CHAZAQ's Torah Talks #189 Rabbi Avrohom Feldman - Bridging Purim & Pesach

why do we give sh us why do we send gifts we give presentence so that we create a connection with the other person and say I think about you I care about you we know that that's one of the keys to our Salvation is to have unity in clel the highest level of Charity is I give someone charity I don't know who I'm giving it to and they don't know where it's coming from someone who gives a mat to his friend you have to tell him who it's from and I always thought probably so the person can be able to say thank you vashi says not like that laras Reus to PR friendship you're giving it so that he knows that I care about him the salvation of the Jewish people let remember is going to be through creating AK [Music] and today's episode is sponsored by Boris M Tax planning and advisory schedule your free tax strategy session online and get started now call call us at 212 430 6881 to learn more welcome to Torah talk kak program with special guests we have with us Rabbi aam Feldman how you doing good how are you so good to see you and we're gonna be discussing bridging puim and P and before we get to the exciting topic if you get a little bit background about yourself sure um I uh grew up in Baltimore and uh learned in n and speakers Wy and Lakewood and then n so we have to mention your uncle Aon Feldman yes that is my uncle and uh so um and then I eventually um got I was involved in uh Jewish Education and ronus and I was in I was in Atlanta for for many years and then I was a rabbi in Columbus Ohio and then eventually made my way back to the uh Northeast and um currently now I'm living here que not far from you it's great to have the rabbi in town and coming to the the and giv and we really appreciate that uh so uh talking about the topic what common message is there or is there a common message theme between pm and P um yes I I think I think there is um and that is the G that says that um at the end of M Tas says when ad begins then we're suppos to increase happiness so to always be happy we're supposed to increase happiness and Rashi says there to explain that Rashi says may days of Miracles for Israel p so Rashi ties together right away he tells us that Rashi tells us there's a connection uh so I don't believe this is conjecture May which means that there Rashi understands that there is a connection between pm and pesak which is interesting in of itself um because um one might think what that might be the next thing that you may want to ask though what is what what is the connection between porm and pesak right I was going to ask you okay so the connection is the way I understand it is that may days of Miracles the there's a fundamental difference well wellknown idea that the N the Miracles on pesak and the Miracles and the miracle that happened on purm to save the Jewish people both the Miracles on PES where God took the Jewish people out of out of Egypt and the Miracle On porm which is how the story played out both for the purpose of course to save the Jewish people from being uh destroyed so but there's a difference and the difference is that on pesak the Miracles are that we talk about in the ha and we said at the Seder and we talk about the T the as the 10 plagues and we talk about Camu all those Miracles are what we call nim revealed open public obvious Miracles Lala above nature so that that is what we call wow a miracle but when we look at the story of puim the story of puim we find that if you read the story on the surface it looks okay it was one event after another and this happened to happen and this happened to happen and Esther happened to become the queen and and morai happened to overhear some important information you know a series of events that led to the Salvation of the Jewish people ultimately so so what's going on they're really two different different things so the idea is that um this is cited in several places the people quote the the the ramban at the end of Paras the ran says that that it is from the from from the public Miracles through the public Miracles a person realizes that even the quote unquote hidden Miracles or what people called tea nature is not really nature everything is a miracle and therefore the same sour Force the same being meaning God that caused the splitting of the Sea and the same God that caused that that that that uh that made the esos all those things the same source is the one that caused all these events to transpire so even though it was a hidden Miracle it's no less miraculous and as we go back to Rashi you may n they n Rashi doesn't distinguish between the N Rashi says they're exactly the same thing there is no difference between uh the sun rising the sun setting and there's absolutely no difference regardless that sometimes there are people in the world who want to explain the esos as a natural course of events and something happening in the in the ecosystem that's causing it right right wow wow very very powerful uh there are those that uh make a comment and that comment is that PM equals or is like or similar to uh something called Halloween oh yeah okay so so um yeah I certainly can understand why I guess costumes yes the costumes some candies c yeah the costumes the candies the parties masquerade parties so this is true if you look at it on the surface it certainly uh can understand why somebody would think that porm is the Jewish Halloween right um however this leads this leads into or connects to what we said before and that is some explained that the the custom to wear to wear costumes on purm comes from the idea that the whole mirac the Miracles on Pim the Salvation came about through hidden means you did not see the hand of God it wasn't God's name is not mentioned also in the Milla oh very good God's name is not mentioned in the Milla right it's to famously the Von says every time it says the king it really means God because God is orchestrating everything and but Esther the gar says the tal says the quoting the P the p in inim Deuteronomy says God says to the Jewish people there's going to be a time when you go into G your relationship with me is not going to be the same as your relationship was when it was in the bet mikdash I'm going to still be there but it's not going to be the same you're not going to see me you're not going to you're not going to it's not going to be obvious to you Torah says Pai I will certainly hide my face so the T explains a it's an illusion hidden to Esther because the whole series of events that led to the Salvation of B Israel to the Jewish people was through hidden means the Miracles were not obvious as we said before and so yes and that's the IDE so if someone looks on the surface of what PM is it's nothing it could they can look oh it's just like Halloween the way to understand puim is to look beyond the mask and that's the idea of the of dressing up on pin so it's you in order to get to the to the depths of something you have to go beyond the superficial you have to go pull away the veil pull away the m and that's how you see the Miracles of porm if you just read the story of porm it's a great read it never gets boring I love the story every single year but there there's there's so much depth to it obviously and so many hidden ideas and then that's that's the idea so it's yes it's the only way to look at it more than Halloween is to actually look to study it in depth right it's migil there Miga comes from guil which is to reveal and Esther like you just said is Hester which means so by learning the Milla you'll be able to see that which is hidden and reveal it that's the concept also that we open up the Milla completely why because if you look at a certain part of the Milla it doesn't make sense but when you open it all up you see the whole picture the whole picture everything makes sense there are many very good there are many there are many themes you know about about the idea of of the the theme of being the whole idea of porm is what's beyond the surface 100% uh there's uh so we touched on pm and uh we connected to PES beautifully the rabbi did uh if you could give some some inspiration or how to make a p meaningful okay more meaningful yeah so so I would say like this and there what could we say well let's just talk about let's focus on one one one aspect of Pak which interestingly we don't do it exactly like we used to because we don't do the carban P but the message is still there and um and we'll see I think I think it may we'll even connect to for him as well and that is so we have the carbon pesak the sacrif the the Pascal lamb as they as they call it so you have a carbon pesak that was that was the uh the main event on on pesak when we had the bet mikdash I mean it was an all day event there was even the the mishna discusses the rabis discussed how there was no room in the of the bet for everybody the courtyard for everybody to bring their sacrifices they had to they had to do it in U you know they had to do certain things to make sure everybody was able to that there was room for everybody to do it so but the the the the Sheep there's there's a theme in the carbon PES that revolves around the concept of one and unity this is not my idea this is the Mahal's idea the maral explains that the Govern PES there we find that it has to be a one-year-old lamb we also find that it has to be eaten in one group you have a group they there's a group that's they're eating the carbon PES together somebody can't break off from that group and go do it himself it has to be eaten one group together there were different groups obviously and then it also had to be roasted right barbecued roasted over a fire an open fire and not cooked so what what's this whole idea so first of all so one we has to be one years old okay it has to be also it can have any blemishes has to be complete it also has to be in one as I mentioned it has to one group it also has to be it has to be roasted what does that have to do with everything we said Till now because anybody who's cooked or barbecue notices that when you cooks when you cook meat what happens to the meat when you cook it it gets softer softer and then pulls apart when you Ro when we roast something over a fire it actually binds it binds more and more together that's what happens you roast it or try it it gets closer and closer and it binds together it's completely the opposite of being cooked it's not it's not a good it's not a cur PES if you you you can Slaughter do everything right have all the right intentions if it's cooked it's not going to work but it has to be roasted because the idea of the k p is the concept of the Jewish people being one um One Nation right all revolving around the the Oneness of God that's the idea of the of of the sacrifice on PES beautiful and the idea how do we do that there's we we do that you know there are many ways that we that we um that we're able to create one of the ways is first of all the idea is we're serving God at the same time we have to do it mean we're caring about the other person's spiritual welfare and his physical welfare that he has food to eat and that's why we start PES with the whole seder starts with we're inviting people in okay why we don't why we invite people in after we already have our guests there I'll leave that for everybody to discuss that their PES later because you know it's interesting that we invite everyone and not inviting anybody but that's you could do that for somebody else for another podcast why we do that okay but but the idea is that we have to that we have to that that's the idea of of the p is that we have this unity and that's also Pur also is revolves around that one we have obviously one of the themes of the day one of the the mitzvot of the day is sh sh why do we give sh sending gifts to one why we send gifts right to give to to promote re to PR promote Unity we know that that's that's one of the one of the keys to our Salvation is to have unity in clel we give presence so that we create a connection with the other person and say I think about you I care about you and it's interesting there's a gumar that says that when when someone in contrast to Sedaka whereas in charity the highest level of Charity is I give someone charity and I don't know who I'm giving it to Hidden and they don't know that it's coming where it's coming from right that's the highest level highest level but what it says someone who gives a to his friend you have to tell him who it's from why you have to tell him it's who it's from and I always thought probably so the person can be able to say thank you but Rashi says not like that Rashi in says to promote friendship he should know that it came from me you're giving it so that he knows that I care about him and that's exactly what what what what they what they what they decreed give the salvation of the Jewish people but remember is going to be through creating 100% beautiful besides from on Perm there's also so that that's what Esther did why because before that what was the comment that there are scattered Nation they were weren right right that's the idea of unity as well yeah right to be United to be one to be together and I also saw and heard something beautiful once trying to remember from who but the concept is beautiful and that is that you prepare your your list of gifts of who you're giving it out to take it and rip it up whoever is not on the list is where you should give it out create ra to create friendship and L uh beautiful Rabbi Felman a very very nice inspiring messages and gems we have a minaga which is a final message for our broad audience okay the the final messag is well first of all thanks for having me on should have said that first um I think that you know in light of this idea of giving shos it just what comes to mind is first of all to you know to take the concept the idea is to take what the Y the messages of of the y p p and take it with us into everyday life and one way to be let's talk about being Mar right creating more Unity creating more friendship in clol you know some times let's say my level of is between a scale of 1 to 10 so I'm doing a six level let someone is so it it reminds me of the in one of the umic sources of there's a conversation that IO job who was known as the person that suffered the most so much you know terrible terrible tragedies and financial distress and physical distress and he says to God I don't understand why this is happening to me did I not feed those who are hungry did I not did I not give food um did I not give did I not give wine to those that were thirsty or give water to those that were thirsty and God responds well once you're bringing up the subject okay yeah true you did that but you're not even close to Abino so he says why says Abu Abraham said though Abraham to people that he normally gave barley bread he gave wheat bread to people that were that were that normally drank a certain level of wine he gave them a better wine and but you Io Io you you did what you were supposed to do and not only that you were Mar people you did K right but you did like kak does what did he do he went out if you waited for people to come and you did it he looked for opportunities proactively right so the idea is whatever Sedaka that that uh whatever that we're going to do wherever we are try to do a little bit more that's the message do a little bit more and that's what that's what God wants from us to do a little bit more than we used to doing did job did great things he gets a Mitzvah but the highest level what is telling us the highest level is to is to do extra like AB did amazing powerful powerful powerful powerful RAB amazing amazing Torah talk we just had with RAB AB Feldman and we want to thank the various different platforms that host kazak Tor talks and a special thank you to our friends at Torah anytime also thank you to our friends at Daily giving a dollar a day goes 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