Edited and adapted from Ari Fuld’s Grill & Torah Live – 12 Adar 5777 (March 10, 2017)
It’s Friday afternoon. Purim is in the air. In unwalled cities the celebration begins tomorrow; in Jerusalem and other ancient walled cities, it will follow on Shushan Purim.
And like every Jewish holiday, there’s that familiar line: “They tried to kill us, we won, let’s eat.”
But Purim isn’t just about eating. It’s about drinking. And that already makes it different.
Judaism, as a rule, does not celebrate losing control. Yes, on Shabbat and holidays we make a l’chaim. The verse tells us that wine “sameach levav enosh” — gladdens the heart of man. But drunkenness? That is not a Jewish ideal.
In the Temple, a Kohen who had drunk wine could not serve. According to several commentators, Nadav and Avihu — Aharon’s sons — were killed after entering the Mishkan in a state influenced by wine. Entering sacred space without control was absolutely prohibited.
So what is going on with Purim? Why is this the one holiday where we are told to drink — even to the point of blurring distinctions?
And there is a second question. Why is Purim considered so great — so holy — when, on the surface, nothing miraculous happened at all?
Coerced Acceptance and Chosen Commitment
At Mount Sinai, the Jewish people experienced revelation on a scale unmatched in history. Fire. Thunder. The voice of God. The Midrash famously teaches that God lifted Mount Sinai over the nation like a barrel and said: Accept the Torah — or this will be your burial place.
But wait. Didn’t we declare Na’aseh v’Nishma — “We will do and we will listen”? Aren’t we praised for accepting the Torah before even understanding it?
If the mountain was suspended over our heads, what choice did we really have? If a gun is to your head and you agree, that’s not heroism. That’s survival.
The sages explain that although the Torah was accepted at Sinai, it was only later — during Purim — that it was accepted willingly. The Megillah hints at this with the word kiblu — “they accepted.” On Purim, we reaffirmed the Torah by choice.
That is an astonishing claim.
At Sinai there were open miracles. At Purim there were none.
Which one reflects a deeper relationship?
The Holiday Without Miracles
Purim unfolded over nine years. Nine years of palace intrigue, political maneuvering, shifting alliances.
A king makes a foolish decree. Queen Vashti refuses to degrade herself and is killed. A search for a new queen leads to Esther, an orphaned Jewish girl who hides her identity at Mordechai’s instruction. Haman rises to power and plots genocide. Esther hosts banquets. Suspicion grows. The tables turn.
No splitting seas. No manna from heaven. No oil burning eight days.
If anything, it looks like politics.
You could call it coincidence. A lucky chain of events.
And that is precisely the point.
Seeing the Miracle in the Ordinary
In the Amidah, three times a day, we praise God for Techiyat HaMeitim — the future resurrection of the dead. That is a supernatural, insane, world-altering miracle.
In that same blessing, we also praise God for rain: Mashiv haruach u’morid hageshem.
Rain is natural. It follows weather systems. It’s predictable.
Why are resurrection and rainfall placed in the same blessing?
Because we are meant to see the miraculous in the natural.
It’s easy to appreciate a supernatural event. If someone hands you a house or a brand-new car, you overflow with gratitude. But what about dinner cooked quietly? A small kindness? A daily act?
The smaller the gift, the easier it is to overlook.
At Sinai, who could deny God? Fire and thunder don’t leave room for doubt. But that isn’t how we live day to day. Our challenge is not to believe in lightning bolts. It is to see God in the routine.
Connecting the Dots
The Megillah opens with an apparently minor story: two palace officials, Bigtan and Teresh, plot to assassinate the king. Mordechai overhears, reports them, and they are hanged. The event is recorded — and forgotten.
Nine years later, the king cannot sleep. He asks for the royal chronicles. He discovers that Mordechai once saved his life and was never rewarded.
That discovery sets in motion Haman’s humiliation and the Jews’ salvation.
Nine years.
Who connects those dots?
Only someone who believes that nothing is random.
Purim contains no explicit mention of God. No overt miracles. Everything can be explained as coincidence.
And that is why Purim is so powerful.
Amalek and Coincidence
After the Exodus, the world trembled before Israel. Then Amalek attacked.
The Torah says: Asher karcha baderech — they “cooled you off” on the way. But karcha can also come from mikreh — coincidence.
Amalek reframed the Exodus as chance. The sea split? A fluke. The plagues? Natural disasters.
They took open miracles and reduced them to randomness.
Haman, descendant of Amalek, operates the same way. He casts pur — lots — to determine the date of destruction. For him, everything is chance.
Purim is our response.
There is no such thing as coincidence.
Mordechai overhearing a plot? Not chance. Esther becoming queen? Not chance. The king’s insomnia? Not chance.
Purim is the moment we said: Even without fire and thunder, we choose to see God.
That is accepting the Torah freely.
From the Wedding to the Marriage
Sinai was a wedding. Dramatic. Emotional. Unforgettable.
But what about fifty years later? Morning breath. No makeup. Routine. Bills. Real life.
Do you still love?
That is Purim.
It is easy to love God at Sinai. It is harder to love Him when life looks ordinary.
Purim asks: Can you see God without the fireworks?
Masks, Wine, and the Soul
We wear masks on Purim because the world itself is masked. The divine presence is hidden behind politics, personalities, and natural events.
We drink wine because nichnas yayin, yatza sod — when wine enters, secrets emerge.
Wine lowers inhibition. It strips away fear — fear of peer pressure, fear of standing out, fear of expressing faith openly.
On Purim, we allow the soul — the neshama — to surface. Not through chaos, but through revealing what is already there.
We celebrate with physical things — food, drink, gifts — to affirm that even the mundane is sacred when we recognize God within it.
Purim and Israel
The Jewish people returned to the Land of Israel after nearly two thousand years. Some call it coincidence. Some even say it shouldn’t have happened.
The Six Day War — when Israel defeated multiple surrounding armies against overwhelming odds — is described by some as strategy, luck, geopolitics.
Where was God?
Exactly there.
If we only find God in supernatural events, we will miss Him in history.
The rebirth of Israel. The survival of a nation. The ingathering of exiles. These, too, are Purim moments — events that can be dismissed as coincidence or recognized as providence.
Purim teaches us how to see.
Choosing to See
At Sinai, we saw God because we had to.
At Purim, we saw God because we chose to.
That is why Yom Kippur is called Yom Kippurim — a day like Purim. In some sense, Purim may reach even deeper. Because choosing faith in a hidden world is harder — and perhaps greater — than responding to open miracles.
It is the holiday that declares: There are no coincidences. There is no randomness. There is meaning behind the mask.
And that is why we celebrate so wildly.
Because when you realize that even the ordinary is guided, that even the political is purposeful, that even the hidden is holy — that is a reason to rejoice.
Chag Sameach to everyone, and Happy Purim to everyone and have an awesome weekend. Signing off from Efrat.