Once there was a millionaire, who collected live alligators. He kept them in the pool in the back of his mansion. The millionaire also had a beautiful daughter who was single.
One day, the millionaire decides to throw a huge party, and during the party, he announces, "My dear guests, I have a proposition to every man here. I will give one million dollars, or my daughter, to the man who can swim across this pool full of alligators and emerge unharmed!" As soon as he finished his last word, there was the sound of a large splash in the pool. The guy in the pool was swimming with all his might, and the crowd began to cheer him on. Finally, he made it to the other side of the pool unharmed.
The millionaire was impressed. He said, "That was incredible! Fantastic! I didn't think it could be done! Well, I must keep my end of the bargain. Do you want my daughter or the one million dollars?" The guy catches his breath, then says, "Listen, I don't want your money! And I don't want your daughter! I want the idiot who pushed me into the pool!"
There is a pivotal moment in the Megillah story, and it occurs a little before the halfway mark in the book of Esther. The many moving parts of the story have already been set in place, its cogs and wheels are all aligned, and its springs coiled for release: Queen Vashti is dead, and the secretly-Jewish Esther is appointed in her place; Haman has risen to prominence, and when his seething hatred of the Mordechai and the Jews is stoked, he devises his anti-Jewish scheme; King Achashverosh seals the decree, and sends it off throughout the empire. When Mordechai gets wind of the plot, the tremendous pressure that has been building up during the story’s first act is ready to blow.
How did Mordechai persuade Esther to sacrifice her life? Mordechai’s argument consists of three points.
- Do not think you will remain safe in the palace. If the Jews die, you too will die.
- The Jewish people are going to be saved with or without you. But if you remain silent at this moment, you and your father’s home will be lost forever.
- Who knows, it is possible that G-d made you a queen in order to give you this opportunity.
The first point he offers is fairly straightforward: Esther’s own safety is already in jeopardy from the decree, so not attempting to beseech King won’t do her any good. Somehow they will discover she is Jewish and she too would be slain as a Jew. In a moment of reckoning, every Jew will be targeted, even if she intermarries to the king himself. The second point he makes is also forceful. The Jewish people will be saved regardless, but she and her father’s home would be lost forever. The consequences of her not doing her part in saving her people would not result in her ultimate success but in her grand defeat.
One of the most interesting debates spanning millennia is if we should try to make sense of life. Should we try to explain G-d? Or it is a useless and foolish endeavor.
For example, why do we perform all the mitzvot? Is there a real logic to them? Do they really make sense? Tefilin, mikvah, kosher, mezuzah, matzah, sukkah, shofar, etc. Do they really have logic? Or is logic irreverent? This is what G-d wants; this is what we do.
Jewish thinkers and authors have been split on this. Some, like Maimonides, have favored the rational approach, while others felt this was futile and child-play. To wrap your brain around G-d’s is like wrapping your tongue around the sun. Good luck!
Maimonides wrote a book, The Guide to the Perplexed, where he dedicated a section to explain the rationale for almost all of the Mitzvot.
Even those mitzvoth known as supra-rational instructions, Rambam believes I should try to rack my brain and understand them as best as I can.
The same argument is waged on a range of other fronts in Jewish thought. When dealing with the great philosophical problems, how should we approach them? Let’s take the biggest question of all: Why did G-d create the world? What’s the ultimate purpose of life? Why are we here?
Some have given all types of reason. G-d is good and He wanted to share this goodness with others, giving us the opportunity to know Him and connect to Him. G-d wanted a relationship. G-d is perfect and He wished to experience imperfection so He too can grow via our own growth.
Others, in contrast, insisted on the futility of such an exercise. It would be like the trying to explain to your goldfish quantum mechanics. Good luck!
It’s like the anecdote about the philosophy professor who is giving a final exam to his class after four years of study. They have been preparing for months for this exam, expecting some 100 tough questions.
The day of the exam has arrived. The students sat in trepidation and anticipation. When they received the exam, they saw it had one question, which consisted of one word:
WHY?
The students began writing pages of answers explaining WHY. They offered every insight from Plato to Hume to Nietzsche to Russel to explain why. The professor failed them all.
Only two students passed. One got an A; the other an A plus.
What did they answer?
The first one gave a one-word answer: WHY? BECAUSE.
He got an A.
The second student replied:
WHY? WHY NOT?
He got the A plus.
So which view got it right? Do we try to comprehend the system, or as Einstein put it: G-d does play dice with the universe; or do we pick up our hands, and say, G-d, it’s Your world and it is beyond me.
The truth is, both perspectives are correct. There are many things we understand. And G-d wants us to understand those things we can know and comprehend. That is why He gave us a mind, and that is why He chose to employ logical systems and patterns in much of His universe and His religion. The study of science in all of its patterns and the study of Torah in all of its branches is about understanding systems, Divine systems. Yet just like we must know what we can know, we must also acknowledge that there is a lot more than we do not know. And there is even much more than we do not know!
Rabbi Schneur Zalman, the founder of Chabad, once famously remarked that the Midrash states when addressing the motive for creation: ה
G-d [created the universe because He] desired a dwelling place in the lowest reality.
“One cannot ask questions on a desire,” said the Rebbe. Not every desire is rational.
What he meant to say, of course, was that to ask a rational question about G-d is irrational. As the very concept of rationality was invented by G-d. You can’t ask G-d Why, because the very notion of Why is His invention. It is not just that G-d’s reasons are mysterious; it is that the very notion of reason is a human need, not a Divine one!
We now go over to a very personal question: Does your life make sense? Can you make sense of your own story? Should you even try?
I want to ask each of you sitting here today, to mediate for a few moments on this question: Do you see a pattern in your life? Do you recognize a rhythm? Can you perceive a plan, a plot, a storyline? If I were to ask you today, what is the theme, the message, your life’s story conveys, can you answer me? Can you answer what is the ultimate mission of your life? Why did your soul descend on earth? What are you meant to accomplish? Should you even try to answer the question? How do you even go about answering such a question? If you had a chance to ask G-d this question, what do you think He would answer you?
On one level, it would seem our purpose lay in that which we are good at.
A man comes to his rabbi. I need a job, Rabbi. I can become a dancer or a singer. Which one should I choose?
The Rabbi says: Become a dancer.
Why, rabbi, have you seen me dance?
No, says the Rabbi, but I have heard you sing!...
What better proof is there than the multitudes of personality and aptitude tests out there? It’s important to know what you enjoy, and what comes naturally, and what you’re good at. Any rational person must take these character traits into account before embarking on a project, a career, or indeed on one’s life mission.
But that is far from all. Just as it is true with the secret of creation, with the secret behind the mitzvot, it is also true with our life’s journeys. There is what we can know and understand, and there is that which transcends our grasp.
At its core, in its source, the soul is a pulsing, throbbing, mass of infinite divine energy. Reason and rationality can only get us so far to appreciate the true plot of our lives. Sometimes in life, we are faced with challenges that seem as though they were meant for a different person. “Why do I have to deal with this?” How in the world did I end up with this mission on my lap? We think to ourselves, “It doesn’t come naturally to me. It’s unreasonable to expect me to do it!”
“G-d Almighty! Why did I end up in this place, in this time, with this person, and this mission?! This is just NOT ME!”
But the reason is only part of the story. Sometimes the soul is tasked with doing something that seems unreasonable because it comes from a place that is beyond reason. Sometimes, our ultimate purpose lay in such an experience which could never anticipate logically. At times like these, a person needs to dig deep, to a place beyond definition, beyond what “makes sense,” and beyond “what’s reasonable,” and into to the unknowable. We are part of the Divine, and the Divine transcends reason; much of our life’s mission too, transcends reason. We cannot intellectually fathom the reason for every journey we take in life, for every situation, encounter, and the reality we are faced with. The word “why” would be a profane question, as it reduces the journey of the divine soul to limited logic.
At last, we can return to appreciate the argument Mordechai makes to Esther and actually convinces her to make the fateful move. Mordechai has offered arguments about why she should go. He told her she would die regardless. He told her that she and her family would be lost if she did not seize the moment to stand up for her people. But then he tells her the most powerful thing: “Who knows if this is not the why you attained the kingdom?"
This “who knows,” is not a regular sort of interrogative, a mere expression of doubt, or request for information. It is an entirely different variety of inquiry. What Mordechai was telling Esther was this: This calling for you to enter into the chamber of the king and effect the salvation of your people represents the ultimate reason for why your soul descended into this world. Why you? I do not know. I cannot explain in logical terms why this beautiful young girl, Esther, ended up with a drunk moronic monarch. Why did Esther deserve this? Why from all women in the world did Esther need to endure this journey?
The soul’s journey is essentially a transcendent mystery.
Mordechai was not telling Esther to do her job. He was telling her that this was her ultimate mission, the purpose of her entire existence, and like all such moments, it is rooted in a place that is beyond sense. Just like G-d Himself.
Esther may well have had legitimate reasons to hesitate before going into the king. Yes, perhaps it was that he was mad and could kill her. Perhaps, as the Talmud notes, it was ethically and halachically problematic. This would be the first time she would willingly offer her body to the king. But when she heard what Mordechai told her, she was inspired to act in a way that was beyond cold logic. She took the plunge.
Far from being uncertain, Mordechai was unwavering. It may have been a crazy, risky, and unreasonable move to make, but it was obvious that this was Esther’s prerogative. It had to be her, and it had to be now. It did not make sense. And it inspired Esther to transcend logic and make the move!
Rational objectives you can achieve through rational calculations. But to attain the ultimate truth of the divine which is beyond logic, you need to dig and find a space in yourself which is ready to go beyond rational considerations.
Thus the lesson: Never run away from the opportunity. Never dismiss a moment that falls into your lap. There is a soul that only you can save. A heart that only you can mend. A person that only you can uplift. A situation that only you can fix. And sometimes, in the most bizarre and inexplicable moments and experiences, our moment arrives.
The Baal Shem Tov said: A soul comes down to this world for 70-80 years just to do a favor to one Jew, physically or spiritually.
Imagine. One lives for many decades and achieves so many mitzvot. Yet there is one deed that trumps them all; one act that captures the ultimate purpose of the soul’s mission here on earth; one gesture that benefits the soul more than anything else. Because this is the ultimate reason it came to this world. And sometimes, one must leave his or her comfort zone for years in order to be able to fulfill this mission.
This message captures the central theme of Purim. It is in the name of the holiday itself: “Purim” means “Lots.” And on Purim, we are instructed to drink until “we do not know.” This does not mean to get drunk like a simple drunk. It means to have the courage to embrace our life’s mission by having the confidence and acute clarity to transcend our own logical patterns and structures.
Shabbat Shalom and A Happy Purim,
Rabbi Yoseph Geisinsky
Tom Peacock wrote...