Jews always loved to season life’s smorgasbord with a dash of irony. You probably learned by the age of six the fine art of making a seemingly-innocent remark into one that conveys a subtle zetz!

Maybe we get it from our ancestor, Joseph. Remember the zinger of a consolation he offered his brothers? “Although you intended to harm me, G-d intended it for good, to feed many peoples!” (Gen. 50:20).

See the double-decker irony? On one hand, Joseph helps his dear brothers realize that their safety is utterly dependent on the continued favor of a powerful younger brother whom they once hated enough to drop into a scorpion-filled pit! Just the sort of consolation that reminds you to watch your back! On the other hand, Joseph reminds his brothers that G-d, too, is in on the game. While they were planning and scheming, behind the scenes G-d engineered a surprising turn of events. Think about this the next time you read “The One who sits in the Heavens laughs!” (Psalms 2:4)

This laughter is relevant now as we enter Purim—Time of Joy. Now, let’s not confuse Purim joy with the joy of Sukkos or Simhas Torah. There are shades of simchah! The simchah of the autumn Festivals is an anticipation of the joy that comes after history is finished. But we experience Purim’s joy right in the middle of history, when redemption seems distant and disaster seems imminent. Purim’s joy is expressed in costumes that conceal our identities and Lechayim, let too much identity show!

Look at the Book of Esther. The Megillah almost out-does the New York Times in its reluctance to acknowledge G-d’s activity in the world. Can you imagine a biblical book that doesn’t
mention G-d?

Well, imagine it! In the book of Esther, the One Who Spoke and the World Was fails to make so much as a peep. No prophet utters “thus says the L-rd” to the bumbling King of Persia. Neither Mordechai nor Esther petition for Divine Intervention. Hadn’t they heard what G-d had once wrought on the genocidal Egyptians? Sure, Haman and his sons get hung from their own gallows; but what could it hurt to have them dispatched with a bit more panache? I’d settle for that divinely-appointed ear mite that centuries later chewed its merry way through the brain of Titus, despoiler of the Temple.

This Divine Absence is in fact ironic. G-d is there all the time, even as He hides His hand. Mordechai tells Esther: “if you keep silent . . . , deliverance will come to the Jews from another place!” (Esther 4:14). What “other place” (makom aher)?

This was certainly the G-d of Israel, known in the Haggadah and Talmud as haMakom. Why did the Sages think of the Creator of the World as “the Place?” The Midrash explains: “The entire world is His Place, but His Place is nowhere in the world (Genesis Rabbah, 68).” In this spirit, Mordechai reminds Esther, “Look, if haMakom can’t achieve His purpose in the world through our intentions, He’ll do it despite them. Go make your pitch to the king!” Do we detect here a smidgen of Joseph’s theology?

Mordechai has put his finger squarely on the central message of Purim-that G-d’s presence is a paradox. As the Zohar says: lays asar panui minay—“there is no place empty of Him.” Yet at the same time, He is also hahu tamir vene`elam—“the One Who is Hidden and Concealed.” Yes, our G-d is the G-d who reveals himself in his concealment. Precisely in our discovery of His distance from “our place” do we become shocked at His intimate guidance of our lives in “His Place.” Whatever is done for our harm turns out for the good. Whatever tragedy befalls us, a redemptive message calls out in the smoke of destruction.

Jewish history is a testimony to a faith that is courageous enough to accept irony. Our irony is not a denial of life’s meaning, but a confession that irony is the very means of G-d’s way with us. What, after all, did Moshe hear in the voice that came from the bush that was burning and not burnt: ehyeh asher ehyey—“I will be what I will be, not what you think I’ll be!”

This is why, on Purim, we have the mitzvah of ad d’lo yada—till we can’t distinguish Mordechai from Haman, good from evil, the highway from the dead end. It takes a little Lechayim to realize that in the path to redemption—His Place—must take us through the road of which appears to go to “another place” altogether.

Copyright 2005 by the author. Reproduction by permission only.