Purim, Politics, and the Pawns of Hashem {Manhattan Highschool For Girls}

this Tower class is brought to you by torahanytime.com we have the really I guess awesome pleasure for those girls who told that they're very excited because they remember how much they enjoyed very Gladstone speech last year on the same um thank you girls for standing you can be seated for a moment on the same um I guess concept of McGillis a circuit with a new theme of course for this year and um it really isn't supposed to have somebody who authored a book and we're so happy to have his books and I think that every single one of you should buy it it will enhance your aquarium um where my bike lasting is also a RAV in the five towns somewhere and it was a pleasure to welcome you to our schools thank you how are we doing Steph how long do I have um good afternoon everyone I'm very excited to speak here today aside from the fact that Purim is by far my favorite yamtif actually you know the makubalum say that Purim is the source of all the yamantiven stands for pesach of course race actually asks I mean is that a joke buff stands for visukois and he has a whole lengthy Exposition how sukis is exemplified by the letter Above So Purim is really the source of all simcha for the entire year but for me personally my grandparents are Holocaust Survivors my grandfather passed away two years ago at the age of 106 he was in Auschwitz he was in Dachau and he was born his brismilo was on tinysaster and his name was Mordechai and he faced the Nazis he saw aichmann he saw Dr Mengele so he saw Malik he defeated amalek his name was Mordechai he was a great hero of the Jewish people so for me Purim is the celebration of my my family's salvation as it is the celebration of the Salvation of Allah Israel and you know the gamara tells us so I was expecting I remember last year everybody was in costume in honor of my Russia but I'm here today to tell you it's never too early when does that begin when do we start rejoicing in adarsky says well technically this year they're two days of so there's Tuesday and Wednesday where Abrahim says you don't start until Wednesday because Tuesday is still the last day of the previous month Wednesday is the first day of Adar so begins however says when Adar has reached it says when it enters and other already enters by the moylad of the levano and the when the moon is born which happens even before and actually RAB nebenzal writes Ador Marvin starts Shabbos already begins some say that when the first Speaker starts to speak about other we could ready kick off that's my personal opinion okay we're off to a very good start every single Master Chavis in Abdullah we say aposik from them it's very interesting that of all the hot Tanakh the Posse that we invoke is Esther as if we need to connect every day of our life with the story of Purim we could recite many many but specifically the simha the Sasa in vikar also interesting I try to bring in a specimen but it's too early in the year you know the basically safe rights that the Besame most people use cloves the basically safe rights you should use hadassem that's what I do after circus is over I take off the hadasim from the dalod meaning she also does that and and I put it in the cloves that's what the basically sip writes you have to be careful begins every single Master Shabbos you smell the hadasim and the base says you remind yourself of Esther in fact the first says the two flames of havdala represent the flame of March so it's very interesting we have a ritual every single matzo Shabbos we recite a positive from the Magilla we remember Esther by putting the hadassem and the basam we remember Esther with the two flames of the Abdullah why every mother shabis do we invoke do we remember do we think about the story of Purim now there's something very interesting because if you look in myself the Magilla the Magilla observes that when Mordecai wanted to legislate the antifa Purim he said let's make mishta party simcha a feast the yomptuf and yamta means it's a Prohibition to do malacha but when Mordechai established it he established it as a mishta the simcha um because they never established Purim as a yamta perms not a yamtif you're allowed to do malachan Purim so the gumara asks why didn't they establish puramaziyamtif says the gemara the Jewish people did not want Purim to be a yamta and that's astounding who wouldn't want another yamtif on the calendar why wouldn't we have accepted Purim as yamtv I mean an extra day to rest and yet the gemara says clausius will specifically did not want Purim to be a yamtif let's try to understand that why Kaliso did not want Purim to be a young kid so today I want to tell you about a politician he's a very interesting politician a world leader he surprisingly comes to the scene his status as a world leader is questionable based on his birth he's back and forth with the taxes first he gives a a respite on the taxes and then he hires the taxes and of course we're talking about the story of akashvaroys who gives respite on the taxes he raises the taxes and as The Story Goes history repeats itself but there's a very important lesson that many a very few people pick up on in the story of Miguel Assessor do you remember the gemara the gemara asks we're what what's all that noise can we find the name Esther and Lincoln Mark says very simply has there is and I will hide my face from them on that day and the Gamora asks where is there a remem by the sin of the forbidden fruit where Hashem tells us this is one of the most well-known gamoras about puram we have a minolon about everybody where is Haman where is Esther where is Mordechai the gamar even asks where's my shirabino my shopping his name is 613 times what do you mean where's my shopping and there's one individual who's conspicuously absent from this discussion there's one person who the gemara does not bother to ask me no one where is the guy why doesn't the gumara asked so my son said what do you mean you think you're gonna actually find somewhere in the Hamish I mean that's a mouthful where are you gonna find that in the Tyron but still on a deeper level why does the gemara not ask why is there no REM is and then you have shoshana sakov so after the Magilla Minogue Israel is we say if we talk about all the characters of the Purim story we say Esther go Esther brookhaster even carvana we throw the guy a bone and there's one person conspicuously absent from shouldn't we say something about throw him something why hazakash Vero has been left out of shoshana why is he not in the Torah is and this brings us to one of the most important principles in yahados because the truth is this he's a strange character he does very bizarre things he has a party for 180 days who makes a party for 180 days most people at the end of a wedding they have to go on vacation for a week that's one night a week of partying a month of partying 180 days I think it's fair to say la havdil you know in all of Shakespeare's plays there's always a character that provides comic relief if anyone ever made a play out of the Purim story akashvirus would have to be the comic relief character I mean the things that he dreams up of imagine if somebody would come to me gladstein we want to reward you please you're invited to the White House and the president of the United States he comes to me and he shakes my hand and he says gladstein here we want to reward you you're gonna you're gonna put on my suit I don't want to wear a suit it's not gonna fit me what kind of reward why would ahasperos give Mordechai the Royal robe the Royal Horse I mean who needs it if you want to give someone a present I'm sure Mordecai could have come up with many ways that he would have selected to be rewarded where did dream up of this plan to let Mordechai wear his clothing I mean everything he does is unusual is bizarre you know the gemara says he's a fool actually if you look in the garage whether the party he made for the residents of shushan was that good idea or bad idea but RAB Schwab says that's only regarding that party but regarding every other thing this man did he was insane and this teaches us a very important lesson that politics world events leaders of countries they don't follow regular patterns of nature it's unpredictable and usually the surprising happens you know Harry Truman is best remembered by Jews for being the first to come forth and recognize the state of Israel and its infancy he was the first to give audience to the first king of first president of Israel president Weitzman and for that he's remembered the world over with much gratitude but there's a little footnote in history because Truman's wife was a big anti-semite she didn't allow Jews into her home but Truman before he became a president you know what he did he owned the borsolino store seriously in Independence Missouri he owned the Haberdashery a hat store and it was an abysmal failure who in Missouri wears hats there are no yeshivas around and this ill-fated business was so bizarre he was so bad at selling hats but he acquired a very dear friend Eddie Jacobson a Jewish guy and somehow you know he was incompetent in business so if you're in confident in business there's always politics and somehow Truman went into politics he became the president of the United States had Truman not become president if Roosevelt would still have been president he probably would not have recognized the state of Israel Roosevelt had every opportunity to bomb the concentration camps and he bombed around the camps instead of bombing the camps but Truman was very connected to Eddie Jacobson and Jacobson begged Truman do me a favor meet president Weitzman and Truman had to bring him in outside of his house because the wife didn't want a Jew into the house and Jacobson said please do me a favor just meet Truman and because of that very strange friendship that Truman had with Eddie Jacobson that led to Truman's recognition of the state of Israel and that of course is the reason why Yeshiva bahram wear hats today and gratitude to President Truman but that's a little footnote in history what you have expected that the Fate of the Jewish people and Eric Israel should rest in the friendship of a president with somebody who he bought a hat store with you know the fall of the tsars during the Russian Revolution was also through a very unusual twist in history so Alexander died and his son Nicholas took over Nicholas was completely incompetent and Tsar Nicholas had a son his son was a hemophiliac he couldn't stop bleeding now they just discovered the reason he couldn't stop bleeding is because he was taking a few aspirins every day they thought it was making him better but it was making him bleed to death and Alexander didn't know what to do Nicholas didn't know what to do with his son so he meets this con artist this Mystic healer his name was Gregory Rasputin and you can look at pictures of him with the big wizard's hat he looks like he's straight out of Harry Potter and the Tsar Azar Nicholas ignored all of his father's advisors he could have been led by his father's advisors and led Russia to great power instead he put his fate in the hands of an absolute kook named Gregory Rasputin who brought down the czars could you imagine the greatest power in the world was brought down by a clown named Gregory Rasputin the point is the politics of the world are not predictable and when it comes to world leaders here's the lesson they are irrelevant there is no entity called president prime minister they are Pawns in the hands of Hashem Hashem manipulates them wherever he needs to how often do we get caught up in election in politic oh if only our man would be in the white house if only our man would be in the office give the Republic some more credit than needing your candidate to bring blessing to the Jewish people does anybody know who else recognized the state of Israel the greatest butcher in the history of the world Stalin Stalin made Hitler seem like a decent guy Stalin killed 20 million of his own people but he got into his head we spoke about this last year he got into his head that if Israel is a socialist country it will be a communist country and if it's a communist country they're better off than the Brits in the Middle East so Stalin when the Jews were about to lose the war of independence Stalin funded Israeli Independence and then he voted to recognize the state of Israel it's irrelevant to the leader is we need to know about Mordechai that Sadiq we can learn from his behavior we need to know about Esther we can learn it from her righteousness we need to know about Hama the wicked man we need to know what not to do but the politician the world leader is merely a poem in the hands of the Republic but we often don't see this you see we live in a world where we're so bombarded with messages and media and buzzing and dinging and news that our hearts and our minds and our eyes are so clouded from seeing the yada Sham in this world the best thing that a person could do to recognize that colors borrow food today is to take a little break from the technology and the buzzing and the dinging and the media and take a deep breath and take a step bath and watch how the ribunasham is pulling the strings I'll give you an example In 1902 and I'm not here to talk about hashcafa of the state of Israel you could speak to your teachers in ramayan I'm just here to report the facts in the beginning of the 20th century Theodore herzl asked the Kaiser okay this we're talking 48 years before the establishment of the state of Israel he said Kaiser the leader of the austro-hungarian Empire what are the chances that the Jewish people could establish a Homeland in the state of Israel in Palestine the Kaiser left Mr herzl three World Empires would have to crumble before you could even begin to think about struggling for Jewish Independence the occupier of Palestine the Ottoman Empire would have to be defeated thesaurus Russia which guarantees Jerusalem for the Eastern Orthodox Church would have to capitulate the German Empire which guarantees Palestine would have to collapse 20 years later Ottoman Empire was no longer the czars fell and then Germany Lost World War II and then the Brits left the Suez Canal if somebody would have bet in the year 1910 what is the likelihood that the Jewish people have Independence in the land of Israel it would not have been one percent it wouldn't have been point zero zero zero one percent it would have been impossible so we don't worry when any individual is sitting in office because Republic loves those people they're the best pawns they pack the best surprise but you should know even herzl who fought for Israeli Independence three barisham uses him as a pawn as well because in 1902 he testified before the British royal Commission and he offered Zionism as the solution to all the immigrants that were coming to Britain and you know the Brits couldn't take the fact that Eastern European Jews were crowding the country so they said herzl you know what we make the following proposal instead of giving you Palestine will give you Uganda a country in Africa which herzl accepted he imposed on the Zionist Congress to accept Uganda God said I'm done with you and herzl died at the age of 44 very soon after all of these great leaders are merely Pawns in the hands of Hashem he moves them one step he moves them two steps until he's done with them that is how we have to learn from the Purim story there is there is no president in the Torah they are merely poems in the hands but I want to make this a little bit more personal because until now we're speaking about the national salvation of the Jewish people Hashem moves world leaders to bring Salvation to all of claw Israel now let's talk about me and you let's talk about us as individuals the gemara says to rise to power it was only after these matters after what matters after Mordechai overheard the plan to assassinate the king and after Esther was selected as the queen and everything was put into place to orchestrate your salvation only then the Revenge some allowed Haman to rise to power says the gemara trila God does not bring challenge to the Jewish people until he first creates the salvation says the stipler going this is not only on a national level this is on an individual level as well any challenge a person goes through in life any difficulty family emotional any difficulty in life any hurdle in life it's not that Hashem brings a hurdle and then we dab in Hashem please create a Salvation please create a refua no the revolution doesn't operate that way first he creates the refua and only then does he bring the difficulty says the stipler how encouraging this is because often in life we think we have a problem we have an issue we have a difficulty there's no way out it's impossible and we give up hope but says the stipler if we would only recognize not only is there a way out Hashem creates the remedy and the way out even before he creates the problem 17 years old he's the favorite son of his father he learns everything from his father he's next in line it's going to be avraham yes and the next thing he knows he's being sold to Egypt he's on the bottom of a pit with snakes with scorpions and he's on the way to Egypt and he's in his master's house and then his master's wife accuses him and he's in the bottom of the jail well let's think a little bit about what the Revenge song did for Yosef and he did for Claudia mustered up the inner strength to resist the temptation of Asia's poitifera and he ran outside he ran out many hundreds of years later the Jewish people are going to be standing at the sea the Egyptians on one side the Sea on the other side with no way out and God says to the Sea see move and she said I don't move I stay in one place God said remember what yaseef did you always safe ran out from isha's poetifera you need to flee from before the Jewish people and the entire Jewish people three million people were saved why because of your safe yoise probably thought his life is coming to an end he has this challenge he has this difficulty God is abandoning him no God's not abandoning him three months from this grooming you're safe preparing your safe so that he could have the zukus to ultimately be the cause of the Salvation of the entire Jewish people and when Joseph was on the bottom of the pit what did the brothers do to Yosef the brothers grabbed his begotten and they tore his begotten and yoi sips on the bottom of the pit and Joseph may be thinking to himself I'm being kidnapped I may die soon my whole Destiny has been shattered but think about what the revolution is doing for yourself says having His Garment torn Joseph is now able to overcome the Messiah of his begotten so that a little bit later on when Asia's poiti Farah comes Yosef says oh I've done that already I've already been mascara over that kind of nisayan and Joseph is able to overcome Asia's poetifera so even though you say falling on the bottom of the pit it seems like everything is coming to an end the rebarsham is grooming your safe preparing yourself endowing him with the ability to overcome the future tests so that hundreds of years later when the Jewish people are at the sea they could summon up this and we go to Freedom not only does we Bunch some bring us salvation brings us the Salvation from The Challenge Hashem saved the Jewish people through all the difficulties but let's go back to the bottom of the pit for one more minute Joseph's lying there on the bottom of the pit what's on the bottom of the pit the plastic says they're snakes and scorpions snakes and scorpions are not pleasant company what do you think was going through yosef's mind at that time was he throwing in the towel perhaps you're safe if you look in parakshira we know that all of creation sings shiratasan what does the snake say the snake says God supports all those who are Fallen what does the Scorpion say oil safe understood Joseph recognized that it looks like his life is coming to an end it looks like his Destiny is being shattered but you always safe recognize Israel ELO and Kane always creates the remedy before the melody brings the Salvation from The Challenge and you're safe on the bottom of the pit he hears the nachar saying God supports the Fallen he hears the Scorpion saying God is good to everyone he's merciful on all of his creations from McGillis Esther we understand that all the challenges of the Jewish people Hashem has already taken care of beforehand you just have to open up your eyes Hashem don't not save us open up our eyes so that we could see your salvation every single massage it's a big Downer it's a downer we smell the summon because we lose the nashama yasera we lose the extra soul but you know there's one day a year that we never separate from there's one day a year we're always connected to the mikubalem teach us that the reason why hazal the reason why the Jewish people didn't want Purim to be a yamta you know why we don't want perm to be a yamtive because if it's a yum diff you know what you have to do after Purim you have to make half a dollar you have to separate from it and we cannot bring ourselves to separate from param the encouragement the amuna the consolation that we get from the Purim story is something we live something we breathe we can't go a day of our life without thinking about Purim so it comes matsushabis and we have to take leave up Shabbos but we say you know what there's one day a year we don't have to take leave of foreign we take the hadasim and we remember Esther hamaka we look at the flame the two flickers of the flame martach and we have emunosh that yes Haman is uh something to be reckoned with we learn from non-entity he's just a pawn in the hand of Hashem and if the ribana some we pray then opens up our eyes to see how he's pulling the strings in the National Destiny of the Jewish people to see how he's pulling the strings in every detail of our life how one day we will see that every challenge in our life every difficulty in our life not hashem's going to help us overcome how that was the source of our greatest success so it was really a pleasure to share a few Thoughts with you today and to kick off that just like brought Yeshua is in the times of Purim which is amen thank you thank you you've just experienced another Torah class brought to you by torahanytime.com