Tuesday, March 25, 2014

Hashem is "hidden"

        One of the things מגילת אסתר is famous for is that Hashem's name is never mentioned. There is a theme that Hashem's face is hidden.
        When we read the מגילה we see a lot of 'coincidences' and everything falling into place a little too well. First, of all the women in the kingdom,  אסתר is chosen to be the queen. Then, מורדכי just so happens to over hear a plot to kill the king and is able to save his life. All through the מגילה we have cases like this.
        We could of course take the המן style approach and say that these things were infarct coincidences. Or we could use a classic Jewish analysis of the word  מקרה (coincidence). מקרה unscrambled is 'רק מה, meaning only from G-d. This shows us that there really is no such thing as a coincidence because everything really comes from Hashem.
        From this, people saying "Hashem's face is hidden in מגילת אסתר" sounds a little strange to me.We can easily see that His name is not specifically mentioned but Hashem doesn't look as though he's hiding. Everything that happens in the מגילה is clearly from Hashem. To me, it seems that Hashem's name isn't mentioned, because it's not necessary. It is so blatantly obvious that this is all the work of Hashem it doesn't need to be said.  
  

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