Who Knows?
Purim forces us to ask: Have our entire lives have been mere preparation for the challenge that faces us today?
Who knows?
The young woman stood off to the side, watching the dancing on Simchat Torah. She wasn’t quite sure whether she belonged or not; she was not entirely religious, and while she enjoyed the services, she felt that the fully Orthodox participants deserved to dance in the circle. She was relatively content standing on the sidelines of the ezrat nashim, the women’s side of the synagogue.
One of the women reached out, grabbed her hand, and pulled her into the circle. Before she knew what was happening, she was dancing with everyone else.
That, she told me, was the day that started her journey to Torah Judaism. That, she explained, was a seminal moment for her. Why? I’m not sure. Maybe she’s not sure, either. But something about that inviting, welcoming gesture moved her deeply.
She eventually married, built a family, and raised her children as Torah Jews, living in a yeshivish community in North America. Of course she never forgot that Simchat Torah and that dance, the moment when something clicked and everything changed.
Years later, I told this story to the woman who had grabbed her hand. She recalled the young woman. But pulling her in? Not at all.
She had no recollection of the moment that she changed someone’s life.
What would have happened if she had not extended her hand?
Who knows?
And this is the electrifying and terrifying message of the fourth chapter of Megilat Esther.
Haman had convinced the Persian King, Achashveirosh, to decree the elimination of every Jew in his empire, which stretched from India to Africa. Unbeknownst to either, Queen Esther was herself Jewish - a fact which she hid during the approximately five years since she had been crowned. Her cousin Mordechai instructed Esther to approach the King in order to beg him to rescind the genocidal decree. Esther hesitated, saying, “All of the King’s servants and subject nations know that the law for any man or woman who approaches the King in his inner chamber without having been called, is death - except for those to whom the King extends his golden scepter, who may live; and I have not been called to see the King for thirty days.”1
Mordechai responded with words that echo through the generations: “Do not imagine that you can escape to the King’s palace and avoid the fate of the Jews. For if you are indeed quiet at this time, relief and salvation will come to the Jews from another place, while you and your father’s house will be lost; and who knows if for a moment like this you became royalty?”2
Esther took Mordechai’s charge to heart, and used her platform to plead on their behalf. The result was the salvation of the Jewish people, and ultimately our recognition of Esther as one of the eternal heroes of Israel.
The Tanach is directed to every individual, at all times. It speaks to us today as it spoke to our ancestors in previous generations.
Mordechai’s question to Esther, “Who knows if for a moment like this you became royalty?” is directed not only to the Queen of Persia, but also to each of us - to you and me. We have been placed in this world to do a job, and we simply don’t know when the key moments that define our lives will occur. Who knows if it will be tomorrow? Who knows if it is today? And who knows if, God forbid, it was yesterday and we allowed the moment to pass without performing the role we were created to fulfill? Who knows, indeed?
Of course, there is another way to read this verse: rather than as the question, “who knows?” we may read it as the affirmative statement, “Who knows!” - that is, the God Whom the Kabbalists address as Mi (Who)3, the God Whose actions can be perceived but Who remains inscrutable, the God about Whom every affirmative statement is in fact an eternal question, He alone knows. The unknowable “Who” knows the reason that each of us is here and the hour for which we were created; but we, living on earth, lack this knowledge. We don’t even realize that we are waiting for destiny to strike - and we likely will not realize when it already has.
Rabbi Eliezer says, “Repent one day before you die.” Rabbi Eliezer’s students asked him, ‘“Does a person actually know on which day he will die?” He answered them, “How much more so he should repent today lest he die tomorrow; and in this way, he will live all his days as a penitent”… Rabban Yochanan ben Zakai said, it is like a king who invited his servants to a banquet, but did not set a time for it. The wise servants prepared themselves and sat by the entrance of the king’s house, for they said, “Nothing is missing from the king’s house [and therefore the banquet could take place at any time]!” The foolish servants went back to work, for they said, “Can a banquet be prepared without advance work? [i.e., we have time before the banquet takes place.]” Suddenly, the king called his servants to the banquet. The wise servants entered prepared, while the foolish servants entered disheveled. The king took joy in the wise servants, and was angry at the foolish servants. He said, “Those who prepared themselves should sit, eat and drink; those who did not prepare themselves should stand and watch.”4
In a post-October 7th world, we have been given the gift of knowing, at least in part, that the king’s banquet is today. The State of Israel is fighting for its life and legitimacy, and the People of Israel are denigrated and disparaged in cities across the world. Generations to come will look back at our actions and see those Jewish people who rose to the challenge, doing everything in their power to defend their nation from those who would have it destroyed, and those who chose to be silent, preferring to silently hope for their own private salvation - “He will bless himself in his heart, saying, ‘I will have peace, for I will go after the desires of my own heart’... The anger and jealousy of God will be heated up against that man.”5
Who knows if our entire lives have been mere preparation for the challenge that faces us today? Who knows, indeed.
Esther 4:11
Esther 4:13-14
See Zohar Bereshit 1:1b, Shaarei Orah Shaar 8, Rav J.B. Soloveitchik, “Uvikashtem Misham,” footnote 9
Masechet Shabbat 153a
Devarim 29:18-19
I wrote something similar to a former friend today. He has risen to prominence in the frum community and if there is a din v'dayan either he or I will have to answer for ourselves because I find his lack of manhigus to be so grotesque as to be deserving of all the wrath our God hasn't shied away from mentioning.
If I'm wrong I will be the one squirming on that day but I do not believe that I am.
Now a confession. I arrived here via the unorthodox manner of having discovered that Substack can tell you with which other writers your audience overlaps and, apparently, though I don't recall knowing you, there are plenty of people who know and read both of us.
In the event that you're interested in seeing what I'm about and whether this fire and brimstone talk is the poetic imagination of a basement dwelling theoretician or something else, here's the letter I just posted which spurred substack into letting me know the extent of our mutual readership community.
https://ydydy.substack.com/p/7-year-old-begger-children-should
A freilichen Purim and Shabbat Shalom my brother.
Yedidya