Human Expectations and Divine Redemption

Here's a blog post I cranked out just now, on Purim afternoon, in the few hours between minchah and seudah. My apologies for any errors or lack of clarity or incompleteness. Time was of the essence! 

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Artwork: Forest (Zendikar), by Vincent Proce

Human Expectations and Divine Redemption

Yeshayahu 55 as an Introduction to Megilas Esther

When Chazal gave drashos (homiletic expositions) on entire books of Tanach they would customarily begin with a pesichta - an introductory drashah. This pesichta would usually be rooted in a pasuk from another book of Tanach, but would aim to encapsulate a major theme or idea of the book for which the pesichta served as an introduction. For example, a pesichta to Megilas Eichah might be based on a pasuk in Mishlei; a pesichta to Shir ha'Shirim might be based on a pasuk in Tehilim. 

The Gemara in Megilah (15b) presents a collection of pesichtos on Megilas Esther. I would like to briefly explore the drashah of R' Shmuel bar Nachmani. Here is the translation: 

R' Shmuel bar Nachmani began with this pesichta: "In place of the thorn, a cypress will rise; and in place of the nettle, a myrtle will rise; [and it shall be for Hashem for a name, for an everlasting sign that shall not be cut off]" (Yeshayahu 55:13). 

"In place of the thorn" - [this means:] in place of the evil Haman, who made himself into object of avodah zarah (idolatrous worship), as it is written: "and upon all thorns and upon all branches" (ibid. 7:19).

"a cypress will rise" - this refers to Mordechai, who was called "the finest of the spices," as it is stated: "And you - take for yourself the finest of the spices, pure myrrh" (Shemos 30:23), and the Targum translates ["pure myrrh"] as "mari dachi" (מרי דכי in Aramaic, which resembles the spelling of Mordechai, מרדכי, in Hebrew).

"and in place of the nettle" - [this means:] in place of the evil Vashti, granddaughter of the evil Nevuchadnetzar, who burnt the resting place of the House of God, as it is written: "His resting place was gold" (Shir ha'Shirim 3:10).

"a myrtle (hadas) will rise" - this refers to the righteous Esther, who was called "Hadassah" (myrtle). 

"and it shall be for Hashem for a name" - this refers to the reading of the Megilah. 

"for an everlasting sign that will not be cut off" - this refers to the days of Purim. 

When my chavrusa and I prepared this drashah we found the particulars to be a bit daunting. Why is Vashti mentioned and not Achashveirosh? What's with comparison between Mordechai and the spices of the ketoress (incense)? How are the pesukim cited here relevant to the points that R' Shmuel bar Nachmani made? Why do the points about Mordechai and Esther focus on their names, whereas the points about Haman and Vashti focus on the wicked deeds associated with them?

Instead of trying to answer these questions, we focused on trying to get the main idea, and attempting to understand how R' Shmuel bar Nachmani intended this pesichta to be an introduction to Megilas Esther.

The Main Idea of Yeshayahu 55

In order to understand the insight that R' intended to shed on Megilas Esther, we must analyze the pasuk from Sefer Yeshayahu in its context. Here is the full passage:

Seek Hashem when He can be found; call upon Him when He is near. Let the wicked one abandon his path and the iniquitous man his thoughts; let him return to Hashem and He will show him mercy; to our God, for He is abundantly forgiving. For My thoughts are not your thoughts and your ways are not My ways - the word of Hashem. As the heavens are high over the earth, so are My ways higher than your ways, and My thoughts than your thoughts. For just as the rain and snow descend from heaven and will not return there, rather it waters the earth and causes it to produce and sprout, and gives seed to the sower and food to the eater, so shall be My word that emanates from My mouth, it will not return to Me unfulfilled unless it will have accomplished what I desired and brought success where I sent it. For in gladness shall you go out and in peace shall you arrive, the mountains and hills will break out in glad song before you, and all the trees of the field will clap hands. In place of the thorn, a cypress will rise; and in place of the nettle, a myrtle will rise. This will be for Hashem for a name, for an everlasting sign that shall not be cut off (Yeshayahu 55:6-13).

This passage can be divided into three sections. I will restate the pesukim according to their divisions, prefaced by titles which summarize their themes:

Section #1 - Hashem's Acceptance of Teshuvah: Seek Hashem when He can be found; call upon Him when He is near. Let the wicked one abandon his path and the iniquitous man his thoughts; let him return to Hashem and He will show him mercy; to our God, for He is abundantly forgiving. For My thoughts are not your thoughts and your ways are not My ways - the word of Hashem. As the heavens are high over the earth, so are My ways higher than your ways, and My thoughts than your thoughts.

Radak explains that the navi is reassuring the sinner that his teshuvah will be accepted. Hashem is not like a human being. A human being who is wronged might not be willing to forgive the wrongdoer on account of the severity of the offense. Alternatively, he might forgive him outwardly but secretly continue to bear a grudge. Hashem isn't like that. Even if a person is a rasha (evildoer) who has sinned egregiously, he should never give up on doing teshuvah. Hashem always desires and accepts teshuvah, and is abundant in His forgiveness. 

Section #2 - Hashem's Word is Beneficial and Reliable: For just as the rain and snow descend from heaven and will not return there, rather it waters the earth and causes it to produce and sprout, and gives seed to the sower and food to the eater, so shall be My word that emanates from My mouth, it will not return to Me unfulfilled unless it will have accomplished what I desired and brought success where I sent it.

We are familiar with the water cycle: rain and snow fall from heaven, they water the earth, causing vegetation to sprout and food to grow for humans and animals; then the water "returns to the heavens" and the cycle begins anew. We have no trouble accepting the reality of the water cycle, and yet, when it comes to the word of Hashem, we become filled with doubt. We fear that His prophecies will not come true, we doubt that the mitzvos will actually be "for our benefit" (cf. Devarim 10:13), and we are skeptical about His hashgachah (providence). Yeshayahu is pointing out that we are being hypocritical: if we accept the water cycle, which operates in accordance with the word of Hashem, then we should accept all other instances of the word of Hashem as equally reliable. There should be no difference in our reliance on the laws of physics and the laws of metaphysics, since Hashem is the author of both sets of laws.

Section #3 - Hashem's Redemption is Certain: For in gladness shall you go out and in peace shall you arrive, the mountains and hills will break out in glad song before you, and all the trees of the field will clap hands. In place of the thorn, a cypress will rise; and in place of the nettle, a myrtle will rise. This will be for Hashem for a name, for an everlasting sign that shall not be cut off.

According to the Radak, this last part of the nevuah (prophecy) is about the future geulah (redemption) from galus (exile). He explains: "For in gladness you shall go out" of exile, "and in peace you shall arrive" in your Land. The rest of the passage is an allegory for the joy and flourishing that we will experience when we are redeemed. 

Now that we've gone over the pshat of this passage, we need to understand the main idea. What is the relationship between these three points that Yeshayahu is making? 

I believe the answer lies in what is perhaps the most important pasuk in this entire passage: "For My thoughts are not your thoughts and your ways are not My ways - the word of Hashem." I say that this is the most important pasuk because, according to the Rambam (Moreh ha'Nevuchim 3:23), the idea of this pasuk contains the core message of Sefer Iyov - a book of profound wisdom, ascribed to Moshe Rabbeinu, on the subject of Hashem's management of human affairs. Rambam writes: 

How can we think that His management (hanhagah) and supervision (hashgachah) over [His creations] is at all similar to our management of what we manage and supervision over what we supervise? … Rather the term “supervision” (hashgachah) as applied to Him is not the same concept as our supervision, nor is His “management” (hanhagah) of His creations the same concept as our management of what we manage. The two concepts are not even comprised in one and the same definition – as is thought by those who are confused – and there is nothing in common between the two except in name alone. 

In the same way, our actions do not resemble His actions, and the two are not comprised in one and the same definition. Just as natural acts differ from those of craftsmanship, so do the Divine management (hanhagah), supervision (hashgachah), intention (kavanah) in these natural phenomena differ from our management, supervision, and intention of what we manage, supervise, and intend. 

This is the purpose of the entire Book of Iyov as a whole, namely, the establishing of this foundational concept, and the drawing of attention to the inference to be drawn from natural matters, so that you should not err and seek to affirm in your imagination that His knowledge (yediah) is like our knowledge, or that His intention (kavanah), supervision (hashgachah), and management (hanhagah) are like our intention, supervision, and management. 

We humans are prone to mistakenly thinking that Hashem operates in the same way that we do. We project our fallible, human tendencies onto the transcendent Creator. We imagine that His management, His knowledge, His intentions, and His supervision are the same as our own, and that we can understand these things by relying on the same premises as we do when we think about human behavior. This is a major error.

Yeshayahu pointed out three manifestations of this error: (1) we don't do teshuvah because we think of Hashem in the same way that we think of an unforgiving human being, (2) we don't trust that His words are true and will yield benefit, and (3) when we see the "overgrown thorns and nettles" of our state of exile, we can't imagine that there will ever be lush growth there; we don't believe that the joy and geulah will ever replace the sorrow and oppression of galus. 

By drawing allegories from the natural world - an instantiation of "Hashem's ways" that we are  familiar with, and that we do rely upon - Yeshayahu reassures us that we can also rely on Hashem in these three areas with the same degree of trust: we can trust that our teshuvah will be accepted, that the word of Hashem will be fulfilled and will benefit us, and that He will redeem us from exile and cause us to rejoice and flourish in our Land.

Yeshayahu 55 as the Theme of Megilas Esther

Okay, now that we've gone over the main idea of this passage in Yeshayu, the question is: What does this have to do with Megilas Esther? What is the connection that R' Shmuel bar Nachmani wanted us to see, and to adopt as our framework for reading Megilas Esther?

I believe the answer is that the Jews in Shushan might have easily made the same mistake that Yeshayahu warned about, namely, equating Hashem's ways with our ways. 

Think about what it would be like as a Jew in Shushan. Haman, second-in-command to the king, decreed a total genocide on the entire Jewish population. The situation seemed utterly hopeless. It would have been very easy for the Jews to give up hope - to doubt or deny all of the promises made by countless neviim that Hashem would ultimately deliver His people from their enemies and bring them back to their Land. They might think that even if they did teshuvah and turned to Hashem in tefilah, He would neither forgive them nor listen to them. They might think that He had abandoned His people, despite his numerous promises.

But they didn't make that mistake. Bnei Yisrael, led by Esther and Mordechai, remained true to the word of Hashem. They fasted, they davened, and they did teshuvah. They relied on the chochmah that they had acquired from Torah and did everything in their power to bring about salvation. They trusted that Hashem would save them, and they acted on that trust. 

And what was the result? V'nahafoch hu - a complete reversal of our expectations. The "thorn" of Haman was replaced by the "cypress" of Mordechai, and the "nettle" of Vashti with the "myrtle" of Esther. Instead of the Jewish people being annihilated by their enemies forever, the opposite happened: their enemies' lives were cut short, the Jews were saved, and their salvation was memorialized forever in the institution of Megilah and the days of Purim. 

Mordechai and Esther established Purim and its mitzvos so that Klal Yisrael would always have an example of how to respond to an existential threat. "In each and every generation they stand against us, to destroy us" (Haggadah shel Pesach). If we, like the audience of Yeshayahu 55, view Hashem's management of the world the same way that we view human management, then we will be prone to despair and to reliance on futile plans that are built upon human delusions, and we will fail. But if we take Yeshayahu's message to heart, that "My thoughts are not your thoughts and your ways are not My ways," and we trust in Hashem, rely on His word, and act accordingly - as did the Jews of Shushan - then "Ha'Kadosh Baruch Hu [will] save us from their hand." 

No matter how dire the situation may seem from a human standpoint, Hashem is not bound by human conventions, nor is He confined to our limited understanding of how He will bring about redemption, "For My thoughts are not your thoughts and your ways are not My ways." And we need look no further than Megilas Esther for a real-world example of how all of our expectations were completely reversed: "In place of the thorn, a cypress will rise; and in place of the nettle, a myrtle will rise. This will be for Hashem for a name, for an everlasting sign that shall not be cut off." 

As we celebrate Purim, we should take these ideas to heart so that if (God forbid) we find ourselves in a similar situation in the future, we will be able to have trust in the word of Hashem, Whose ways transcend human understanding.