Then Mordechai bade them to return answer unto Esther: ‘Think not with yourself that you will escape in the king’s house, more than all the Jews. For if you altogether hold your peace at this time, then will relief and deliverance arise to the Jews from another place, but you and your father’s house will perish; and who knows whether you have not come to royal estate for such a time as this?‘ Then Esther bade them return answer unto Mordechai: Go, gather together all the Jews that are present in Shushan, and fast You for me, and neither eat nor drink three days, night or day; I also and my maidens will fast in like manner; and so will I go in unto the king, which is not according to the law; and if I perish, I perish. Esther 4:13-16
The Talmud states:
Go, gather together all the Jews . . . which is not according to the custom. R. Abba said: It will not be [she said] according to the custom of every other day. Till now [I have associated with Achashverosh under compulsion, but now I will do so of my own will. And if I perish, I perish. As I am lost to my father’s house so I shall be lost to you. Megillah 15a
Esther was alone, seemingly abandoned in the palace. At least, however she had been allowed to continue living as “wife and husband” with her real husband, Mordechai, as Tosafos[1] explains, that until then she would leave the embrace of Achashverosh, go to the mikvah, and resume an intimate, holy, relationship with her husband Mordechai. However, now Mordechai was demanding that she “voluntarily” submit herself to Achashverosh in order to plead to save her people. It seemed that even her husband, Mordechai, was now abandoning her, and seemingly sentencing her to a life of loneliness in the palace.
Until that moment, she had been allowed, halachically, to continue living with Mordechai because she had been taken to the King Achashverosh against her will, as the Megillah states:
That Esther was taken into the king’s house. Esther 2:8.
Every time she had lived with the king it was considered that she was involuntarily submitting to him, so she was still permitted to her real husband. Now, however, she was going to the king willingly, and would no longer be permitted halachically to live with Mordechai. The feeling of emotional loneliness that she must have experienced at that moment prompted her to utter the following prayer:
My God, My God, why have You forsaken me? Why have You changed the order of the world and the order of the Jewish mothers against me? Sarah was taken captive by Pharaoh for one night and he and his household were punished. I have been placed in the bosom of this evil man for so many years and no miracles have helped me. Jewish women have three special commandments, and I keep them even here. Why have You forsaken me? Medrash Socher Tov 22:26
What merit did Esther invoke in order to be saved? The three signs, that Sarah had bequeathed to Rivka, and that Rachel had given to Leah, under the chuppah, and that Channah invoked in pleading for a child, and that now, Esther invoked hhin pleading to be redeemed.[2]
The connection between these three signs (Shabbos candles, Challah and Family Purity), and Jewish prayer is that prayer is not a request for personal benefit, rather, prayer is to increase the honor of God, known as Shulchan Gavoah—the Table on High, the sake of Heaven. Each of the Matriarch’s prayers was answered so that she could have a child to whom to teach the mesorah of Shabbos, Challah, and Mikvah—the three pillars of Torah life.
When Mordechai demanded that Esther go the king, he was asking her to sacrifice her personal happiness for a higher goal—the continuity of the Jewish people. Esther had a child through her “marriage” to Achashverosh, name Daryavesh (Darius II) who was the King who ordered the resumption of the rebuilding of the Second Temple, in the time of Ezra, which had been halted by Achashverosh. Esther’s sacrifice brought about the redemption of the Jewish People and the continuation of Jewish service in the Temple.
Was that worth her personal aloneness in the palace?
The Malbim explains that whenever someone experiences something unusual, or outside the norm, it is evident that Hashem is doing this to achieve a Divine Goal. When Esther was taken from orphanhood, to become the Queen of Persia, which is extraordinary, it was clear that she rose to this position of greatness, albeit alone, for a specific purpose, namely to save the Jewish people.
Esther prayed to God that in the merit of her aloneness as an orphan, and as a woman, alone, in the palace of Achashverosh. She called out to the Father of Orphans, and asked for mercy, in her aloneness.
When we are singled out and faced with the challenge of aloneness, it can take on meaning despite the emotional loneliness. At such times it is our mission and challenge to discover the unique purpose God is expecting us to extract and deduce from such an experience. When presenting us with the challenge of aloneness, God “wants something from us” individually, uniquely. That is why each of us, alone, are often singled out by God, and placed in a position of aloneness. This is because God is urging us to bring out something from within us that would otherwise remain dormant, and make a unique contribution to His world.
[1] Kesubos 57b
2. The Medrash, in fact, links Sarah to Esther, as follows:
Rabbi Akiva was sitting and expounding, and his audience was falling asleep. Seeking to rouse them, he said: For what reason did Esther rule over 127 provinces? It was appropriate that Esther, a descendant of Sarah – who lived 127 years – would rule over 127 provinces.” Since Sarah mastered of her spiritual self—she lived her full 127 years without sin and with youthful exuberance, she merited that her great-granddaughter, Esther, was able to translate that mastery into ruling over the 127 provinces of the kingdom. Sarah mastered every moment of time that she spent in this world, and so her legacy was such that her mastery over her use of time translated into her great-granddaughter Esther mastering the wealth of 127 provinces.
This is an excerpt from Alone Against the World by Rabbi Yisroel Rollhttp://www.feldheim.com/authors/roll-rabbi-yisroel.html