The name of one of our main protagonists in the Purim
event is Ester, which comes from a language of hiddenness. Through her actions, a level of Divine Providence
became revealed that led to our beloved holiday of Purim. But if we look at it there is a great irony
in this. The person, who is ‘revealing’
G-d, is the person whose essence is to hide.
How does hiding actually reveal?
To answer this question we have to analyze two systems of desire. Thirst and hunger represent two systems of
desire that are related to our triumph on Purim. People say that if you want to
lose weight, drink lots of water. There is a simple reason for this. More often than not, when we think we are
hungry, it turns out we are thirsty.
With a small cup of water, our hunger is satiated without the calories. Why the confusion?
Many have experienced that feeling at the end of a
long, multicourse meal where we slouch down at the table and swear off food for
the night only to be disturbed by the divine smell of chocolate cake. A
hitherto unknown pocket of space opens up in our midsection and before we
realize it we are on our second bite of cake. After that, the second round of
regret really sets in. Now, this only
happens in the realm of food. We are
able to be seduced by the external temptations and what was once desirable
quickly turns into disgust. We realize
it is totally foreign to us, not at all what we need.
On the other hand, if we are not
thirsty, no amount of external arousal will cause us to drink water. If we are
thirsty we drink, if not, not.[1] The difference is that thirst is a more intrinsic
need than food. We can only go three
days without liquid, but at least three weeks without food. Relative to drinking, food is a more external
desire so it can be awakened in us from an external source, drinks less so.
However, when we have a need, it is not always clear
to us how to fulfill it. The way to
extract our true need is to hide all external temptations so that we know
conclusively that our need is coming from inside and not a result of an
external stimulation. This is the process on Purim. Jews thought their needs could be fulfilled
by joining in with Persian Society so G-d hid himself and the society rudely
turned on its guests. Once the externals weren’t so inviting the Jews realized
what their real needs were- a connection to each other and a connection to G-d.
No comments:
Post a Comment