What Are We Supposed to Do?

How much action  did Mordechai and Esther actually take? Look closely, and you’ll see how Someone Else was spinning the wheels all along. Shouldn’t that idea help us release our grip as we face today’s challenges?

The gaon Rav Mordechai Shmuel Kroll ztz”l, the first rav of Kfar Chassidim, has given me a new appreciation of the Purim miracle as related to our times as well. In his sefer Masa Damesek, Rav Kroll recalls how each year in his Purim shmuess, Rav Yosef Yoizel Horwitz, the Alter of Novardok, would deliver this message to his talmidim:

“Imagine if a decree of extermination against the Jews were to be issued today, in modern Russia [Rav Yoizel, of course, was referring to the Czarist Russia of a century and a half ago], just like the decree instigated by Haman in the days of Achashveirosh. Now let’s suppose that like Achashveirosh, our ruler, Czar Nikolai, had a Jewish Czarina like Esther HaMalkah. What would transpire? Jewish leaders would start looking for ways to get an audience with the Czarina and plead with her to do everything in her power to change the terrible decree. They would think up ways of bribing highly placed government officials to use their influence with the cruel Czar, and go through every available diplomatic or political channel to have the gezeirah canceled. Of course, they would also call on all the Yidden to come together in prayer and fasting. But the whole time their eyes would be turned toward the Czarina, in the hope that a yeshuah would be brought about through her.”

Here, Rav Yoizel posed a question: “Now, did Mordechai take this course of action when he learned of Haman’s evil plan? Let’s look into the Megillah and see what he actually did: