The Complete Story of Purim in an Hour - Rabbi Benzion Klatzko - Library of Torah Thought

first off when in history did this take place that's a really important question and in order to know this you need to know jewish history on one foot the jews left egypt there we were slaves there for 210 years we were slaves and then god took us out with the mighty hand and gave us the torah how many years ago did he give us the torah i don't know if we mentioned in a different class but but we were given the torah three thousand three hundred and thirty three years ago i think we did mention it three three three three that's how many years you'll have to wait another one thousand one hundred and eleven years for that number to once again uh pop up so three thousand thousand thirty three years we got the torah then we wandered the desert for 40 years there was a story of the spies it was a very sad story and the jews were not allowed into israel right away but eventually when we were allowed into israel after 40 years we went took us seven years to conquer the land from the canaanites and then we were in israel during the time of the prophets for uh just around 500 years okay at that time there was no temple we had something called the tabernacle uh which is called in hebrew the mishkan and there was a 500 very very interesting years of jewish history near the end of those 500 years we got our first king so understand that we did not have a king for over 400 years the jewish people remained without an absolute ruler we were self-governed it was a thing of beauty we had sages we had prophets we had judges but we did not have a rulership eventually the king the jewish people decided hey we want a king and there was a king named king saul who was a king for a very brief amount of time and then king david and king david was made king a little less than 500 years ago he lived exactly 70 years and after 70 years his son solomon took over and then solomon built the temple so we're not getting exact per year but just in general we left egypt 3 33 years ago wandered the desert for 40 years got into israel and we lived there for 500 years king solomon comes and builds the first temple and that first temple lasted for 410 years okay so now we were in israel for about 910 years at that point the babylonians came uh and the babylonians destroyed the first temple it's a very very sad uh incident in jewish history they burnt the first temple and the jewish people were exiled out of israel for 70 years 7-0 during those 70 years is when the story of purim happened during the 70 years after the jewish people were exiled now the jewish people came back to israel and they built the second temple that second temple lasted for 420 years and then it was destroyed by the romans and was destroyed just under 2 000 years ago and now we're the end of that 2000 year period okay so now you know all of jewish history in a nutshell let's just review this so that you will you'll know jewish history it's that simple that's a whole semester in in three minutes left egypt 3333 we were received the torah won to the desert for 40 years wanted to israel and lived we had conquered the land we lived beautifully gloriously for about 500 years we then built the first temple we had another glorious 410 years then we were exiled by the babylonians for 70 years we rebuilt the temple uh and by ezra and ezra and the rebuilt the temple and that lasted for 420 years then we were exiled by the romans for 2000 years and that's where we are today the end of that 2000 year exile that's all of jewish history that's what you got to know it's been a pleasure thank you so much now during those 70 years the jewish people were in turmoil we had a temple miracles happen we were so happy and then we were exiled and many many many jews were murdered by the by the babylonians and during that 70-year period the babylonians after they conquered israel they went downhill in history and they were taken over by the persians and persia became the new babylon and the granddaughter of the king of babylon ended up marrying the king of persia and persia became the superpower of its day the king of that time his name was akhashverosh akhashversh was the king over 127 countries which was essentially all of the civilized world at that time and there's a great question about whether he deserved to be king some say he came from royalty but most say he did not come from royalty he happened upon wealth and he was a commoner and it's because of that that he ended up marrying the granddaughter of the king of babylon in order to give himself legitimacy while i'm also royalty look i'm married royalty but behind his back people would say hey he's not really king material he was a commoner who became wealthy and that always bothered akhas verus and there's a little bit of a theme throughout the megillah with he had this chip on his shoulder that he didn't really deserve to be king so one day the king says you know i'm going to prove that i am the king on my own merit i am going to show i'm the absolute ruler so he did a few things one thing that he did was he moved the capital from where it was in babylon to a place called shushan and he made shushan the capital of basically the modern world now when you move the capital that's like a boss move that i'm going to move washington dc to kentucky who can do that well that's what akash ferris did so he wanted to show he was very powerful then the next thing he did was he called in his ministers and he said i am going to show how powerful i am i'm going to make a party for the entire world i'm going to invite everyone to this party all 127 countries are going to be invited their ministers their officers are going to come and this is going to be a party like no other and he made a party for 180 days his ministers were not happy about that it depleted the coffers but he didn't care if he could show like i am the one who holds the parties the wealth of the of the kingdom is my personal wealth i'm going to use it as i see fit that was his way of imposing now he did something interesting normally if you're making a big party you invite your officers and the people in your city first because they're the ones around you you got to protect yourself from them you got to endear yourself to them but he didn't do that he actually waited to invite his generals and his officers personal officers and his capital city all the way till the end again power moves everything is about power and he invited everyone to come everyone coming to the party and these parties were all over the top gorgeous meat and wine and and it's interesting because in those days the law was that if you went to a party and they filled up your cup with wine you had to drink it and by the way if they wanted you out of there that they weren't really happy they would keep filling up your cup until either you died of alcohol poisoning or you just like collapsed and pouring you more drinks is how they showed you they wanted you to leave they forced you to drink interestingly enough islam does the same thing today but with coffee that's actually an islamic custom where if you come as a guest they'll serve you one cup if they serve you a second cup uh it could be they like you but you're not sure if they serve you a third cup it means they want you gone because the coffee is very bitter and getting drinking three cups will make you way too jittery so that's an interesting little tidbit so in those days it was with wine they would make you drink so in his uh party he actually made a rule nobody can force anyone to drink and that was sort of a big deal in those days anyone could drink as much as they wanted i don't have to tell you about the entertainment there but let's call it less than modest and one of the big things that he did was he took the vessels of the jewish temple and used them as his utensils for pouring and serving now quick little history when the jewish people were exiled there was a prophecy that 70 years after they were exiled they're going to be brought back to their land and the question was when do those 70 years begin and everyone tried to figure out well people knew jews were serious and when they had a prophecy you got to watch out for it so all the secular kings knew about the 70 year prophecy but the question is when did it begin did it begin from the destruction of the temple did it begin from when the jews were exiled no one quite knew so the king he made up his he did his own little calculation and in his calculation the 70 years were up so he's got nothing to fear about the jewish god and jewish god's wrath so he took out the golden vessels of the temple and he used them really embarrassing to us embarrassing to god embarrassing to the jewish people right okay after the 180-day party he then said i am going to make as a new party for seven more days and this party is going to be for my officers and this part is going to be for everyone in the capital city yeah they come last but i'm going to treat them really nicely and he invited all of them and he made sure that the invitation went even to the jewish people the jewish people were invited the jewish people from shushan were invited to the party now think about this for a moment you got this king he is uber powerful and he is inviting everyone to his party the jew said should we go or shouldn't we go and they went to the great sadduce of the time what's its very righteous person and his name was mordechai mordecai and they said to mordecai should we go to this party after all the king is inviting us we don't want to insult the king and mordecai said absolutely no you can't go number one it's going to be incredibly immodest it's not a place for a jew you're going to go you're just going to be you know they're let's show you be honest there's going to be strippers there's going to be a drunken there's going to be debauchery it's going to be it's going to be what you would expect a persian party to be and on top of that they're using golden vessels that came from your temple what are you going to do you're going to go to a party and eat out of the golden vessels from the temple that was destroyed that's an embarrassment to you absolutely don't go so some jews listen to mordechai but others said he doesn't quite understand the political ramifications of us not attending we're going to attend and unfortunately many jews attended the party and they ate from the vessels of the temple and yeah it's true promised don't worry they'll be kosher food but kosher food is not the beginning and the end of attending a party obviously if there would be non-kosher food it would be simple of course we're not going to go but no he said no kosher food don't worry about it you know we'll make you comfortable we'll make you at ease and said still don't go it's not where a jew belongs okay on remember that part of the story now we get up to chapter two well it was during this seven day party and the king is utterly drunk and his officers are drunk and they are just knocking down cup after cup and they get into a conversation at what do men often converse about you know especially drunk guys women and they're speaking about who are the most beautiful women in the world that's a conversation which country has the most beautiful woman who is you know a bunch of drunk guys what they're talking about and then akhas veros the king says the following statement you guys don't even realize the most beautiful woman in the world is my wife the the granddaughter of navukhanetza the king of babylon her beauty surpasses all they said well of course she's beautiful but look maybe she's not the most besides where is she where is she we haven't seen her where was this granddaughter of nevucha netzer the king of babylon who akhashveir schmered where was she listen carefully this is so interesting she was not at the party because she made a party of her own why'd she make a party of her own aches veros was trying to make a statement his statement was i am king because i am king not because i'm married the granddaughter of a king i'm the king because i'm the king i am powerful i am worthy so his wife whose name was ready vashti vashti that was her name vashti said my husband's a kook he's a megalomaniac he thinks he is king because he has his own merit he was a commoner i'm not coming to his party i'm going to make my own party so watch what's going on here ah had just spent a fortune to make his party meanwhile vashti makes her own party and she invites all of her close friends so they said where's your wife vashti you say she's so beautiful show her to us so the king gave the following order the king said you know what she's not going to make me look bad i'm going to order her to leave her party come to my party she is going to come to my party wearing no clothes all i want her to wear is the crown on her head but she's gonna parade herself completely naked in front of all of you you will see number one she's the most beautiful you will see that she doesn't have her dignity she is only important because she married me and that's why she's she's queen i don't care that her grandfather was she's important because of me and she is at my disposal she could do whatever she's going to do whatever i want her to do wow there's a little power thing going on so the messenger goes to vashti's party vashti sees the messenger and the messenger says your husband is summoning you to come to his party by the way wearing nothing but a crown but nothing else so vashti says is he drunk he's drunk he wants me to go what is he crazy he says my grandfather the king of babylon he could hold his alcohol this king a little bit of a drunk a little bit of wine and he's inviting his queen to come they it's awful tell him i'm not coming you're not no i'm not coming so the messenger came back and in front of the king in front of all of his important officers and friends he says the queen says she's not coming and everyone went ooh ah she's not coming now now we see his boss and the king's face turned red like he was so embarrassed and he didn't know what to do with himself he wha what does he his wife just embarrassed him in front of the whole kingdom and really you know what she really did she really undid the past 187 days because those days were there to prove that he is important and in one backhanded motion boom she said no you're not important you're important because of me and i'm not listening to you and he was livid and drunk you know what to do he calls in his seven closest advisors he brings them to a little conference room and he says what am i going to do what am i going to do she embarrasses me in front of everyone i got to do something now he had lots of advisors but he had one advisor who was the youngest member in the room the youngest advisor whose name was but had another name the other name was haman same person and he was the youngest person the talmud says the youngest person is supposed to be the last one in the room to speak not the first one but he didn't have any sense of a decorum any sense of you know honor to somebody who's more experienced right away he shoots off his mouth he says you know you got to do here's what you have to do you've got to teach her a lesson and you've got to make an example of her you should take vashti your wife who said no to you and you should kill her kill her just destroy her and announce to everyone that you're killing her and that everyone from now on has to be ultra careful that when their husband says something they'd better darn well listen so the king in his drunkenness said so be it the guards come to vashti's party they handcuff vashti they bring her to the king's palace and then they put her to death vashti is dead chapter three the king sobers up he says um i'm the mood of seeing my wife go call vashti and the officers know how to break this to you but you had her killed he said what yeah why would i have her killed and they tell the whole story who advised me to kill her this guy muhammad he said that was his advice so akas versus filed that away in the back of his mind he wasn't happy about that meanwhile he got depressed because you know he loved he loved vashti and he was convinced to kill her while he was drunk and when the king is depressed when the king is feeling down it's bad for the whole kingdom like heads are going to roll so right away the advisor said we got to think of something to make the king feel better so they said to the king you know what you need to do you need to find a new wife but don't pick royalty again because if you pick royalty the same thing is going to happen the the the person from royalty may not listen to you pick a commoner the more common the better have a beauty contest say anyone who's available they should come and you have a chance to be the next queen of persia the next queen of the world basically and the king said that's a great idea and he sent out word everyone who wants to come and after a while he didn't say anyone who wants to come but everyone who is available must come and all of these young ladies were found by the officers and brought to the royal court beautiful ladies and they were kept by a special person whose job it was to oversee the women who were the king would meet up now these women did not go right into the king many of them were poor they smelled terrible they didn't they weren't elegant and they had to be they had to be groomed that's a bad word today but maybe it was then also they had to be prepared to uh to to to approach the king and it took up to a year to soak in different kinds of perfumes and oils until their skin was soft until they smelled good and then when their night came they were able to ask for anything from the person who was in charge of the ladies this kind of jewelry this designer dress whatever they wanted and then they would spend a night with the king so the king bedded each of these women one per night the only thing is if they were not chosen they were never allowed to marry anyone else because once the king sleeps with someone then they're off limits to everyone else forever and they become part of the king's harem so it was a very risky thing because they can never get married afterwards now there was a young lady and her name was esther and esther was a jewish she actually did come from royalty she came from king's soul her uncle was a man by the name of mordechai the same great sadiq that we had mentioned earlier who said don't go to the party and of course esther she doesn't want to marry the king he's not jewish he murdered his wife he clearly is somebody who's has got issues and she would never marry such a person some commentaries say even say that she was actually married to mordechai at the time so there's disagreement but either way she did not want to marry the king and morgan eventually hid her so that the king's officers shouldn't find her however the king's officers heard a rumor that this beautiful lady not just exists but lives in the city of shushan where the king is not all the way in another country but lives right near the palace they found her they grabbed her and they brought her to that chamber where all the women are kept as they're taking her away mordecai said listen i'm going to give you advice and i want you to listen to this advice do not tell anyone you're jewish you're going to go there there's going to be thousands of ladies there don't tell anyone that you're jewish you'll understand why later don't say a word esther comes and she is very reluctant she doesn't want to engage with the other women when the person who is in charge of all the women sees esther the moment he sees her he realizes this is the future queen forget about everyone else he knows it the talmud actually says something interesting the talmud says she she wasn't necessarily the most beautiful lady it even says that esther had a little bit of an uh of an olive green complexion but hashem wanted her to be beautiful hashem wanted people to see esther and be captivated by her and so they were and everyone wanted to know esther where are you from who are you esther would refuse to tell anyone anything finally the day came and it was esther's turn to appear in front of the queen and they said to esther what would you like you could choose any jewelry that you want any dress any gown what would you like to appear in front of the queen in front of the king and esther said i want nothing she didn't want to make herself attractive because she did not want to marry this king however she came in front of the king and instantly and immediately the king was smitten by the beautiful esther and after being with esther that evening he sent all the other women home and he made esther the queen he declared her instead of vashti well as time went on the king was curious who is this lady and you said who are you where are you from and she did she deferred she didn't say she didn't say and the king was a little bit nervous like who is this lady esther maybe maybe she's actually like a bastard child how how terrible would it be if the king marries a bastard girl who doesn't know her parents are the truth is esther was an orphan she was brought up by her uncle mordecai because her parents have both passed away but the king wanted to know who she was and the king even made parties for the nation that would say that wow yes esther's one of ours and you know what happened a lot of nations said yeah she looks asian she looks greek she looks african she looks norwegian everyone esther had that kind of look that could have been from anywhere but esther never said where she's from okay chapter four it's sort of like a side note but an important chapter four side note there were two people who did not like the king their names were big son and sarish and they decided they're going to poison the king and they were talking in the courtyard and they were discussing their plot to kill the king and mordechai was there in the courtyard and mordechai heard their plot now they were speaking loudly but they assumed that this jew march did not know the language they were speaking in because they were speaking in a very obscure language called tarshish however mordecai did know that language because he belonged to the high court the jewish high court called the sanhedrin and the sanhedrin if you belong to the sanhedrin you had to be familiar with all 70 major languages that existed including tarshi tarshi and he understood about this plot and he messaged his niece esther in the in the palace and he messaged her by the way there's two people big son and says that are plotting to kill the king and the queen went to the king and told the king that my uh that uh that this person shouldn't say my uncle she said mordechai this person who is in the palace uh who was in the courtyard he heard that these two people are plotting to poison you and when the dish was brought out that was a poisoned dish the king said big sun says how about you guys try it first and they said no no we don't want to try you know why you want to try because you have poisoned it and they were executed and the king wrote in his book of records mordechai the jew saved my life and he put the book of records away chapter five okay all following now everything is set up what we've done right now in the book of esther is we've set all the wheels in motion for the next thing that's going to happen the next thing that happens is the king decides to elevate his advisor haman haman remember that guy who advised him to kill the queen why did he elevate him well he elevated him for a few reasons but one of the reasons was you know there's an expression keep your friends close that keep your enemies closer well haman this person he knew haman had a lot of power but he also understood that haman could be a threat to him but he also knew that haman could get things done either way he decided to make haman very powerful his chief officer which was basically second to the king very very powerful and haman so full of this power have this idea now you have to understand who haman was known as haman the agagi what's agagi agi came from the the word agi comes from the word ag ag was the name of a king of a nation called amalek the nation of amalek is the most hated nation in all of judaism who are the nation of amalek so listen carefully when the jewish people left egypt and we had been tortured for over 200 years and god destroys the mighty egyptians and takes this small little nation out miraculously and the whole world was hailing the heroism of the jewish people and the god of the jews well what should have been the most elevated miraculous time suddenly came crashing down because a nation from an unexpected source suddenly intercepted the jewish people in their march towards israel and fought them and tried to destroy them could you imagine that for what the jewish people had just been through god miraculously saves them and then you come and you ambush them you ambush them to kill them how cruel do you have to be so amalek is the mortal enemy of the jewish people there's a lot to be said about this but many years later god told king told the prophet samuel go and tell king's soul to wipe out a malick and he made war with al-malik and he wiped out most of them but he kept the king alive because he figured royalty can't kill royalty and the king's name was ag king saul was punished for keeping king agag alive god told samuel tell saul you're not going to be king anymore you did not listen to me i said wipe out all of our malik saul felt bad and the next day he killed a gug as well except that the night before our gog was killed he ended up sleeping with a young lady who ended up having a child who had a child who had a child who ended up having a child named haman so haman understand the history haman comes from this king ag who came from amalek who attacked the jewish people ag the king of amalek was a mortal enemy of the jews so haman who was his grandson declared himself a mortal enemy of the jews and that's why he's called haman who came from king gag so ahmad said you know what i'm going to destroy all the jews and he goes to akheros and he says to the akhashvish the following he says you know there's one nation they're weird they're different look at their beards look at their let's make a netflix show about them we'll call it unorthodox let's show how strange they are on out they're all insular and they're they're radical they're fanatics let's just watch it you know what you know what let's not make a netflix show about them let's just kill them already because that's what that's what happens when you when you make a netflix show about somebody you create hatred and then eventually if you hate somebody it's not too many steps to destroy them so i'm just i know i'm putting that parenthetically fyi but uh when you when you bad mouth your your own people uh in front of the world you're sort of giving a green light to do more okay so he said you know what let's kill out the jewish people they're weird they're different you won't even miss them and you know what i'm gonna pay i'm you're worried about taxes i'm gonna take lots of bar four hundred thousand i'm gonna so many bars of silver i'm gonna give it i'm gonna give it to you king to fill up your coffers and the king said you know what that's a good idea we'll do that but how are you gonna kill all the jews he says well i'm gonna figure it out just give me the okay and the king said here here is my ring with the seal on it you create the decree and with that decree it's going to be binding i cannot even take it back so the king decides so the human decides i'm going to create a holocaust there's not going to be a dhaka or treblinka in auschwitz but he thought of something even more sinister and if you've never heard this this is so troubling you know how he's going to kill the jews he's going to write a decree and the decree says that on a certain day in the calendar every non-jew in the world who kills their jewish neighbor is then allowed to acquire all their possessions your next jew your next door neighbor's got a lexus you kill the neighbor you got the lexus and the car i mean they end the house well they didn't have lexus those days but they may have had a lot of cattle they may have had a lot of gold and silver basically kill your neighbor get his stuff that's really vicious see the nazis they kill the jews but the officers and the government kept the artwork it was a crime to take to take the jewish jewish uh treasure but what haman said is i don't care about the treasure you kill your neighbor you get your neighbors uh property you get his belongings and that's all it took a decree like that was all it took you imagine wherever you happen to live if such a decree took place especially if there's anti-semitism and haman to figure out which day he's going to do it on he was a he was superstitious so he made a lottery uh you know i say a lottery in hebrew poor so the name of the heart is called purim the day of the lottery now you know purim the day of the lottery and he made a lottery and the lottery came out on the month of adar on the 14th of the month so he knew what day he wanted to do it and he figured the fates would have it that he is going to kill out all the jews that day now it happened to be almost a year from when he made the lottery he made the lottery in the sun and nissan would be the first of the year and adar is the 12th month of the year so maybe if the lottery would have fallen out in a month from then he would have mobilized the forces right away but instead the non-jewish world had a whole year to scheme how am i going to take my next-door neighbor's property and the non-jews would walk by the jewish house and say take good care of that that lawn manicured because that's going to be my lawn and the jews understood that things are really horrific and he created all of these decrees in every language imaginable and sent it out all over the world kill the jew get his items get his belongings get his property and when mordecai heard this mordecai was despondent wow the entire jewish people were declared it was hunting season on them they were declared fair game and haman was happy he was so joyous he's going to kill out every jew he's going to take revenge for his grandfather ag it is the amalek versus the jew and amalek is finally going to succeed in wiping out the jewish race the jewish religion the jewish people mordechai he took off his clothing and put on sackcloth he put ashes on his head and he began to wail and pray and the queen esther was told hey you know that guy that you're friendly with mordecai they didn't know it was uncle because then they would know she's jewish but they knew she was close to mordecai that guy mordecai something's up with him he's outside he's sitting in class sackcloth he's mourning what's going on so she sends a messenger mordekah what's going on and mordecai says the jewish people were written up for total destruction total annihilation and he then says you've got to go and save us you've got to go to the king you've got to tell the king the time is now and esther says i can't i can't go to the king you see even though she was the number one lady in the world and in the king's eyes the king had many wives he had a whole harem full of wives he wasn't exactly he wasn't he was a little into polygamy as it were although esther was his main wife and there was a rule in shushan and the rule went as follows you cannot just walk in front of the king without being summoned and if you came into the king's chamber and he didn't call didn't call you didn't invite you it was instant death that was a rule in persia the only way out of that was if you came without permission but the king were to lower his scepter and touch your head with the scepter then you were the the death penalty didn't apply to you but usually the king just kept his hand to the side he considered it a chutzpah to come in without being summoned and you would die and esther sends back to mordechai she says mordecai i would go into the king but i wasn't summoned as a matter of fact he didn't summon me for the past 30 days i don't know when's the next time i'm going to be summoned and mordechai sends back mordechai says you've got to go you've got to go into the king our lives are in mortal danger if you don't save us we're going to be saved one way or the other but it's clear that this is why you you were made queen we never knew why why is a a beautiful jewish who's a holy person who wants to build a beautiful jewish family have to marry this drunkard king she doesn't want the power she never wanted it it must be that you were here for this moment to save all the jewish people so esther says back okay okay okay i'll go in but she says before i go in i want to ask you to announce to all the jewish people three days of prayer dive into hashem pray to god fast have a three day fast day i don't know if they ate at night or not but either way it's brutal to fast for three days everyone should fast and pray for me because when i walk into that chamber if he doesn't raise that scepter i'm dead and you lost your person on the inside and all the jewish people fasted and they prayed and they repented and you know they repented for my friends you know they repented for for going to that party mordechai told them hashem is upset as the jewish people we went to that party where there was debauchery where there was immodesty where there was drunkenness it's not where a jew belongs and you're eating out of the vessels of the temple that was destroyed what a shame what an embarrassment return to god tell me you want your previous level of holiness and the jewish people took it to heart in three days they prayed and they fasted and on the third day esther also fasted by the way and on the third day of her fast she was so weak she could barely walk but she put on her nicest robe she put on her crown and without being summoned she opens the door and as she walks in all the guards here and they know she wasn't summoned and they're rubbing their hands together they're already splitting up her items because they know she's going to be executed i call her crown i call her the the dress and the shoes i'll give it to my wife they know she's dead and esther comes in front of the king king achashverosh he sees her and he's confused and he's upset the talmud teaches that he would actually not have lowered the scepter and touched her head it was an angel that pushed his hand down but so he did and he ended up touching her on the foot on the head with the scepter she was not going to be killed and then all of a sudden his heart was filled with love for her and he said to esther you risked your life you came here what can i do for you it must be important ask whatever you'd like up to half of the kingdom i want to give to you because i love you and esther's oh you love me that's so nice okay here's what i want i want to invite you to a party a dinner party that's all i want can you come to a dinner party come you i just me and you and um and haman haman you know your advisor you know that that what could happen i want him to come also like we'll have all three a party and huh and akhas fear is like okay party why why ammon oh she didn't say anything he figures there's got to be a reason why he'll find out so that that day haman was summoned that evening they came to the party and there is esther there's akheros and there's haman and haman is feeling so good about himself wow out of everyone in the entire kingdom in the entire world the only one invited to the party was esther's husband obviously and him he's feeling so good and then in the middle of the party akhashverish the king turns to esther and says wow esther what a nice dinner party what would you like there's got to be something i can give you again up to half of the kingdom is yours and esther says thank you so much but you know what i would like i want one thing i want you to come to another party tomorrow [Music] another party you want me to come down yes and oh bring ham on again is weirded out by this whole party is inviting haman is not weird at all hamad like expects this like he like yeah i'm an important dude of course they can invite me and he leaves the party feeling awesome he's walking on sunshine and he is walking and he's feeling like a million bucks and yes he's got all this power he's got richness and he's he's he's he has honor now haman had a rule and the rule was after he became very famous anyone who sees him has to bow down to him and ever since he became big ever since he was elevated to power everyone had to bow down to haman and haman actually had a little little secret which is like a well-known secret he worshipped idols he was an idol worshiping uh egomaniac but he had an idol and he wanted everyone to worship his god his idol so what he did was he he took a little necklace and he had the idol strapped to his necklace and as people would pass hummon and they would bow down they were bowing down not only to him but they were bombing down also to the idol wow that's amazing so as he leaves the palace and everyone sees oh here comes haman you know what there's a jew there and the jew's name is mordechai and mordecai never would bow down to haman mordecai is not bowing down to a person and certainly not to a person with an idol now picture what happens hammond's feeling like a million bucks he walks down the road everyone's bowing down he's invited to two parties by the queen he is so wealthy he is so honored and one jew mordecai will not bow down to him and you know what happened in his mind everything changed he got angry he got upset he was livid and by the time he came home he was so furious he calls his wife whose name was zeresh and he calls his advisors and he says i got all this honor the queen is inviting me again to a party but you know what none of it is worth anything to me as long as that jew is alive mocking me i can't wait a year for this jew to die i want to do something right now so his advisor said why don't you just build a gallows and ask the king permission to hang him human thinks that's a great idea and this gal is not just going to be a regular guest it's going to be taller than any gallows in shoeshine i want the whole city to see a jew dangling like a rag doll in the middle of town square so right away he had workers go and they erected a 50 ammo that's 100 foot gallows to hang mordecai on and now he's excited tomorrow is going to be a great day thanks hamon tomorrow i'm going to go to this party mordecai is going to be hanging from the gallows the jews are going to die i am powerful i'm beloved by the queen i'm in good shape okay are you all following the story because here's where everything flips on its head right okay we good let me it's hard to see the wall now i can see you guys hi guys see a little bit clear okay you're all following the story okay here's where everything falls apart for the wicked haman i love this part here we go so in order to ask permission he's got to go to the king and he's so excited to hang mordecai that he wakes up early the next morning and he goes to ask the king permission to hang mordecai that night the king goes to sleep and he cannot fall asleep he has insomnia can't fall asleep king cannot fall asleep they use the fan thingy on him no you know they massage him king is not falling asleep something is troubling him he almost feels like someone is out to to kill him and he thinks to himself why why am i so troubled and then he thinks perhaps there was once somebody who did me a favor and i never paid them back and now they're not telling me because maybe there's another plot to kill me but they're not telling me because i never paid them back for the first time they told me open up my chronicles my book of good deeds people that have done good things for me let me go through this book and the advisors took out his fat book of all those who had done good things for the king and the book opened up to the page where mordecai saved the king from the plot of big sun and sarish that they wanted to poison him remember a few chapters back they wanted to poison him and the king said wow mordechai saved me what did we ever do to pay mordechai back and the advisor said nothing we never did anything for the jew mordechai just then the king hears noise outside of his chamber he says someone's outside maybe they're trying to kill me maybe they're trying to take the kingdom and the soldiers rush outside and who do they see outside they see it's haman and they grab hammer and they bring him in and of course was just coming to get permission to hang to hang the very same mordecai so he's coming he's about to ask to hang on mordecai when the king looks at him and says what are you doing outside oh you don't forget it i don't even want to know but he always suspected hummus the guy got to watch out for so he looks at home and says i got a question for you let's say there's somebody that i want to honor what would i do for a guy like that and muhammad thinks to himself well if the king wants to honor somebody it must be mwah obviously the queen loves me people love me people down down to bow down to me so instead of speaking about mordecai for a moment he just begins to paint a picture of what he would like he said wow if somebody wants to honor the king i would probably take the crown that the king wore on his coronation day and the garments that he wore on the day that he became the king and maybe the steed the horse that he rode on when he became the king and i would have somebody take the reins of the horse and lead this person through the streets may be calling out in a loud voice this is what is done to the person that the king wishes to honor this is what is done and the king said wow he says in his mind wow he really wants to take me over because clearly he thinks it's him he wants my crown he wants my horse and he says you know he turns to him and he says wow what a great idea everything that you just said i want you to do to the jew mordechai you take him help him on a horse lead him through town screaming that the king wants to honor that man and haman is baffled he had come here to ask that morocco be killed and now says go honor this guy mordechai when he comes to mordechai and mordechai is still in a sackcloth he's mourning he's got ashes he's not shaving he's not a haircut and he's and mor and ahmad says uh the king wants me to honor you so get up get up i'm putting you on the king's horse and mordecai understood at that moment that hashem had listened to our prayers so he says to human well i can't go on the king's horse like this didn't she used to be a barber hammond and it's true how many many years ago was a barber he said i need a nice haircut so hamad begins to get my hair cut he's yeah i think i need a bath awesome maybe i'll help scrub my back so here is hummon scrubbing his back puts him on a horse gets him dressed up and hammond this second to the most powerful person in all of persia now finds himself the town crier that was what's called the crier the one who pulls in front of the horse saying this is what is done to the man the king wants to honor and something really ironic happens he see haman had a daughter and the daughter is looking outside from the balcony and she sees somebody is screaming this is the one the king wants to honor and somebody is sitting on the horse and she couldn't see who was who so she assumed as the daughter of haman she assumed who's who's being led on the horse who is that person riding on the horse it must be daddy daddy must be honored and who must be the one schlepping it must be mordechai before he's being hung uh he's got to he's got to be embarrassed so you know what she does this is really really tough to hear she takes her porta port-a-potty with all of its uh day's collection and she dumps it as the horse and the cry are passing it she dumps it on the person who is leading the horse all of the filth all the excrement go all over the person and that person of course is haman and haman as this excrement comes on him he looks up he sees it's his daughter his daughter sees that she just dumped her port-a-potty on on her father and she jumps out off of the balcony to her death haman comes back after leading mordechai embarrassed ashamed stinking he comes home and he's and they said what happened i thought you were going to ask permission to hang mordechai what did you do you you were leading him on a horse and and human says i don't know what happened i am filthy i gave him honor i was embarrassed and the adviser said when you begin to fall to the jewish nation there's no coming back this is bad news hamon just then there's a knock on the door knock knock knock they open the door and they are the king's officers come on let's go the queen is waiting the king is waiting he says yeah i need a shower i didn't have i'm full of stuff no time no time let's go and hammon is brought to the palace he just lost his daughter he just was embarrassed and ashamed he stinks and he's brought in and the king of the queen like p.u what's going on and the king he's eating his food and they're enjoying the second feast while keeping an arm's distance away from the stinky haman and then the king once again says to esther esther what would you like up to half the kingdom i love you so much and here are one of the most famous lines in all of jewish history esther says you know what i like i just want my life i just i'm requesting for my nation someone wants us dead they want me dead they want all of us dead if they just wanted us to serve the king to be slaves i wouldn't say anything but a person wants us dead wants your queen he wants your queen to be murdered and the king says really again the king does not even know that she's jewish so at the end it's like someone wants the queen dead and esther says yeah you know who wants me dead and she points right over here points right at haman and she said is that this wicked accursed evil conniving man it's this wicked hammer he wants to kill me he wants to kill my nation and is sitting there shell shocked he was just sabotaged in front of the king the king hears this and in his mind it all adds up of course haman wants to take me over so part of taking me over is he wants my crown on his head part of taking me over is to kill my queen the king leaves the chamber he is doing he is he is angry he's fuming and he's walking in his garden like what am i going to do here's my second in command and he wants my wife my queen killed well haman now finds himself alone in the room with esther and his nose he is he is toast so he goes to esther and his please don't do this don't do this and you know what he does he begs her so much and she's lying on this like couch like chair we're leaning back he falls on her he just falls on her please please akash verish the king comes back in the room to see what to see haman lying on his wife and he says are you going to conquer my wife in my own home in front of me and hammond's face grew ashen like he knew it just when you think it didn't get worse it just got worse and one of them one of the advisors of the king who is standing there minding his own business and that in the room and the in the corner of the room his name is carvona suddenly speaks up and he says by the way king besides lying on top of your wife besides wanting to kill on your own house you see if you look out your window you'll see a gallows you know what those gallows are those gallows are to kill the guy for saving you he saved you so he humbled those two things the mordechai who saved you he wants to kill him so ah says you want to kill somebody because they saved me okay take haman and hang him this minute on those gallows they handcuff him they bring him to the center of town they string him up and they exfixiate him they hang him in front of everyone imagine this a day before he was walking on sunshine he was the most powerful person outside of the king and today he is hanging as a dead carcass and at that point the king says to the queen what else can i do for you and here's the end of the story the queen says thank you for taking taking care of the enemy but we still have an issue the decree was already sealed with your ring and it says that all the jews are going to die on the 14th of the month of adar that doesn't change just because haman is is is hanging the king says i can't take it back i sealed it the only thing we can do is to create an opposing decree and the opposing decree was that the jews can fight back and there was a decree that anyone who touches jewish property the jews have the right to kill them and even if they don't touch jewish property if they were enemies of the jews and they said we're going to kill you the jews have weeded out their enemies and they can destroy their enemies and when everyone in the world got this proclamation they were very confused because they had gotten one proclamation that killed the jews and a new one said the jews should kill their enemies and people were so confused they said you know what we're not touching this the king is too mixed up but the jews did touch it the jews had heard who wanted them dead and the day of purim which was a day that was designated and marked for jewish death was the day that the jewish people attacked their enemies who came out with their anti-semitism all of those who wanted them dead the jewish people attacked and killed ten thousand well-known vicious anti-semites and not only were those ten thousand killed by the ten sons of haman who had acted as generals who were coordinating the whole pogrom they were all hung they were there was a megillah there was a megillah that was written by esther and mordechai and that magilla was read and the megillahs what we read till today we read the story of how haman wanted us destroyed and god flipped it and instead haman and all the anti-semites were destroyed on that day the power of jewish repentance flipped everything completely apart and the day of purim has been designated as the day where god can switch things in a heartbeat in an instant in a moment we call that in hebrew everything can flip in one moment [Music] you