The name Purim comes from a Persian word for a lottery because the evil Haman cast lots to determine the month in which to carry out his plan to exterminate the Jews.  It seems odd to name a holiday after the method our enemy sought to employ for our destruction.  We don't call Channukah by a name like Institutional Religous Perescution or Forced Assimilation.  What's the secret of the lottery that makes it an apt name for a celebration of Jewish survival?

According to how chasidus explains this story, it is evident that Haman either knew or at least intuited quite a bit about the mysteries of creation.  Haman intentionally used a lottery as his means of carrying out his evil plan because he wanted to circumvent the natural order of the universe.  He somehow grasped that according to S.O.P., his attempt to destroy the Jews was bound to be thwarted by G-d.  That's how things work.  Mess with the Jews and G-d gets mad.  But by using a random method of carrying out (or at least picking a date) for his attack on the Jews, Haman sought to bypass the rules that normally govern the universe, particularly the hard and fast rule that the Jews are eternal and that, in the end, G-d is always on their side.  In the entropy of randomness, however, no such rules exist.

In other words, Haman had a will -- to destroy the Jews.  But G-d has a will -- to keep them around.  In a battle of wills, G-d always gets what He wants.  But beyond will there is luck.  Rather than exercising his will in choosing the date for the annihilation of the Jews, Haman left it up to chance.  And when it comes to a lottery, every player has the same odds.

What Haman didn't realize is that just as beyond will there is chance, beyond chance there is essence.

When I choose something, I am exercising my will.  When I let fate choose for me, I am leaving things up to chance.  But when something happens automatically with no option of choosing at all, that is an expression of essence. 

You know what they say?  You can choose your friends but you can't choose your family.  Our relationship with G-d is not solely a matter of our having been "chosen," although we are famous for it.  We are G-d's people because our bond with Him lies beyond choice.  We are G-d's children.  What makes me my father's son has nothing to do with his will.  He didn't choose me to be his child.  He exerted no will in endowing me with his DNA.  I am an extension of my father which requires no choosing at all.  I am his essence.