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Rigshei Lev
The ultimate Jewish prayer guide for the Jewish woman with perspectives, Jewish laws and customs on the beauty and spirituality of tefillah. Enhance your davening and deepen your connection with G-d.
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Esther Embraces the King
As we conclude these chapters on the hashkafah of tefillah, let us summarize what we have learnt by taking a page out of the story of Esther HaMalkah.
In order to appreciate the events described in Megillas Esther, it is crucial to understand that every reference to “the melech” - “the king,” that is, King Achashverosh - conceals a reference to the King of Kings, HaKadosh Baruch Hu. The story of Purim can thus be read on two levels. When read literally, King Achashverosh is the central controlling player. When read at a deeper level, the King of Kings is manipulating the people involved like puppets on a string.
Consider, for example, the episode where Esther entered the palace of Achashverosh for the weighty purpose of saving Klal Yisrael. She had no invitation to the palace and was therefore risking her life. In her own words, “Uvechen, avo el hamelech asher lo chadas, veka’asher avadeti, avadeti - And so, I will come to the King, which is against the law, and if I perish I will perish” (Esther 4:16). At a deeper level, Esther entered the palace of the King of Kings to save Klal Yisrael with the power of tefillah. But she had no invitation. In other words, as the representative of Klal Yisrael, she was not worthy of being saved.
Every Rosh HaShanah and Yom Kippur, we enter the palace of the King of Kings and ask to be inscribed in the Book of Life. As we begin our prayers in the Shemoneh Esrei of the Yamim Noraim, our opening word is “uvechen” - and so. Avudraham teaches us that the word uvechen is inserted to invoke the “uvechen” said by Esther before she entered the palace. On the High Holidays, when the question “who will live and who will die?” hovers over us, we all become Esther. We are all undeserving, yet we have no choice but to follow in Esther’s footsteps and ask for salvation.
Let us learn from Esther, as we take one more look at the dramatic moments when Esther entered the palace of the king.
Esther fully understood the consequence of entering the king’s palace without an invitation: it was a guaranteed death sentence. For the king to revoke a law that he himself had formulated was inconceivable. Why would the king make a mockery of himself in front of his whole royal court?
Yet there was always a chance that Hashem would perform a miracle - like He did for Daniel when he was cast into the lion’s den, or for Chananiah, Mishael, and Azariah when they were thrown into the fiery furnace.
But this thought gave her little comfort. Even if she miraculously survived entering the palace, and even if she escaped Haman’s decree, she would still be condemned to misery. As an orphan girl, the only person Esther had in her life was Mordechai, the great tzaddik of the generation, her husband and mentor. By willfully submitting herself to the king, she would be halachically forbidden to Mordechai. She would then have to live the rest of her days with the wicked King Achashverosh.
Furthermore, she had spent her whole life perfecting the middah of modesty. Her name, Esther, means hidden. Tznius was her very essence. It was through this middah that she had attained the status of one of Klal Yisrael’s seven women prophetesses. And now she would be perpetually condemned to live with a man who was notorious for perversion and obsessed with immodesty.
Her life was in tatters.
But there was one thing that no one could take away from her. Even as she was about to enter the valley of death, she knew that Hashem would always be with her. Hashem would be her Rock to lean on. Esther girded herself with her power of prophecy; the Shechinah, the Divine Presence, would accompany her to Achashverosh’s court. The extreme closeness to Hashem that only prophecy can bring would carry her through her ordeal.
She was on her third day of fasting. She removed her sackcloth and ashes and donned royal clothing — perhaps her beautiful attire would help hide her gaunt features after not having eaten for so long. She set out towards the royal palace, comforted that the Shechinah was escorting her, yet with constant prayer on her lips.
As she approached the courtyard of the palace she focused all her energies on her tefillos. Her fate, and the fate of every man, woman, and child in Klal Yisrael, and the fate of all of Jewish history, was on her shoulders. Her big moment had arrived.
She entered the palace.
Disaster struck. For Esther, no greater catastrophe could possibly have occurred. The Shechinah, unable to remain inside an impure palace filled with idols, left her.
Suddenly she felt totally alone. There she was, a frail and fragile woman, who had never enjoyed parents or children, with no friends to support her, utterly alone in the most hostile environment on earth, at the most critical moment in her life. And in her moment of greatest need, Hashem had abandoned her.
“Keli, Keli, lama azavtani! - My God! My God! Why have You forsaken me!” She burst out crying. She cried and she davened, and she cried and she davened, until her whole body became an ocean of tefillah and tears.
What was she to do now? Her voice was too choked with emotion to speak, her eyes too filled with tears to see, and her body too weak from fasting to move. But she had no choice. She had to move forward toward the king.
Slowly, she inched her way through the seven antechambers that led to the hall of the king. Although she felt her strength waning, she channeled every ounce of remaining energy into tefillah. She davened like she had never davened before. She begged Hashem to see the afflictions of her soul and the suffering of her people. She invoked every zechus that she had. She implored Hashem to remember the merit of her family, her ancestors, the Avos, all the tzaddikim of all the generations and all of Klal Yisrael. Little by little, step by step, she made her way to the hall of the king.
She entered the hall. She looked up and found herself standing directly opposite the king.
Esther knew that she cut a pathetic figure at that moment. All her beauty had vanished with the trauma of her ordeal. She was a wretched Jewish girl who had just defied the most powerful gentile in the world.
The king was sitting on his throne of judgment. The magnificent hall was filled with courtiers and advisors, aristocrats and nobles. It was also filled with soldiers and the king’s executioners. Haman and his henchmen were there, too. Everyone gasped with shock at the audacity of Esther’s entry. How dare she enter the palace uninvited? Everyone knew the royal decree - Esther now had to be put to death. The hall fell silent as everyone waited for the king’s reaction.
The king was fuming with rage. He started gnashing his teeth, and his eyes burned like fiery torches. His wrath was terrifying; there was no question what his intentions were. Haman savored the moment. He was waiting for a nod from the king so that he could unleash his henchmen, who were straining to slay Esther.
Esther lowered her eyes. She was shaking inside and her heart was racing. She had to do something. She wanted to move, to speak, to just raise her head, but she could not. She completely froze. After all her fasting, prayers, and tears, her strength had finally left her.
It was all over.
And then the most extraordinary thing happened. Her head lifted up, but without any effort on Esther’s part. Her face was suddenly transformed into its full radiance and beauty. Her eyes and the eyes of the king met. He was overwhelmed by Esther’s charm and grace. He looked at his hand and was surprised to find that he was holding his golden scepter, something he had never before held while seated on the throne of judgment. Then, to the absolute amazement of everyone present, the scepter miraculously started growing and reaching towards Esther. The scepter stretched to the other side of the hall, touched Esther and then stopped.
The king arose from his throne of judgment and his face was filled with lovingkindness. He ran towards Esther and supported her frail body. “My dear Queen Esther, why did you go to all this trouble and endanger your life? But have no fear. My laws apply to my people, not to my beloved queen. What is your request? I am prepared to grant you even half of my kingdom.”
And the King of Kings arose from His Throne of Judgment, and He was filled with the attribute of mercy, as if He was saying, “This is the moment of extreme closeness that I have been waiting for. Know that as you struggled towards Me, at your moments of greatest darkness, I was with you all the time. But I remained hidden, because I wanted your efforts to be yours. My precious Klal Yisrael! Get up from your praying and fasting, your sackcloth and ashes. Wipe away your tears!”
The moment of geulah has arrived....