A prayer for Purim

Master of the World, on Purim we read a story in which Your name is not mentioned explicitly, and yet every detail in it leads to salvation. So too in my life: many times I do not see You, and only looking back do I understand that You were there all along.

Let me see Your hidden hand now as well, within what seems to me chance: in a meeting I did not plan, in a delay that annoyed me, in things that connect only at the end.

And let me rejoice in this festival with a joy that keeps no accounts. To dress up, to laugh, to sing, to release something of the seriousness I carry all year.

And let me think also of the costumes I wear all year: the face I show at work, the smile that hides worry. Let me be a little more genuine, with myself and with others.

Let me remember precisely today the one who is struggling. Let the gifts to the poor not be only an obligation I check off, but giving with a generous eye. And let the gift of food I send connect me to a person I have grown distant from.

And let me hear the reading of the Megillah attentively, word by word, and look in it for the moment the wheel turns, so that I remember that in my life too it can turn.

And watch over me so that the joy does not turn into harm, neither to myself nor to others.

And let me rejoice truly, with my whole heart, and let this joy turn into kindness and into bringing hearts closer.