I was sitting minding my own business in a back seat of the taxi. After a depressing news report the taxi driver turns to me and says, Yihiyeh Tov! Why? I wondered to myself. Not one to argue with a taxi driver I kept quiet but it got me thinking. Purim is the classic case we turn to for comfort when things look really bleak. After all there was no time in the history of Am Yisroel where they faced greater danger. The King of the entire world had decreed that every last Jew may be slaughtered and the King of All Kings our father in heaven even added his signature to a similar document where it really counts in Shamayim. What happened at the end? Just like the taxi driver said, "Haya Tov!" It turned out to be a day of joy for the ages.
Not so simple says Rav Shimshon Pincus. Hashem (Yeshaya 54) calls the mabul, "Mei Noach". Wasn't Noach a tzaddik? Why is the devastation called on his name? Rav Shimshon explains that Noach never believed that the Mabul would actually come. He was sure it was a ploy to get people to do tshuva. That's why even when it started to rain he refused to go into the Teiva. Because of this attitude although he spent many years building the teiva he didn't really put his heart into changing the world and saving it from disaster. Without Noach leading the way the world in fact didn't change and the prophecy of doom actually materialized. Since he was the Shaliach of Hashem to save the people and because of his eternal optimism he only managed to save himself, the Mabul is called "Mei Noach".
Mordechai on the other hand understood the danger. Eliyahu HaNavi told him that the decree was signed in Shamayim. He clearly saw the total annihilation of Klal Yisroel before his eyes without any rationalizations. He roused the people to despair and ultimately to uninhibited Ahavas Hashem. Mordechai's realism and honest assessment of the situation saved the otherwise doomed nation.
I heard Rav Shimshon once say that since the Churban Bais HaMikdash, Am Yisroel or at least a part of it has been subjected to destruction once every 60-80 years. True Eretz Yisroel has witnessed amazing miracle both in its creation and all it wars, but that was Hashem's kindness towards His undeserving only son in the wake of the gruesome calamity of the Holocaust. Today however the clock is running out. Are we going to have a Mabul or another Purim? That will depend on which route we choose. Will we rely on eternal optimism and repeating the slogan "Yihiyeh Tov" or will we go the Shushan route by changing our ways and actually becoming good, "Nihiyeh Tov".
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