Destiny Unknown

"And who knows? Perhaps it was for just this situation that you attained royalty" (Book of Esther 4:14)

Why is destiny unknown, the purpose of all things omitted from the script?

So it is with every act of beauty…

When the artist sets his hands to his craft, he turns his back on perfection, as a warrior turns his back on fear. What matters now is that he does his craft as best he can; that his hands move with agility, feeling what is missing, what is next, what must be performed, how and when; that his eyes, his ears, all his senses be keenly tuned to the rhythm of his craft. Perfection is his enemy, craftsmanship his friend.

When one kind soul gives to another, he must put his dream aside. What matters now is that he must give. That his giving will bear fruit and heal and give life, that is not his business now. Perhaps his giving will succeed, perhaps it will fall on its face. He must give without conditions, without expectations, for the sake of giving alone.

Only once the artist has completed his masterpiece can he step back and exclaim, "Success! Even better than I had imagined!"

Only once the giver has given and fostered and nurtured the seed that he has planted, then he may see how it has blossomed and say, "Success! Even better than I had dreamed!"

Only once the Infinite Creator has generated a universe from the void, sustained and nurtured it, only then does G‑d look at all that He did and behold it was very good. For He has found Himself within it.

When G‑d creates the world, He begins with a kernel of thought, a dream of the delight this world shall bring Him, if only because so He has decided that this shall bring Him delight.

But this delight is a dream that will not allow its own birth. If it so much as breathes, it will sabotage its own mission. In the act of Creation, all that must enter is the craft of creating a world, a world that receives light from above, each detail in its place in perfect order and harmony. But of its destiny there must not be a whisper.

That truth should sprout from the earth; that destiny unfold not from any script or director, but from the player himself... For what is that destiny? It is that truth should sprout from the earth; that destiny unfold not from any script or director, but from the player himself, from he who is destined. From those who grappled in darkness, struggled to rise from the earth from which they were formed, grasping those very clods of soil to pull themselves beyond them--and from within those bounds to find the Infinite itself, the Essence, so unbounded it knows no distinction of above and below, Creator and created, light and darkness.

For that to succeed, there must not be the tiniest opening for destiny to arrive from Above. Destiny, to be destined, must hide in still silence beneath the earth; there to be uncovered by those who live upon it.

So it was that before the beginning of time, the Essence, blessed be He, delighted in the story of Esther and the wine-feast of Purim.

Yes, He also delighted in the story of Moses redeeming the children of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob from Egypt. He delighted in the story of the Children of Israel receiving the Torah at Mount Sinai, amidst fire and smoke, thunder and lightning. He delighted in the story of every soul that walked planet earth keeping His commandments, doing good and steering away from evil. These were the things He wrote in His Torah, in the script, and in them He is found, He, the author of the script.

In the darkness of their exile they had every right to abandon Him—for had He not abandoned them? But His very essence delighted in that which He did not script. That in the darkness of exile a people that had every right to abandon Him—for had He not abandoned them?—and thereby save their skin, yet instead turned to Him and said, "No matter what, we are His and He is ours."

Delight that His mighty, all-transcendent hand should move seamlessly within palace intrigue, the unbounded within the boundaries of a natural world, within mundane circumstance and consequence—and yet there be perceived and exposed by those that know Him.

That the people should spontaneously choose to make a day of celebration to His name, though it be so hidden in His world. A celebration not by His decree, but by their attuned hearts.

That His light should shine from within, that truth should sprout from the earth.

No, He did not state it in the Torah that Moses and the people received from Above, nor write it in the scroll of black fire upon white fire that exists in the heavens, nor in the primordial Torah that existed two thousand years before the world was created. Whatever trace of it may sit there is indiscernible even to seers and to sages.

But in the Torah that is one with Him, that lies at His essence, in that Torah the delight of Purim also lay, unseen, unwhispered, waiting for us here below to breathe it into life. Waiting to arrive not from above, but from within.

And so, "all the books of the prophets and the scriptures, all except for the Five Books of Moses, all will vanish in the Time to Come, except for the scroll of Esther." For the essence does not vanish. The Essence is.

G‑d held the mountain over their heads and said, "If you accept my Torah, good. If not, here will be your burial place." From here, said Rava, we would have a perfect excuse not to keep the Torah. Except that we returned and accepted it on Purim... (Talmud, Shabbat 88a)