This week the theme of hiddeness has been ever before us as we have read the book of Esther, a book with no mention of G-d's name.  As we recount how our people nearly became subject to a plan of mass genocide, it would behoove us to peer behind the curtain of history and see the thread of salvation that has been ever present throughout time.  Along this thread have been individuals, who by no other reason except divine purpose and not coincidence, have been set before our people to be raised up during a time of need.

I found myself having to do it - I hadn't had to for six years, but it loomed in front of me, a responsibility I couldn't put off anymore.  My license - my ticket to cruising suburbia, the city and accomplishing all my tasks outside of the home - was about to expire and I needed to make that dreaded trip to the Department of Licensing.  This auditorium of order and process I abhor each and every time I enter its doors.  All that I could possibly be doing is dashed as I sit and wait until it is my turn - sometimes for even up to an hour.  However, as I took my number and seated myself in the theatre, I watched with new interest as the state officials played their parts so eloquently - snapping photos, checking forms, accepting money, asking questions, instructing people to sit and wait again.  It was then that I realized something very powerful and liberating.  I wasn't a prisoner to this palace of complication - I was a privileged participant.