The Hidden Miracle of Purim: Coincidence, Fate, or Divine Design?

Anyone who has ever looked closely at the Book of Esther has probably noticed that the miracle of Purim is a bit unusual. Reading the Megillah’s plot, one gets the impression of an amusing chain of coincidences that ultimately saved the Jewish people from a “final solution,” Persian style, in the fourth century BCE.

No meteor fell from the sky straight into King Achashverosh’s palace. No bolt of lightning struck Haman the Agagite at the very moment he searched for a tree suited to Mordechai’s height. No obvious, dramatic miracle at all, only a sequence of ordinary events that, with uncanny timing, led Haman up to the top of the gallows and placed Mordechai into a prestigious seat in the Persian “Ministry of Finance.”

A New Kind of Providence

The Book of Esther is built from dozens of events, each of which, on its own, seems insignificant. Only when all the pieces are combined into one pot does the intoxicating stew called Purim emerge.

This event introduced a new kind of miracle onto the world stage. Until then, God’s providence was openly revealed, through visible miracles and through prophecy. But with the destruction of the Temple, a new era began, an era of “hiding of the face,” in which providence operates beneath the surface, disguised within the fixed laws of nature.

Purim was the first swallow hinting at how divine intervention would now unfold in the world. It is no coincidence that this scroll is called the Megillah of Esther. True to its name, it is the revelation of concealment in everyday life. Even today many miracles occur, but they appear under the cover of “dry statistics” and “ordinary events” that could, in theory, happen. A chain of gray data points containing within them a permissible “margin of deviation” that occasionally produces something unexpected.

A Story of Hidden Guidance

Following is a contemporary story that clearly illustrates how God performs “twenty first century miracles.”

A plane was on its way to Antwerp with about a hundred passengers. Among them were the Pittsburgh Rebbe, and eight of his students. Their destination was the wedding of the son of one of the Rebbe’s followers. Aside from the Rebbe and his group, there were no other Torah observant Jews on the plane.

The flight began smoothly, but suddenly the pilot announced that the aircraft was low on fuel and would have to land to refuel at a small airport outside the city. The airport was remote and nearly empty, intended only for local flights. All the passengers disembarked, including the Rebbe and his students, who began looking for a quiet place to pray Minchah without interruption.

The Rebbe approached the counter and asked an airport clerk to open a side room so he and his group could pray privately. The clerk stared at the Rebbe in shock and turned pale.

After a moment he said, “I’m willing to do it, but on one condition: let me say Kaddish in memory of my father.”

“You’re Jewish?” the Rebbe asked.

“Yes,” he replied. “I don’t know any Jews who live in this part of Belgium. May I ask what you are doing here?”

“To be honest,” the Rebbe answered, “I was about to ask you the same question. You are exactly the tenth man we need for a minyan.”

“I don’t think you’ll believe my story,” the man began, “but I promise you, Rabbi, it is completely true. I left my family many years ago and ran away to this little town. Although I come from a very Orthodox family, I haven’t kept mitzvot for decades. All this time I never said Kaddish for my father, who has since passed away.

“Last night my father appeared to me in a dream and said: ‘Yankel, tomorrow is the anniversary of my death, and I want you to say Kaddish for me.’

“‘But Dad,’ I protested, ‘to say Kaddish you need a minyan, and I’m the only Jew in this entire town. There’s no chance I can find a minyan anywhere nearby.’

“‘Don’t worry, Yankel,’ my father replied. ‘I will bring you a minyan.’

“When I woke up,” the man continued, “I trembled for a long time. I was stunned. But after a few minutes I told myself it was only a dream and meant nothing. Besides, it’s ridiculous. A minyan to come to a remote farming town like this? Ten Jews?”

An astonishing coincidence or a guiding hand? It depends on a person’s choice. The story can be explained statistically on one level, yet on another it points unmistakably to an invisible hand pulling the strings.

A Snowstorm and a Forgotten Grave

Following is another story, published in the Israeli press several years ago.

A Jewish man in the United States started his car and set out, as he did every day, for work. He drove for over an hour and then noticed something unusual. Unlike normal, the traffic was extremely light, so light that he suspected something was wrong.

Because he had long used his driving time to listen to recordings of Torah lectures, he had not turned on the radio. His concern grew when he realized he was nearly alone on a highway that was usually packed. He turned on the radio, and his fear was confirmed: a severe snowstorm was rapidly approaching, expected to block the roads for several days.

He accelerated. He still had at least two more hours to reach his destination. He debated whether to continue and hope for the best, or to take the next exit and look for a small hotel to wait out the storm.

The wind intensified, and the first snowflakes began to fall. He knew he needed to find shelter immediately, or he would be stranded. Snow began to accumulate on the car, and the drive became harder by the minute. He took the first exit and searched for any inhabited place. Visibility was poor, and the windows were covered with frost and whiteness.

Suddenly he saw a large, solitary building by the roadside. He turned toward the path leading to it. The car moved a few meters and then stopped. It could not go any further. With no choice, he stepped into the freezing cold and walked against the wind as icy snow struck his face. He felt his body temperature dropping and feared he might freeze.

After several minutes he reached the building. A modest sign read: “Nursing Home.” He knocked forcefully and hoped someone would answer.

“Who is it?” a voice asked from inside.

“Please,” he called, “I’m stuck in the snow. Please open the door.”

The door opened. A stern man stood there. “Sorry, we don’t have room for you,” he said. “If you want, you can stay in the lobby and sleep on the couch.” The lobby was cold, and the thought of spending days there sent a shiver through him.

After an hour in the bitter cold, he approached the office and knocked again.

“Do you have any room available?” he asked. “I’m willing to pay a lot. Please, consider my situation.”

“Look,” the man replied, “yesterday one of our residents died. He had no family. His room hasn’t been cleared yet. If you want, you can sleep on his bed.”

Was there another option? He entered the room uneasily. Sleeping in the bed of someone who died the night before was unsettling. On the nightstand, the man’s books were still there. In a quick glance he saw, to his shock, that one book was a volume of Mishnah. The mysterious resident had been Jewish.

“Who knows where they’ll bury him,” he thought. “I have to find out immediately.”

He returned to the office.

“Has the resident who died last night already been buried?” he asked.

“Not yet,” the man answered. “When the weather improves, we’ll transfer the body to the local church, which by law handles the burial of solitary people without relatives.”

He was horrified. A Jew was about to be buried in a Christian burial. God forbid. He could not allow it.

“I’ll take care of the burial,” he said. “He was Jewish and must be buried in a Jewish cemetery.”

“I don’t care what you do,” the man replied. “But you’ll have to deal with the authorities. By law, cases like this go automatically to the church.”

After two days, when the storm eased, he began arranging the burial. He had no idea what the next step was, but he prayed for help. He located the nearest Jewish cemetery, contacted its administration, and discovered that it had a small section designated for cases exactly like this.

He then approached the local church. After proving he was sincere, they agreed to release the body. He loaded the coffin into the back seat of his car and drove for several hours to the cemetery, unable to stop thinking about the unusual cargo behind him.

At the cemetery he went to the director and handed over the deceased’s documents and ID. The director looked at the name and the photo and froze. His mouth fell open.

After a moment he said, “A few years ago a man I didn’t know came into my office. He looked respectable. After a brief conversation, he pulled out a large sum of money and said: ‘Sir, I want to do something unusual. I want you to set aside a section of plots for solitary people who die without family. Use this money to cover their burial needs and their graves.’

“With that money we prepared ten burial plots. Until now only one has been used. This man is the one who donated that section. The moment I saw the photo, I recognized him. And when I saw his name, I knew immediately it was him. The One who arranges all causes knew this man might be buried in a Christian burial, God forbid, and sent you in a roundabout way to the remote place where he lay, so you would bring him to the place he himself prepared for this purpose.”

Providence Without Breaking Nature

Such intervention does not require changing the laws of nature. It arranges the pieces so that everything remains within what looks like normal statistical possibility. Each stage could happen “by chance,” but the extraordinary way the puzzle pieces fit together creates a result that is astounding.

When Moshe asked to “see” God, God answered: “You cannot see My face… and you will see My back, but My face shall not be seen.” Of course God has no physical form. Moshe wanted to grasp God’s ways, how He interacts with creation. The answer taught him that within our limited understanding, we cannot comprehend events while they are happening. Only afterward, looking back, can we see the “back” and recognize God’s infinite wisdom.

“And It Was Turned Upside Down”

A central phrase in the story of Esther is “and it was turned upside down.” What seemed at first like bad luck ultimately reveals itself as divine providence. There are miracles that, unlike the overt miracles described in Tanach, arrive disguised and appear as coincidences, natural events, random reality. But in truth, they are the product of heavenly intervention in human life.

The name Purim itself comes from the word pur, a lottery. Many people call lotteries a game of luck, where the winner is determined by random forces without reason. Faith teaches that in a world ruled by an all seeing God, there is no room for blind fate. “Fate” is not mere luck. It is a way for the Director of the universe to determine outcomes while remaining hidden behind the scenes.

Purim is the festival that deals with what people call coincidence. It reminds us, as the saying puts it, that coincidences are often God’s way of staying anonymous.

The Purim story contains many miracles, not miracles that override nature, but miracles of the kind that occur frequently in our own lives. And we often miss them, because God chooses not to shout, but to whisper.

We must tune ourselves to that quiet, gentle voice, so we can recognize it when He turns disaster into blessing.