Last night I
gave my men's parsha class. We touched on the concept of "Parshat
Zachor" - that prior to Purim, we read aloud from the Torah the section
of the evil nation of Amalek. Amalek's essence was diametrically
opposed to the message of Purim. Purim represents finding God's hidden
hand in every part of our lives, and Amalek lived to rip away that
believe and attribute everything to chance.
As
the Jews joyously and victoriously left Egypt, Amalek dared to attack
them, aiming to prove that all was random chance and to cast aspersion
on the miracles of the Exodus.
In
short, Amalek lived to disprove the concept of "Hashgachah" - Divine
Providence - and it was this that made the nation so dangerous to the
fabric of the Jewish people.
Well,
before giving the class, I went to learn with a boy for his bar
mitzvah. He had just broken his wrist, a week after getting his cast
off for the breakage of his elbow. I couldn't believe it. But then his
mom said to him, "Why don't you tell the Rabbi what really happened?"
My
young student told me that the first time he broke his elbow, he was
embarrassed to say that it had broken in a pretty uncool way, so he made
up a story that he had broken it while playing goalie in a soccer. But
the other day, he actually was taking goalie and blocking a pass - and
broke his wrist!
His
mother told him that a lesson could be learned here - you thought you'd
tell everyone you broke your arm that way, and God actually made your
words come true. I said, "Did you think it was a coincidence that you
told me this story today? I'm on my way to teach a class about finding
the hand of God in our lives!"
Have a wonderful Purim!
