Rabbi Menachem Nissel on there's Something Fishy about Adar

uh reminding no smoking is allowed in the auditorium. Um I just wanted to thank Hashem publicly. Um started the month with an open miracle. Literally an open miracle always said this is a it's not a suggestion. It's not a description. We have an obligation to increase. So um I had just had an amazing miracle literally 20 minutes ago and I want to share with you. I found instant parking. Okay, this is not normal. Okay, I just I came in, somebody moved out. I moved in. I said, "Hashem, is this some kind of a prank? Am I going to come out and get a ticket? What's going on over here?" But I was told that everything's good. My pango is working. So, this is going to be an amazing share. I just feel incredibly positive vibes. There's a the faint smell of cheese of cream cheese and bagels in the air. So, life cannot possibly get better. Um, I just also wanted to share that um um I have a story. I always like to begin with the story, but I want to apologize. I'm going to leave you on a cliffhanger because the point of the story is going to be at the end of my presentation where it's going to be very clear why I chose this story. And my story is in a city called Prague. And the year was 2011. What happened was I was with a group of men. Uh these men were friends. I'm not going to give more details because by definition there are people here that know them. My Memphis friends will know them. And uh they came to have a good time spending Shabas in Prague. And when they're away from their wives, strange things happens. I don't want you to think too much about what happens when your husbands go on like men's trips, but I could just say that basically the the maturity level plummets. And well, >> yeah, there's a lot of like he knows looks on your faces. And bottom line is is that Friday night we're going to eat at the American ambassador who happened to be a friend of one of the people in our group. We're going to eat in his house a Friday night shabas meal. And on Shabas Friday afternoon while we were pressing on chalant literally freshing I I don't want to begin some of them did not even bother using a knife and fork. They were just putting their hands get the wives are not here. Let's just get into this and one it occurred to them that they have never ever been to the residence of an ambassador and they had to figure out how exactly should we behave. So they turned to me being British. Where are you people? Where are my fellow citizens? >> There we go. Okay. So, there's a thing that the Americans um it's there's there there's a learning curve. You'll get there one day. It's called um being civilized and um >> with that with that you're about to make my point, right? You guys get >> Yeah. So, well, and uh and etiquette and they wanted to know is there anything that they need to know? So, I said tons. There's only tons that I can teach you. And I taught them start off with the basics. Elbows off the table. They did not know what elbows off the table mean. Like it was a whole big thing for them. And slowly but surely I graduated to the main point I wanted to make. And that is there's a thing called a toast. Now for us Brits uh when I was growing up it was her majesty was still around and it always like you know somebody with a deep gravity go to her majesty the queen and everyone go her majesty the queen and then they would drink the glass of wine. I said, "It's very important you get it right." I showed them how to hold the glass with the pinky out. Everything Everything was according to plan. Friday afternoon, we go in our minivan. Those of you who have been to Prague, you know it's an exceedingly beautiful city. And it's incredibly beautiful to watch as the sun sets as you go up to the hill over there behind Prague where you find the various residences of various ambassadors. And finally, we get to the gate of the ambassador. Now, a little bit of background. You can look this up on Wikipedia to see this extraordinary story, but this was not just a regular ambassadorial residence. Um, according to Wikipedia, none of my information is particularly researched. I'm not going to lie to you. supposed to be the second most beautiful American ambassador residence after Paris because basically after the war um the checks owed everything to the Americans who had liberated them and they said take what you want and they found this villa which ironically was built by a a yid a Jew called Otto Petrick. He built this beautiful beautiful um villa. He called it the the palace. It was called the Autopatrick Palace and he built this beautiful thing. The Americans took it over and this became a flash point during the great revolution. Vaklav Havo, those of you that remember the history when communism was uh transferred to democracy. So that particular villa was in the news, a lot of action, very very exciting. And this is the place that we were visiting. We come in and this huge gate opens up. We walk in, start walking on this gravel, and we don't actually know where to go. And then suddenly a man appears. And this man is a little bit looked like he was from a horror movie. I cannot begin to tell you. It was like the opening scene of the hunchback of Notraam. And he sort of he's walking towards us slowly and he says in the most scariest voice, "If you want to see the ambassador, you must follow me." So, we walk in and lo and behold, we find ourselves in this huge massive room that looked straight out of Beauty and the Beast. You could not even see the ceiling. There were books everywhere. It was oldtime beautiful furniture. And we're marveling at this place. And then suddenly, like Willy Wonka out of nowhere, he cartwheelled in and said, "Hi, everybody. I'm the ambassador of the United States of America. So, I'm thinking to myself, you know, an ambassador uh is probably his name is like James or Charles. He's got a he's got to have some kind of like a proper Richard Junior, even better, right? Something, you know, super waspy and how crushed was I when he said to me, "His name is Norman." Okay. Oh my. Okay. It's almost he could have said like Bart, you know, those kind of names. Okay. What Frank? It was such a disappointment. and uh his wife was Linda. I was about to find out that these were two of the most remarkable people I have met, you know, in years. Um they were Jewish. Obviously, the family name was Eisen. And uh what I did not know is that they had gone through the cha process and he had actually spent time in where I was a teacher at the time. So this was extraordinary cool and he says he starts giving out all these all these sedor. says, "Who's going to do Kabalat Shabbat?" and everything like that. And off we went. And then the creepy guy comes back and says, "If you would like to join us for dinner, you must follow me." So we follow this guy and Beauty and the Beast just changes into like a scene from Cinderella. This is like in this beautiful ballroom and all these waiters and waiters and fancy schmancy. And I actually it was such a shame that I first of all I I keep shabas and I don't like to steal. But boy did I want to take there was a little plaque in silver engraved with my name on it uh with the United States insignia. Oh what what would I have done to have this on my desk and turns out I was sitting opposite um the the the ambassador and his rabbitson because very simple reason they had they had seen our passports and they saw that I was the oldest person in the group. Woohoo. Go me. I was the ala and they sing shim and they uh they make kesh and the food is the kabar guy he's made this incredible thing. Linda told me, Linda, by the way, kept a con a connection with me. Kept a kesha with me for quite a while afterwards, sending me questions on Kish, extremely intelligent lady. And um it was just a beautiful shabas people were singing and everything. But at some point, I knew it was going to happen. And Norman gets up and turns to Lynn and says, "We need to do this. We need to explain to our guests why we're here." Now, it wasn't just us that was there. This place was filled with um Jews from the city and uh there was an American think tank of Jewish people from Princeton that was there. The Israeli ambassador was there as well playing with his phone under the table. I like whatever it was it was a thing. It was a whole It was a whole spiel. And he says, "We've got to do this. We've got to do and and I could tell that suddenly both of them were getting extremely nervous. They're going to make a toast." And at this point now, you know, we're all getting ready for the toast. We know this is the big deal. All my friends are holding their cups with their little pinkies out. They're very excited. And no one begins and says, "I want to explain to you why you are all here today. We didn't just decide to invite you tonight. There's a reason. There's a story behind this. There's a death story. And I want to share it with you right now." Now, how cruel is this that I'm about to stop the story right now? First of all, it keeps you in suspense. No one's going to leave. So, you all captive audiences. But I promise you, I promise you this is going to be worth it. The story is epic. And um it's um I found out last night because I wanted to I wanted to remind myself of the details. They actually wrote a book about the story. And uh you can get it on Amazon. You really can. I did not know this till about 1:00 last night in the morning. You can get it on Amazon. So, let me get to my point over here. We're now beginning the month of Adar. Um you all know that Adar is the last of the 12 months. So when created the world and he created time, he created the days of the week and he also created months and he made the month of Ad the climactic month at the end of a 12-month process that begins with Nissan. As I always like to say, the year begins with four cups of wine, each one in exactly the right place. Everything has to have its right mock home, its right moment and then at the end we drink wine until everything becomes this magical haze. And the month of Adar is not just the last month in the calendar. It also contains the last festival, the last festival in Jewish history. Meaning if you're reading Tanakh, you're reading the story lines of Tanakh. We have a lot a lot of incredible stories. The last one, the climactic story in our scriptures is the poor story. And it's the rabbis tell us because this belongs to the end of days. This is the story that belongs to the end of days. And here we are. Um my my esteemed ladies, we are in the month of Adar both literally and conceptually because I don't have to tell anyone in this room living here in Israel how end of days are the times that we're living in. I had a very dark thought as I was driving here. I apologize. It's a little dark thought. Um I grew up in London in 19 I'm going to just let me just say in my shore a lot of people walked around with numbers on their forearm and hendas there was it was a lot of people that I grew up with the Holocaust. My parents my mom got out after Crystal Nash so she managed to make it to England time. My father um fought in the Hagana. He was whatever he there's a lot of stories that we have. I grew up dur knowing about anti-semitism in my blog. What has changed today is that in those days anti-semitism was mainly an East European phenomena. That's what it was. Of course, the Germany and of course the Poles and the the Tuanians and the Hungarians and the Ukrainians were happy to join in. But America was good. England was good. the there were parts of the world that were very very very proud to have their Jews. Today we have something crazy going on. We're literally against any rational explanation. Anti-semitism exists all the way from Bondai all the way to Vancouver. It doesn't matter where you are on this planet. They don't like us. And it's not like they don't like us for a reason. There's no way you can explain why a country like Iceland or Finland uh will insist that if Israel goes to the Eurovvision, we're not there. How do you know to hate us? Where where do you get this from to hate us? >> So anti-semitism is now a global thing. And I thought literally as I was driving here, when's the last time that anti-semitism was truly truly global? And the answer is H. Because in those days, the Gomorrah tells us Akashes basically ran the whole world. And he had 127 nations, which was the world at that time. Then the world as we know it. And Hmon created this whole operation where every single one of the 127 nations would be filled with his Amalachite henchmen so that no Jew could escape. He had to figure out a system how to kill. He wasn't going to be wimpy like Yashimo Hitler. He wanted to do it in one day that every single Joe Jew should know exactly. We should know where they are, where to find them, who's who the murderer is going to be. So that when the sun is set, it's over with. There not a single Jew left. So he had this planned out. It must have been a master masterful operation in trying to figure out how to do this. But it was set to the point that the Jews were completely and totally um um accepting that without something extraordinary happening from above, there's no way according to the laws of nature, every single one of them will not make it into the 14th of Ada. So, it's like a crazy thing that here we are again. We're back to this 127 nations of the world, the United Nations, everyone. Um um the um I think I'm saying Francesca Albanese, the repator of the United Nations. I think that she she's got to get some kind of a prize for the most awesome line. I think you got to hand it to her. This is a great line. She said, and I quote, "Israel is the common enemy of humanity." Okay, right on lady. Okay, because we represent everything. We we I'm sorry with the sugula. Like, what am I supposed to tell you? It happens to be that way. but that she said it and that's the world that we live in. So, it's good for us to study the month of Adar because the month of Adar has a lot of clues about number one what we're up here against and secondly of what we should be doing or what we can be doing to be able to hasten the final final process of the to bring the Mashiach. The place to begin to understand a Jewish month is the safer. Why do I say this? because in anyone that opened up any of the this is how they always begin. Um, soak coin I've been been I've been going over him recently again. So I'm very into this every opportunity he starts off and explains the month that safi let me just back up and give you a the backtory of the safy. We have a tradition that the safi was written by au if it's true or it's not true makes a difference. It is a foundational cababalistic uh textbook um with with the has commentaries from like the rivet. The rivet lived in provenance in the 12th century. It go it's an ancient ancient document and there it goes through in chapter five it goes through the 12 months of the year how god created months. So months were actually a creation and each month came with as you all know there's a constellation in the sky. So tonight when you look up in the sky, you will see the beginning of the formation of Pisces. Okay? The the fish um is about to appear and in our traditionist, we're going to see in a moment there's two fish. It's two fish, not two fishes, right? I'm trying to speak to my right. It's going like this in two opposite directions. And this is it. So tonight you can you should be able to check it out. the first um the first 12th of the night. You see the muzzle of Dougim rising. So the title is of this class is there's something fishy about Adar. I apologize. A dad is a dad is a dad with his dad jokes. This is what I wanted to talk about. So you got the fish. Now let me give you the full sentence translation in he made the letter k the king of this month and expresses itself through the power of laughter he created fish in the skies in the world and adar in time I just want to just break this down to you he says over here there's three things you need to know I because of the talk. I would love to explain to you properly what it means but each one of the 12 months was created with a letter of the alphabet. Um for those that you know the this is the sapi is brought down in the kuzari. So the kuzer is translated by feline. There's a whole section where he talks about god created the 22 letters he created with the alf and the me and the shin. He created alf was for h which is fire. men was for water and and um um emshime and then shin is is excuse me shin is a is a alf is ar which is earth these the three the three and a which is ruach excuse me so ru mim and a were the first three letters then was called the letters that receive a dog beet kapurus based on kaf they are he created the seven days of the week in time and the seven planets in space it's a whole spiel don't even bother taking notes It's complicated, but there's there's 12 letters left after that. Seven and three and then 12. And the last of the letter that's available is the kof with the letter k. He created the month of had. So kuf is the last available letter for creating months and with that he created the month of he created each one of the 12 months comes with an emotion. So says that is how we feel in the inside is how we express it on the outside. There's other ways of contrasting simra with but this is perfect for my class. The is the expression of the inner simra and then you have adar in time. So what I want to do is um I I'm just going to tell you right up front where I'm going with this class or it's the basic theme. I'm going to show you what the theme is and then I'm going to break it down into its parts. I want to show you that there's a common theme between fish and the letter cuff and the emotion of laughter that they both express extremes. Okay? They are both ideas of extremities, something exaggerated, something beyond the norm. And as we're going to see in a moment, they are extremes in both directions. They are extremely extremely dangerous when abused and extremely extremely beautiful and exhilarating when used in the proper way. But all the concepts connected to the month Adar belong to the end of days belong to the last month of the year belong to the last festival of the Jewish calendar. Because as anyone has seen any movie film, excuse me, for the Brits, anyone has seen anything in their lives, they know that a good action movie, everything at the end, you know, the battle of Hogwarts, you know, when it finally happens, when everything falls into place, uh the I don't know which era we're we're dealing over here, ask your kids about the battle of Hogwarts. Um, whatever it is, some of your kids are still mourning, right? The death of of a Weasley, whatever it is, okay? It's it doesn't make any difference. Bottom line is every good action series has to have a grand finale and Purim is the sherish is the seed of the grand finale and it seems to be that the world is now warming up and uh hopefully we're there at the very last scene. So we are living in Jewish history everything about the month of Hadah. Let's break this down step by step and let's ask ourselves what do we know about water? What do we know about laughter? And what do we know about the letter cof? So in Jewish theology, water is the element of connection. >> Excuse me. Can you speak into the microphone? >> Yes. I'm sorry. Okay. I apologize. >> I just thought it's like when I speak in the microphone, I get this urge to sing, which will be what? >> Somewhere over the rainbow. Okay. See, I just lost everything. I lost the whole vibe. I can't help it. Never give a rabbi a mic. Okay. Is this I I I apologize. Um so, so let's go through this step by step. I want to go through water. I want to go through laughter and I'm going through the letter cuff. Water is the element of connection. Just like fire is the element of disconnection. Take anything that's joined together, put it in the fire, it falls apart. Water is those of you that make hala. So you take the flower, thousands of small particles disconnected, water, it puts it together and makes it one. Um, water connects literally. So um, if your child leaves the tap in the bath, the bathtub and goes out for the evening and and you greet him with a carving knife. Okay? Because every single part of your house is now connected with water. This is basically what a flood is that the the the flood water belongs inside a river when it floods or the ocean floods. So it literally finds everything nooks and crannies that you didn't even know you had. It's the power of water. Water is the great connect of everything. And in in in sense it is something extremely extremely beautiful because water is compared to Tyra. This is in sharim the great abundance of water is um something that is incredibly powerful that is the great connector of the Jewish people. It is the spiritual seed that brings everything together. And we always talk about and I quote now from everything in life all the rivers go towards the sea and ultimately the great sea in the last 1,000 years of history corresponding to the great shabas at the end of days the world is covered in water. Do not take that literally and you can if you want but the idea is everything becomes connected. Everything becomes one. So water has this incredibly powerful um connecting property, but more than that, the creature that belongs to water is is the fish. It's why um my custom is to have fish all three of the Shabbat meals, the Shabas meals, because Shabas corresponds to that time when the world is covered with water. And therefore, the fish is the creature of water. And there's something incredibly beautiful about fish. Um, besides the taste, when my wife makes the fish, okay, those of you, whatever style you you do, a good Moroccan fish or a good whatever it is, it I I can't vouch for the gapilta fish, okay? It's all honestly, it still has some memories for me. What >> it triggers me from >> Yeah. Whatever it is, okay, especially if I have any sphartic sisters in the room, stay away. Stick to your Moroccan fish. It's awesome. But the point is is that when fish is done well, it's not just tasty. Fish represent connection. What does it mean that fish represent connection? So the Talmud brings down his once again want to give you the exact quote over here. We'll start off with Yosephiku. The word to flourish and the word dog are synonymous. They are the same word. So the idea of something flourishing but it's something to flourish it has to be away from the eye has to be away from eye and horror and therefore what happens under the sea under the sea is hidden none of our business >> of your time watching videos. >> Pretty much. >> Yeah pretty much. What can I tell you? Thank you for putting me in my place. Um, so but the point is >> connect to the children. >> The children. >> No, I actually enjoy it. I'm not going to lie. >> So, so but I do believe I probably saw that that under the sea on a on an anti-what in Memphis. As a matter of fact, I did and I remember being traumatized by that that that the bad creature. I forgot what it was. And then I read apparently it was redone which I can't understand why you take something perfect and then you go and ruin it with uh with be great actresses. But the point is let me stay focused because I I'm running out of time and it's a very very good share. I need to stay focused. Thank you. Um fish are the great connectors. >> Sorry the connection between flourish and duck. >> Yes. So that was exactly when I was interrupted. Thank you. No, don't take this personally. Um so you're welcome. >> So um the the fish don't give birth in shared to a child and maybe occasionally twins and triplets. Fish give birth in swarms in thousands and thousands. It's you know it's extraordinary how they do it. But Hashem made it that the fish it multiplies in massive massive amounts. And they do it partly I'm talking about philosophically. No one's watching them. Whenever you don't watch people, there's no so things flourish. So when we bless our children and we say they should become flourishing. The word has the root. So the the dot represents this flourishing this this huge huge amount of fish that come out and they succeed that way. Just out of interest um the 12 months correspond also to the 12 tribes and the way that many of our holy books bring down the month of Adar is the month of Yoseph. Yoseph has no eye in harra. He's under the radar. No one sees how he does what he does and he flourishes and he is able to support the whole land. And that is symbolic of the fish. It's the great connector. Um, now I do want to say to you, I'm just running out of time badly over here. Uh, just one more thing about fish. Fish are if I'm not mistaken, the only creature that doesn't have eyelids may I don't know it's the only creature, but it's famous for having its eyes always open. And eyes are the way that we connect to each other. In bar hashem, you can see me as the teacher. I can see you as my as my as my esteemed students over here and that's what creates the power of the live class is the connection that we do by seeing. So fish this idea of constantly alert and constantly seeing. However, um the same fish in rabbitic literature is the extreme opposite the tal and babaabastra 73b brings down dog priti. If you want to know the symbol of what's called prius, prius means when things swarm in a way that is unchecked, it is considered something that is negative. It is something that is there's nothing that you can't build families that way. You can't you can't even find Nemo. Okay, there you want. There's another one for you. Okay. Okay. So, this is this >> all good. It's all good. >> No, it's fine. It's fine. I literally feel like I'm, you know, I'm back in. It's all good. Okay. So what is important is that is that so you see also the idea of the eyes open. So I remember my rebua used to imitate. He used to actually imitate walking the streets with their eyes looking left and right because you don't want to miss a thing. Everything in the world of ta begins with eyes and the eyes are the ones that find things that connect you to things that you should not be connecting to. All of this comes to a riveting climax with the leviatam. Leviatam is the fish of the end of days. I always um I have a special place in my heart for the Japanese. Honestly, I I I recently bought Japanese whiskey and I drank it and I said to myself the following thing. I said, "Look, um the Scottish should not be making sushi and the Japanese should should not be making whiskey." Okay, this is what I like of it. But I don't really understand sushi to be really really personal at this moment. All the sushi tastes the same to me and I don't really know the difference between them. But it tastes good. I like sushi. And for years and years and years, I always wondered because when I was a kid, I thought when all of eats the leviatan is because all of Israel um enjoys a good schmaltz herring on chabas, you know, a little klel and that's what it's going to be the great food of the end of days. And I couldn't understand the new generation what they gonna do because my kids won't touch it. They want to let their fingers touch that like gross. Like the whole thing just if I say the if I want to upset my kids, I say the word herring and they just like cringe. Well, thank you, Hashem, for the Japanese. Okay, this is it. They We're going to have leviatan sushi. Okay, there's no question about it. Okay, you you're getting excit There's a lady in front of me who is her mouth is watering as I speak. Can't wait to feast this. So the fish at the end of days in the language repo is basically when we eat fish we actually eating the itahara of tya and we are consuming it. Meaning when you finish the fish that that the negative connotation of connection disappears. I want to move on. I I have more what to say but I just I need to get to my main point but I just would like to talk about laughter. I'm hoping that the ladies in front of me will hear classes on laughter. There's a lot to talk about laughter except I want to say to you once again in social situation laughter is the great communicator on steroids. It raises it to a different level. my mother of blessed blessed memory and some of you I don't know gold screen is my mother Frankle from Leic she when we used to go dating we used to go out so um don't listen it was illegal as a teenager but she always wanted us to know whether we had a good time so the question that she asked was did you laugh together and now that have kids so I always ask them did you laugh together and that was my mother's synonym that that the communication is healthy. When people laugh together, it's a very beautiful thing. However, it has can be used in the other direction. If you are competing with uh if you are amongst the boys, right? So, you're competing with all these men who are like football players and handsome and and you're not that and you don't stand a chance with the ladies, but if you can make them laugh, so then suddenly you turn the everything back in your favor. So there's a reason why with the says when it says they wanted to do bad things is they they got up to laugh because the same laughter that can be used to create can be used to create all kinds of bad things as well. And so you see over here once again that laughter is an extreme of emotion. Finally we get to the letter kof. The letter kof is in rabbitic literature. It is the letter of extremes in the alphabet. What do I mean? So this is based on the gumar infus shabas tractic shabas 104b. It goes through the letters. There's a whole section. It's a fascinating. If you're into letters, that's the place to go. It's paracabona. It talks about writing on shabas. And there it goes through the Hebrew letters and tells us what the letters are all about. The letter k is the letter of kaduca. Kadusha is everything that is good in this world taken to the extreme. That is the default of kof. However, the za brings down that ragla ya m the feet of the kof slips under the what's called the magic line where you write on and it goes be below and that is where all true death is found. This is what the Zoa Zoa says. I do apologize. I'm saying very deep ideas very quickly. I just don't I'm just running against the clock because I know you have your musical hollow coming up. But I do want I do want you to understand something. >> And I've not forgotten. Yeah. Okay. Thank you so much. >> The name of the book. >> Thank you. So this is this is incredible. This is incredible. The letter cuff slips down if you want to know. And I work with teens. This is my main job is I work for the NCY organization. I work for Alami launch which brings teenage kids from public schools to study in Israel. It's an incredible thing that when when do you see a teenager who's dead? I'll tell you the answer is when they say that I spend 10 hours a day which they do easily looking at a screen. Okay, they'd spend 10 hours looking at a screen. Am I exaggerating? I'm exaggerating. They got 10 hours looking at a screen when you're looking at a screen. So, you're not literally dead, but if you're just watching a Tik Tok and I don't I don't need to I don't want to do this to you. Seriously, I don't want you to lose your appetite, but literally you're seeing the same same song, the same 20 second clip done by 200 people and you're scrolling like that and you're sitting there with your brain on 3%. That's it. And you're watching all these things. You've entered into an imaginary world of nothingness. And this is the world of the letter kof where you think that you are alive and you think that you're doing something that you enjoy and you think you're being entertained but really you have been sucked in to the imaginary world that is disconnected from reality and as I always say is that temporary disconnection from reality is temporary suicide. It's a little strong, but I use this with my teenagers to make my point. And they do this for 10 hours a day throughout the summer. And that's it's the world that we live in. It's the letter cuff as something negative as the ZA says. How do you flip >> she doesn't have a smartphone very >> I know, but she >> first of all, she does. And secondly, all I'm looking at is someone that can represent that age group and can say that she knows people that are like that. I'm not doing caser. I swear. Okay. It's not what I do. It's like I'm running against the clock. I just want to get Okay, go ahead. I'm sorry. >> Don't you think the whole point is is that it represents a world that doesn't exist and standards that don't exist and that nobody is actually meeting and it's all photoshopped. It's all focused. >> So you're you're you're agreeing with me. You're agreeing with me. All I'm pointing out the letter CF represents two walls that are happening in the mind. One is disconnected from reality and one is the absolute reality which is kadusha. I really apologize for just taking these amazing ideas that our holy books talk about about letters and about water and about laughter and I just need to get to my next point because if I do not connect this to my ton of I'm not getting my paycheck. All right. So, so there we go. So, I need to I need to I need to get to my main point over here. So, so the turus by the way is also the letter kof. The teras is the flip the flip the flip genius. It's the ability to take everything that is negative and bring it over to kaduca. Now, I want to get to my main point. What have we learned over the last 20, 25 minutes? We've learned that we are now in an era of the Jewish calendar and an era of Jewish history where everything is happening in extremes. Again, I could give you example after example, but this something that just crossed my mind. Those of you who are students of history in this room, which I'm looking around you, you look like the types that know your history. So you will know that literally the amount of evil that has happened in the last 150 years, the amount of evil is more than has happened in the last thousand years in terms of sheer numbers. Those of you just just look at the sheer numbers of what went on not just in the Holocaust, but what go went on in in China and in Russia with Stalin and and in Africa and Rwanda. You keep the numbers are staggering and the evil that is unleashed with technology is is is stagnant. At the same time, the exactly the same time, there's been an explosion of extraordinary knowledge and and and ability. If you bring someone from 150 years ago and see the world today, they would not know they're existing on in a parallel universe. We take everything for granted. But this whole that the technology and what we have access to with the smartphones, okay, with the smartphones, the fact that we have these things that we take them for granted. system. It's all part of this end of time, end of thing. This is Adar. This is Adar stories. So what do we what do we do? What do we do over here? Everything in the month of Ada goes back to an event that happened in Shushan 2 and a half thousand years ago. And there there was a woman called Esther who showed us what we're supposed to do. Because your mission, your mission if you choose to accept another pop reference. Okay. Mission impossible. Okay. Okay. Your mission, if you choose to accept, is to to expedate the Kof of the Kof of Deion, the Kof of Evil, the Kof of Hmon. Hmon's letter was the letter Kof and flip it over to the Kof of Morai to the Kof of Kadusha. Your mission is to take Mayan and turn it from the Mayan that is destructive to the mind that connects the whole world and brings it to the elev. Your mission if you choose to accept is to turn the laughter from the laughter of fools. You can go you can go go on YouTube and you can watch the laughter of fools whatever it is that the and bring it to the laughter of kadusha of yeetsu all of these things is in our hands. How do we do it? Esther shows us the way with five words. Let's bring the Jews together. Let's go once again and recreate where we have each other and we become this superpower that can expedite everything that's extreme can be anchored into something higher. Cannot do this alone. We can only do this together. So here's another observation I made is a mitz of everyone needs to know the but you do that to the street. So non-Jews should enjoy it as well. It's for the whole world to see. Pim is done inside the only for us men, women, children all come into the synagogue and we remind ourselves of our story of our history of our heritage or what makes us themsula that we are. That's number one. Now what do we do? That was the original was Thomas Esa was originally when had the decree but afterwards everything went flipped round everything was and I think you you heard about and suddenly we find ourselves on the other side tasting the end of days. So what do the Jewish people do? They immediately say we need to rebuild Kisra. I want you to stop and think about the mitzvah of the day. Nothing compares to it the rest of the Jewish calendar. All we're doing from morning to night is reconnecting Jewish people with each other. Everyone in this room knows that the mitzvah of Schlakmonos is at its most beautiful when you think of people who are not your sisters and best friends. When you think of the people who are unfortunate, every single person in this room has friends that need a little bit more love and you send them a personalized you recreate that love. I I don't want to go into details because I don't know who's in front of me. But every person in this room, you stop and think for one moment. This year, I want to send a manus to someone that needs it. And don't make it like, hi, you are you're a neb. No, you're the best person ever. And that's why I'm sending you. You may feel every Jew has got an ability to shine light into another Jew's eyes. We all have the ability to connect positively, all the ability to connect and and raise our game and connect. The same thing with matanis. It's not just to send money to your your kids yeshiva. Matanas means to think of people who feel disconnected from the community. No one's no one's watching me. I fell under the radar. No, you haven't. I see you and I'm going to make sure I'm not going to give you food. I'm going to give you money so you can do what you want. Maybe even start a career. You build people up. The Jewish people on Purim in microcosm recreate that perfected world that we had in the Garden of Eden. the perfected world that we had at Hari and the perfected world that we will have when Mashiach comes and finishes the job. Now I go to what? Final back to the story. >> What happened? What happened at that holy moment? That holy moment when Norm Eisen um I just found out what he's doing. He's he's still doing incredible things. But Norm Eisen at that time then he was chosen by Barack Obama to be the representative of the United N United United States in Prague because Barack Obama knew that Norman's grandparents were sent died in the Holocaust and he said that it were of Czech origin and how beautiful would it be to Obama's credit that you who suffered in the city should bring in in his words the shared culture of of America's love of the world. Boy, has that changed? But the love, okay, the America's care of everything and bring that together with Jewish Jewish thing and bring it to Prague. He gets up and he says the following thing and I quote, he said, "When Linda and I came to the the Artipetric Palace, we're very excited to fulfill this mission. What happened? What happened? We found all over the palace symbols of an era that we did not know about and Wikipedia does not mention during the Holocaust. What happened in the Autopatrick Palace? The answer is it was taken over by the Nazis. It was the center for the Gustapo. And he said this room that we're in, you do not want to think about what these walls have seen. So again um my last reference the boy with the striped pajamas. Okay, these these are you see people they took Jewish to Jews in these private places right it's a frightening thing this this place was a frightening place and we found books which still had swastikas on it and literally we could not sleep at night we could we were having nightmares and then one day Linda comes up with a great idea he says you know what it is you know how you fight evil you fight evil with goodness let's get a group of religious Jews and let's bring everyone we can and let's turn this room that's so evil and let's cleanse the walls >> with shabas mirrors and kdish and dancing and just with kaduca let's unleash kaduca into this room and that will be our cleaning of the walls that's going to be cleansing of this place this is going to turn the nafaku into a place of kadusha at this point now I'm saying I'm see everyone was extremely emotional because they were emotional. And she said, "Tonight is that night. Tonight is that night where we cleanse this the evil that happened here and we turn it into everything that's beautiful about Judaism. I'm a rabbi and I have this horrible habit that I have to open up my mouth." Okay? So, I couldn't hold myself back. I said, "Do you mind if I make a rabbitic interjection?" All my colleagues roll their eyes. And I said the following thing. I said, "We're in the city of Prague. I want to quote something from the Maharal that tonight is suddenly come alive. The moral says why is it that the final scene almost the final scene of the Purm story is that Esther tells Morai go and move in to Hmon's palace. Now a lot of you may not even be aware of this because it's the end of the story but then everyone's like yeah we all lived happily ever after. Yeah. What next? No. move into that palace. I say for me, anyone over here, there's probably a lot of you that have Holocaust connection. Someone says move into Hitler's house. No. Say, I'd rather move into yeshiva dorm. Okay. Like it's that bad. No. Okay. No way. It's not happening. It's not happening. But no, Esther insists and the moral explains that does not just mean that the Jewish people fix themselves. The ultimate goal is that once we fix the cells, now we're in a position to take all the evil in this wall and turn into goodness. The fact that Clay Israel becomes one on per step one but there's a missing step that Esther was telling Morai we mustn't forget that the end we still have this job of being the amigul of being the or am and Mashiach's job is going to hold our hands to be able to not just bring every single Jew to where they belong but every single person on this planet is going to be able to be part of this incredible moment the sakin olum shakai to create the recreated world of Ghana the way Hashem wanted to do people like us people like the people in this room by doing what we're supposed to be doing on Purim unleashing the light unleashing the closeness of Cly Israel and Davu that Mashiach will come and let it take it to the final final conclusion of the whole world being turned into that never ending life of goodness thank you for listening and thank