many leaders believed surrender was the only option, but the prophet Isaiah instructed King Hezekiah not to give in. Hezekiah told the people to go home and prepare the Passover Seder, trusting that G-d would save them.
That night Hezekiah prayed and said, “I have no strength to fight. I will sleep, and You will act.” During the night an angel struck the Assyrian army. Most of the soldiers died, the rest fled, and Jerusalem was saved.
He Did Not Sing Praise
About this the Gemara says:
Rabbi Tanchum said that Bar Kappara taught in Tzippori: The Holy One, blessed be He, wished to make Hezekiah the Messiah and Sennacherib Gog and Magog. The attribute of justice said before the Holy One, blessed be He: Master of the universe, if David king of Israel, who said so many songs and praises before You, was not made the Messiah, will You make Hezekiah the Messiah when You performed all these miracles for him and he did not sing praise before You? (Sanhedrin 94a)
This story teaches us a great lesson about gratitude, about singing praise for the great and wondrous miracles that were done for us. Therefore we must not get stuck on the small and painful stories, but always look at the larger picture and thank G-d every day and every moment for the miracles and wonders.
The Rebbe said that for such miracles we should “break out in dancing because of the open miracles… and there should be great joy about this.”
In the Megillah we received the name “Jew,” Yehudi, from the word for gratitude and acknowledgment. The entire existence of the Jewish people is gratitude, thanking G-d for all the goodness, miracles, and wonders that we experience.
We wake up in the morning and say “Modeh Ani.” Prayer begins with the words “Hodu laShem ki tov.” In the Amidah we say “Modim anachnu lach.” Gratitude is always on our lips.
This is the call of the moment: to thank G-d and rejoice in the great miracles that are happening to us. And there is no more appropriate time for this than the days between Purim and Passover, days of great miracles. This is the time to stop, reflect, and thank G-d for all the goodness and kindness that He does for us.
(Based on a talk of 26 Nissan 5751 and the class “Jewish Insights” for Parshat Vayakhel Pekudei 5786.)
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