The Kotzker Rebbe once walked into his yeshiva and asked out loud, “When will we write the megillah?” The students didn’t understand. And then the Rebbe explained that the story of Purim took place over many years, and only after they sat down to write the whole story, did everything make perfect sense.
Therefore, the Rebbe asked when will we see our story clearly, as well.
Purim is always such a joyous time of the year. With all the customs and parties, the mishloach manot and everything this happy holiday entails, we must remember that everything in Judaism has a purpose.
When we are experiencing any sort of discomfort or aggravation, it’s very hard for us to see clearly what will be in a few hours, let alone a few months or a year. When we are going through hard times we don’t really look past the moment. On the one hand we learn and read the Torah every day, however, when we have pain from something we are going through we simply forget the formula.
The Holy Torah is full of stories and examples of how we must conduct our lives as Jewish people. However, we aren’t always successful at implementing what we know and learn, especially when push comes to shove.
Last week someone I know aggravated me very badly. I tried to push my thoughts of this person away without success. I kept telling myself everything is from Hashem, don’t worry things will work out. And yet, it’s not always so easy to think positively when ones head is full of thoughts of what may go wrong.
We all have good days and not such good days. We all have many challenges. Sometimes we get to see the sweet ending and see how all our tough days were only for the good. However not always do we see or understand why our life has so many challenges. Sometimes we must wait until after 120 years to understand why certain events took place in our life; why we had to endure all the hardships we went through.
Writing the end of one’s megillah, doesn’t only have to be after they are old and gray. Life has its cycles; good years and bad years. And quiet years without anything special. If we choose to look ahead at any of the crossroads in our travels down our path of life, we will find that we have written our own megillah, many times. If we look back at things we’ve experienced, we will see, how great we came through them and how much stronger we are today.
We all have the strength and courage, the sacrifice and the power within us that Mordechai and Esther passed on to every one of us, the children of Am Yisrael.
What we must learn each year over and over again as Purim arrives, is the power of patience and the power of believing that good will come out of even the worst situations.
Sometimes, our pain while we are going through something blocks our ability to think positively and to think ahead to better times. The power of Purim is that it has within it the power to overcome any obstacle as large as it may seem.
When we read the megillah and learn how brave Esther and Mordechai were, we literally inhale all their strength into our own being. Therefore on the holiday of Purim itself we have a sort of magic dust in the air thanks to our heroes in the megillah. That energy can be taken in and give us the ability to dream and see the beautiful ending of each and every one of our megillahs.
May Hashem bless all of Am Yisrael to see with their own eyes their private redemption as well as the full redemption of the entire nation. And we will all rejoice in Jerusalem with the third Temple soon. Amen.
