We are now in the month of Adar 1, coming soon to the holiday of Purim in Adar 2. So let us discuss a very inspiring thought from the Megillah.
We know that in the Megillah reading, when we get to the part that says “the King’s could not sleep …” the reader raises his voice at that part because that is when the miracle of Purim actually begins. But what does this mean?
We know that the King Ahashveirosh refers to G-d Himself, the King of the universe. When the King sleeps it means that G-d, so to speak , closes His eyes and does not pay attention to all the crazy things going on in the world. He ignores the suffering. Galus (exile) is compared to a state of sleep. Why? Because when someone sleeps we dream. And we can dream crazy things that are impossible in a state of being awake. Things that we could never believe in a wakeful situation we can believe in a dream.
So in galus, Hashem, the King of the universe, is asleep. That is why so many things that are frightening or make no sense can happen in this world.
But why would Hashem sleep, so to speak? Hashem sleeps in response to the Jewish people. If we sleep (shirk our responsibilities in Torah and mitzvot or sleep in our service of G-d) then Hashem reacts the same way , so to speak, and goes to “sleep”. At least it seems that way to us, from our perspective.
When the Jewish people woke up at the time of Purim and stood firm with self sacrifice for an entire year, adhering strongly to the Torah on threat of annihilation, then G-d woke up and saved us, and changed the decree. And that is when the Purim miracle really began.
So we learn from this that when see things that make no sense in the world ( terror attacks, innocent people who are killed or injured, people suffering from diseases etc. etc.) we should not doubt that G-d is present with us in this world or try to figure out why such things happen. We should simply realize that this is the condition of galus, of exile. This is the state of sleep. But if each of us will awaken more in our observance of Torah and mitzvot, increase in deeds of goodness and kindness, we have the power to rouse G-d from His sleep and we inspire Him to bring us the final complete redemption through Moshiach immediately.
And all of this is connected with Purim. Because when we rejoice on Purim , we get rid of our enemies, of our doubts, of our sufferings, and we can accomplish through joy even more than we accomplish through fasting on yom kippur. That is why Yom Kippur is called a day like Purim, yom hakippurim. Because on yom kippur we attain forgiveness for our sins through fasting. On Purim we attain forgiveness through rejoicing. And simcha gets rid of all obstacles and breaks barriers and may we go from the joy and redemption of Purim to the final redemption with the coming of Moshiach very, very soon.