Evil and Hester are interlinked. The Midrash notes:

As long as the seed of Amalek exists in the world, it is as though a cover hides the face of the Divine.
-Pesikta⁵⁵⁴

Moses Hayyim Luzzatto directly interlinks kabbalistic Divine contraction (tsimtsum) and evil, although from a different perspective than ours. As Scholem notes in commenting on this point, “The metaphysical root of evil is inherent in the very act of privation that the act of zimzum [tsim-tsum] involves.” ⁵⁵⁵

But is the contracted Divine consciousness impervious to the travail of Israel?

There the angel of the Lord appeared to him in a flame of fire out of the midst of the bush: he [Moses] looked, and there was the bush burning with fire-yet the bush was not consumed.
-Exodus 3:2

Among the several Midrashim on the burning bush which Nehama Leibowitz cites is the following:

Don’t you feel that I suffer anguish when Israel does? Know, therefore, from the character of the place from which I am speaking to you, out of the thornbush, that I, as it were, share their suffering. ⁵⁵⁶