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| Today we celebrate Purim with Shalach Monas, treats of at least three different origins that would receive three different blessings. Each should be ready-to-eat in recognition of poor people and their plight, which are the benefactors of such Purim delights and beautifully-decorated baskets. Every person should give shalach monas to at least three people. Such festivity calls to mind the way the destruction of the Jews was thwarted through Divine Intervention, which came through earnest prayer and teshuvah. Called to mind, too, is the Jews' re-ignited faith, that nothing had been left to chance... that G-d's Presence had been there with them, all along, to change the course of events in favor of the Jewish people. This is much like today as G-d seems hidden, or concealed and that His hand seems absent in world affairs. Only after a remarkable event it is clearly understood what seemed like sequential coincidences... really did fit, too well, to be anything but a perfectly conceived Divine plan. The Book of Esther was the last of the miracles to be written as Scripture and demonstrates the most complete understanding as to the kind of events, both fearful and dehumanizing which could occur in a Jew's life in exile. But this Scripture demonstrates, too, real remedies for such horrific events... that even when things look hopeless, one's circumstances can turn around 180 degrees and produce an opposite outcome, through prayer and teshuvah. |