I was on an episode of Zoey 101, but when it aired, I was nowhere to be found. I made it...to the cutting room floor. Womp womp. It hurt a little bit to play a role and then not be acknowledged for it. Can you imagine watching a James Bond movie without...James Bond? Or Law & Order: SVU without Benson? (okay, fine, I also crush on Stabler). It would be a bit bizarre for these characters to not appear in their own shows, wouldn't it?
Well, surprise surprise! Jewish tradition loves doing that. For example, Moses does not appear in the retelling of the Exodus in the Haggadah. And God, who is a BFD in the Torah, doesn't even appear in the scroll of Esther that we will be reading this week during Purim.
This image was created by Tomasz Pasternak and be found at thenounproject.com. It is licenced under CC BY 3.0.
Perhaps they are absent to teach us that we, the readers, have the ability and responsibility to redeem ourselves when given the tools to do so. We don't need to wait for divine voices or prophetic leaders.
Yet, at the same time, who says that we need to replace God or Moses to make a difference. That's a tall order. Thankfully, the Talmud plays casting director and anachronistically connects Esther (and Mordechai and Haman) to a verse in the Torah. It finds Esther in Deuteronomy:
Did you see it? Well, in Hebrew, God says, "I will surely hide my face (anochi hester astir)." Magic! Esther sounds a lot like the Hebrew word for hidden, “astir”; they are spelled similarly, and God's face is, indeed, hidden in her book. There is literally no mention of God in the Book of Esther (weird!).
Here, then, is a second lesson. One way to lead is by starring as the main role on camera as Esther does in the Megillah. But another way is by hiding ourselves, stepping to the side for a moment as we empower others to shine their unique light.
