807 Megilat Esther 8.1
By chapter 8 of Megilat Esther, everything had already turned around. Ahashverosh gave Esther the house of Haman, which the Gemarah discusses in an application of a pasuk in Kohelet, and says that sometimes a Rasha works hard as preparation for a Sadik. That is what happened here. Haman built this beautiful house, but in the end, he didn’t lived there, rather Mordechai did.
Then the king gave Mordechai the ring that he had originally given to Haman, and Esther went to Ahashverosh a second time, to beg him to write new letters, that would give the Jews permission to fight back. They did this on the 23rd day of the third month, Sivan, and the letters went out.
The glaring question is that, if, as we said, the story took place in Nisan, why did Mordechai wait two months to alert the Jews? Shouldn’t he have sent the letters out right away, in order to let the Jewish people know that they could calm down, because everything was OK?
One explanation the rabbis tell us is that Mordechai had a certain heshbon. There were 70 days between the decree and the day the letters went out, which corresponded to the 70 years of Galut. Mordechai wanted to be metaken those 70 years, with 70 days of prayer.
Of course, this was done with Ruach Hakodesh.
But the commentaries have another, quite fascinating explanation, which is hard to even fathom.
As we have said many times, the goal of all our problems is to connect to Hashem in prayer and bitachon. That’s why we have problems. And since everyone was praying and behaving so nicely, Mordechai didn’t want stop their beautiful prayers. He held back the good news because they were praying so well. Why waste it?
One of my favorite mashalim for this is to imagine a husband and wife together in the delivery room during the times of Corona. The husband texts his mother-in- law about fetal distress etc. She is home, praying and crying. Once the baby is born, the new mother asks her husband to quickly text her mother to let her know that everything is okay, but he says, “Nah. She’s praying so nicely. Why should we ruin her wonderful prayer? We’ll call her in an hour.”
If she found out, she would strangle her son-in-law for what he did to her, but that is what happened here. The goal is to keep praying. Why ruin such a wonderful prayer, just because we got out of the problem?
To illustrate this concept, I like to tell the famous story of when the Novardok Yeshiva, comprised of great Baalei Bitachon, was on the run during World War One. They were hiding in the forests and if they came out, they’d be killed. They had not had any food for a whole day, and they were starving.
Day two came, and they were praying Shaharit, crying to Hashem to be fed. It was like a second day of Yom Kippur- they hadn’t eaten for two days.
Then, as the sun set on the second day, the boys noticed a caravan driving by with potatoes. It hit a bump and a bag of potatoes fell out. They waited until the sun set completely and ran to get the potatoes. They made soup and everyone was happy. But when they prayed Arbit, it was, of course, not with the same fervor they had in their Mincha prayers, when they hadn’t eaten yet. The Elder of Novardok got up to speak, and said, We gave up such beautiful prayers for a bag of potatoes. Just because we got the potatoes, we shouldn’t pray with the same fervor?
What is the end goal? Is it the potatoes or the prayer?
He understood that what Hashem is trying to generate, from all challenges, is prayer. That’s the rule.
I have heard this from many Gedolim. Whenever a person has a challenge, he has to understand what Hashem wants is prayer. This is documented in our Torah sources. The Midrash says when we got out of Egypt, everything was fine. Then, the Egyptians started chasing us. We cried out, again, to God in prayer.
The Midrash gives a mashal of a king out walking, when he hears a maiden in distress. He saves her life and they marry. Then, one day, they get into an argument, and she stops talking to him. So the king sends his men to act like bandits and chase her. She starts screaming again,
and he says, “Aha, now I hear your voice.”
God says, “I want to hear your voice.”
That’s what happens to us. Sometimes, when we are in a difficult situation, we cry out in prayer. Then every thing goes back to normal, and Hashem says, “I want to hear your voice. I want to be connected to you.
We should all be connected to Hashem from happy things, and call out to Him when things are good.
Have a wonderful day.