When Fate Isn’t Final

Purim is loud, joyful, and a little wild. But behind the costumes and the noise is a serious idea: no decree has the final word on the Jewish people.

Drawing Lots in the Rebbe’s Minyan

There’s a long-standing Jewish custom that on the Shabbat before his wedding, a groom is called up to the Torah for an aliyah. In Chabad, this took on a unique twist: no matter where a groom was getting married—America, Europe, Israel—everyone dreamed of having their  “aufruf” at 770, Chabad’s headquarters in Brooklyn, at the Rebbe’s service.

But there was a practical problem. On Shabbat morning there are only seven aliyot. The Rebbe would take maftir. And some weeks there might be a dozen grooms. So who would get called up, and who wouldn’t?

The solution was to draw lots. Whoever won the lottery would receive an aliyah in the Rebbe’s minyan. And if you were especially lucky, you got the seventh aliyah—because immediately after that, the Rebbe would step up for maftir.

In Jewish thought, a lottery isn’t only a way to keep the peace. A lottery is seen as a way of uncovering what Heaven wants. As King Solomon put it: “The lot is cast into the lap, but its outcome is from G-d” (Proverbs 16:33). The Rebbe even cited an early rabbinic tradition from the Geonic era that treats the result of a goral—a lottery—as something to be taken with extreme seriousness: “The results of a lottery are from Heaven… if one violates a lottery, it is as if he violates the Ten Commandments” (Toras Menachem 5745 vol. 2 pg. 1319).

That’s why we find lotteries in the Torah. When it came time to divide the Land of Israel among the tribes, the Torah commands: “The land shall be apportioned by lot” (Numbers 26:55). Yes, it prevents arguments—no one can claim the other tribe got the better deal. But more than that, it frames the division as something guided from Above: not merely a human compromise, but a decision aligned with G-d’s will.

Psychological Warfare

This brings us to Purim. What does the name Purim actually mean—and where does it come from?

The Megillah itself tells us. “That is why these days were called Purim, after the pur.” In other words: when Haman set out to “destroy, kill, and eliminate” the Jewish people, he cast a pur—a lottery (the Persian word for “lot”). The lot fell on the month of Adar as the “right” time to carry out his plan. And that’s why the holiday is called Purim—named after that pur.

But this raises a question. Why didn’t Haman simply choose a date on his own? Why rely on a lottery at all? What did he need a pur for?

Anyone who visits a Holocaust Museum learns something very interesting. The museums don’t only document the horrors of the Holocaust itself, but also the slow process that made it possible—how a society was conditioned to accept the unthinkable. When the Nazis rose to power, they didn’t begin with mass murder. They began with psychological warfare: they called Jews “subhuman,” they forbade them from sitting on park benches alongside “Aryans,” and so on. By stripping Jews of dignity, isolating them, and labeling them as less than human, they trained the broader population to look away. It took years. But step by step, it eroded Jewish morale and undermined their sense of human worth—until many began to feel, even in their own eyes, like second-class people. That’s how the Nazis weakened resistance and made the next stages easier to carry out, G-d forbid.

That is exactly the kind of process Haman wanted to unleash.

The Weapon of Judgment Day

The Megillah says that Haman “cast a pur—a lot—…to throw them into turmoil and destroy them” (Esther 9:24). That phrase—to throw them into turmoil—is striking. Why would a lottery confuse anyone?

Because Haman understood something basic about the Jewish mind. Jews don’t see a “lottery” as mere chance. We instinctively hear it as a message: if the lot fell this way, it must somehow reflect what Heaven wants.

So Haman weaponized that belief. He wasn’t just choosing a convenient date. He was sending a psychological message: I’m not even deciding when the annihilation happens. I’m leaving that to your G-d. Let Him pick the month. If Jews could be made to feel that even the timing of the decree came “from Above,” it would sap their confidence, weaken their resistance, and make the danger feel inevitable. That’s why he insisted on the pur.

And that’s exactly where the Purim story reveals something extraordinary: the Jewish people have the power to change their “lot.” Even when a decree is issued, stamped with royal authority, circulated across an empire—and even when it seems to be determined by G-d—what looks final is not necessarily final.

When Mordechai heard the news, he responded by shaking the nation awake. The Megillah describes him tearing his clothing, putting on sackcloth and ashes, and crying out publicly (Esther 4:1). He pushed the Jewish people to take the moment seriously and to return to G-d.

Esther, for her part, agreed to risk her life by approaching the king uninvited—but only on one condition: that the Jews of Shushan fast with her for three days (Esther 4:16). 

The Midrash adds another layer: Mordechai gathered thousands of Jewish children, and their Torah and self-sacrifice helped turn the spiritual tide. 

Together, that awakening—teshuvah, fasting, prayer, renewed Jewish courage—flipped the script. V’nahafoch hu: everything turned around, until “the Jews had light, joy, gladness, and honor” (Esther 8:16).

Now here’s the interesting part: 

The Jewish calendar has another day whose name sounds like Purim—Yom Kippur. In Hebrew it’s Yom HaKippurim, which can be read as “a day like Purim.” At first glance, that sounds absurd. Purim is feasting, joy, and (for adults) drinking. Yom Kippur is fasting, seriousness, and hours in shul. If Purim is one of the happiest days of the year, Yom Kippur is one of the most intense.

But look deeper and you’ll see the shared theme: both days are about a verdict that can be overturned.

On Yom Kippur we speak about destiny in stark terms. In Unesaneh Tokef we describe a judgment that is written on Rosh Hashanah and sealed on Yom Kippur—who will live, who will prosper, who will rise, and so on. But then the entire congregation declares the counter-force: teshuvah, tefillah, and tzedakah can move a decree aside and transform its outcome. In other words: yes, there is a “lot,” and yes, there is a seal—but the Jewish people have a spiritual “weapon” that can reach even what looks sealed. (Likkutei Sichos, Vol. 4, p. 1278.)

That was Mordechai’s tool in Persia 2,500 years ago. And it’s our tool every year on Yom Kippur.

And we reach for that same tool whenever the Jewish people face danger. Purim and Yom Kippur look like opposites on the surface, but at their core they’re telling the same story: the bond between a Jew and G-d runs deeper than logic, deeper than circumstance. When that bond is awakened—on Purim, on Yom Kippur, or on any day in between—it changes what comes next.

If that’s true all year, it’s especially true when Purim arrives. Purim has its own way of unlocking that deeper place. On Purim, through a little l’chaim and a lot of joy, we can sometimes accomplish what we usually reach on Yom Kippur through fasting and a full day of prayer.

So it’s worth taking Purim seriously: to make sure this year’s Purim is not only a celebration—but a Purim that leaves behind good results.