The story goes of a Yid, we’ll call him Avremele, who lived in a small shtetl in Europe. One Sunday morning, he went on a hunting trip with his friends in the forest around his village. At one point, he made a wrong turn and got separated from his friends. He tried to retrace his steps to no avail, and he ended up totally lost, deep inside the forest.
Day after day, he fought for survival, trying to find his way out, as his panicked family worried if they will ever see him again. Finally, after close to a week, he miraculously managed to find his way out and made his way back home.
There’s only one problem. While he was lost, he tried to keep track of the days, but he made a mistake in his calculations, and he was one day ahead of the rest of the world. He found his way back home on Thursday, but in his mind, he was certain it was Friday. He could not understand why everyone was going to work and acting like it was a normal weekday. Why wasn’t anyone preparing for Shabbos?!
Avremele was stubborn and was fully confident that the entire village — including his own wife and the local Rav — must have lost their mind. He decided that no matter what everyone else does, he will be keeping Shabbos properly. So he goes to the mikveh, gets dressed for Shabbos, and goes to shul and davens Kabbalas Shabbos. The next morning, he went back to shul, and was fighting with the gabbai that he should take out the sefer Torah and lein the parsha, and so on for the rest of ‘Shabbos.’
It’s one thing that Avremele kept Shabbos when it was Friday, but the real problems came when it was actually Shabbos, and Avremele was sure that it was Sunday…
No one in the town was able to convince him otherwise. But then, someone remembered that Avremele had a friend from his childhood who had grown up to be a big tzadik — the great Reb Shmelke of Nickolsburg. Maybe Reb Shmelke could convince his childhood friend that the entire world had not gone crazy, but that Avremele had made a mistake in his calculations.
Reb Shmelke agreed to help out, on condition that everyone play along with whatever he did to help convince Avremele. They all agreed.
Reb Shmelke came to Avremele and asked him if he had made a suedas hodah yet to thank Hashem for the great miracle that he survived nearly a week of being lost in the forest. Avremele replied that he had not, and Reb Shmelke offered to make a Friday night tish for the whole community as a suedas hodah.
So it comes Thursday night — but in Avremele’s mind, that was Friday night, and the whole town played along. They all went to shul, pretending to daven Friday night davening, and later that evening, they gathered by Reb Shmelke for the tish. Reb Shmelke gave out l’chaims, and made sure to give Avremele many, many, l’chaims. After a while, Avremele got drunk and passed out on the floor.
That was the moment Reb Shmelke was waiting for, and he quickly told everyone to leave. They drew the curtains closed, and kept the house dark and quiet to allow Avremele to sleep.
The entire night and day passed, and the next evening, with Avremele still sleeping, Reb Shmelke told the town to come gather again. Now it was actually Friday night, and they came to the real tish. In middle of the tish, Avremele finally woke up, not realizing that 24 hours had passed. Finally, Avremele and the rest of the world were now on the same page of what day it is!
This is what Purim is.
Sometimes Hashem saves us in a way that we can sense and feel. But Purim is when Hashem saved us like Reb Shemlke saved Avremele. Avremele had no idea that he was ever wrong, and had no idea that the Reb Shmelke saved him or how he saved him.
On Purim, Hashem guided the miraculous events of the Purim story, while the Jewish people were totally clueless as to how Hashem was saving them, orchestrating the roots of salvation before the Jewish people even knew there was trouble.
In davening, we thank Hashem “al nissecha she’bchol yom, for Your miracles that You perform every single day.” We thank Hashem for the miracles we didn’t even know were miracles, saving us from trouble that we didn’t even know were troubles.
We are like Avremele, drunk and passed out and clueless as to what is even happening, as we are held by Hashem, who saves us on a daily basis from problems we never even knew existed.
May Hashem continue to save the Jewish people from any harm in a way that is so gentle that we don’t even know that there is a problem we are being saved from. May Hashem give us a Purim of true simcha, which leads to the greatest simcha of the coming of Moshiach, bias go’el tzedek b’rachamim, bimheira biyameinu, amen!
This article was found in Nekuda Tova Issue 72 Purim.
