The Spiritual War Behind the Headlines - Rabbi Moshe Borger

So, here we are. Post Purim. Or perhaps not post Purim. Because we may have finished even Shushan Purim in Jerusalem. Oh, we had sirens yesterday. Where we were in our bomb shelters. But we were dancing in our bomb shelters. We had boom boxes. We had singing, dancing. Had kill kids on the shoulders. It was incredible incredible experience. Why do I say maybe not post Purim? Because actually the Hasidic books, Hasidic seforim tell us that the 16th and the 17th, which is where we're holding today, is actually also holy days. But actually Purim is something you can take into the rest of your year. Because actually Purim is something where we can take the lessons. We have a problem. The Jewish people, we have a problem. What's our problem? Yeah, you could say non-stop talking. You could say the Jewish people have a problem with paranoia. Whatever you want to say. But the Jewish people, we have a problem. Our problem is Amalek. And Amalek is not just something that we deal with when it comes to the week before Purim or the week of Purim, Purim itself. Amalek is something that we have to deal with all the time. And it's pretty amazing, of course, as everybody's been talking about, the Ayatollah Khomeini, um that on Parshat Zachor, as we were reading about wiping out Amalek, literally within hours of us reading that parsha, the Ayatollah Khomeini was no more. And as one of my students pointed out, if you take the words the words Ayatollah Khomeini, it actually spells out literally within the letters in English, you have both Amalek and you also have Haman within the letters over there. It's obviously a clear message to us that here we are eradicating one of the greatest enemies who who promised his whole life was dedicated for 50 years plus to obliterating the Jews, men, women, and children from the earth, exactly like it says was the was the aim of Haman. And look what happened to him in the end. He ended up being crushed by those very missiles that he was trying to send to Israel to obliterate the Jews. He himself was destroyed by a missile. So, I want to talk about how we're going to take Amalek, the destruction of Amalek into the rest of the year. So, one thing is for us to think about is what exactly is Amalek. So, Amalek the Gemara says is Amalek-lak, Amalek-kak. They're the nation that wanted to suck up to suck up all of the Jewish people, all of our energy, like an ox goes and when it eats, it even pulls out whatever it eats from the roots. That's what they want to do. They want to take out all of our good energy, all of our positive energy. And this is not only in terms of a physical threat to the Jewish people, this is also in terms of you and me, our own personal Amalek that is inside of us that's trying to pull us down constantly. We all have our challenges. We all have our difficulties. Yeah, we some many times we feel overwhelmed. We have questions. We have doubts. That is all Amalek. It's all the Amalek inside of us. So, as we come out of Purim, we have to commit that we are not going to allow Amalek to go and pull us down. Our Rabbi Lasi Shlita tells us that Amalek is the numerical value of the word safek, doubt. Wherever there are doubts, it means that there's Amalek. We asked, "Is Hashem amongst us or not?" That is Amalek. When we're asking those questions about ourselves, about our lives, it's Amalek. When person sees miracles, when he's surrounded by miracles, as we have been here in Israel over the course of the last year or two with despite the difficulties. There's no question there was difficulties, so much so much loss of life, but the miracles, what could have been, is tremendous and we have to look at this and this is what we have to realize. The Gamara says, a person only sins if he has a ruach shtus, if he has a spirit of stupidity inside of him. That's when we come to sin, when the impurity comes inside of us, when the questions come inside of us, when we start to become confused, when the doubts start to come to come inside of us to become a very part of the fabric of our day, of our thoughts, of our actions, of our functioning, then we know we know Amalek is there and he hasn't been destroyed. Sometimes, unfortunately today, as we know, and I think in America the statistics are at least at least a third of the population is taking anti-depression or anti-anxiety medication. Why is that? Are we living in such a difficult world today? If you compare ourselves to the world of 100 years ago, they would never believe instead of going out to the river to go and wash your clothes, you just simply have to put it into a machine, turn it on, and automatically your clothes are clean. You want to dry your clothes, you don't even need the sun, you've got a what you've got a dryer. Everything there, microwaves, um freezers, you name it. And then technology now, AI, it's just incredible what we have going on. We're literally living in a miraculous time. And yet so many people are suffering from mental illness? How can this be? And the answer is very simply Amalek. So, that when we had once upon a time so many things to do throughout our day, we didn't have time to think about ourselves. We didn't have time to think about inadequacy or unworthiness or whether we have the things that we want or we don't or we don't want. And even we didn't have all the advertisements telling you us about the different things that we're missing out on, constantly bombarding us, whether it's on TikTok, whether it's on Temu, whether it's on whatever other platform it happens to be. We're constantly being told, "You don't have this. You don't have what you want. You don't have what you need. Everybody else has it, but you don't have it." So, this is what we have to think about. We have to think about the fact that we don't want Amalek. We don't need Amalek. Cuz we have everything that we could possibly want, everything we could possibly need. We're being protected constantly. But, I'll tell you another thing, another idea about Amalek. The Ba'al Ayin, the great Rebbe of R' Ram Zev from Apta, who was the Sefas, who had lived in Safed for many years, he says that actually Amalek is also the numerical value value of the word the ram in Hebrew, resh mem. Resh mem, resh is 200, mem is 40, 240, same numerical value as Amalek. Ram represents arrogance. When a person feels arrogant, then it gives him a certain brazenness that even makes us doubt the words of the Torah. That makes us doubt the words of Moshe Rabbeinu that we're still keeping up until today. Famous story that about 200 years ago somebody came and he said, I think it Jew in Russia he said to one of the rabbis, why do you think Moshe Rabbeinu was so great? Yeah, he says we've got all kinds of laws over here in our country. Why do you think Moshe Rabbeinu was so great? Yeah, why don't come and follow the laws of communism, abandon your Judaism. He says very simple. He says you've got laws over here contraband. He says certain things are forbidden whether it's alcohol, whether it's certain types of substances. He says what I want you to do, he says I want you to go around and I want you to go and get hold of some alcohol. Go around and see if you can do it. Within a very short time he had as much alcohol as you can imagine. He said go and ask a Jew. Go and ask a Jew on Pesach if you'll find if you can go and get you some chametz. You can go around all [clears throat] of the Jewish homes in the whole entire community, in the entire village, in the entire city sometimes, and you won't find any chametz. It is what's actually legal I believe to to actually to to sell chametz on Pesach. Unbelievable. So to look at Moshe Rabbeinu, thousands of years ago he told us not to eat chametz on Pesach and we're still doing this even today. How can we doubt the words of the great Moshe Rabbeinu, of our prophets? If a person was truly humble, if he truly negated his ego, then in that case he would come to a position of emunah shleimah of complete faith. What is it that prevents that? It's Amalek. That feeling of arrogance that I'm better, that I know more, that I know what's more right. It makes us think that we're the ones who have clarity. And we don't go and giving our ourselves and know our own wisdom to the wisdom of the rabbis of old that is still being applied until today. And from the times that they closed up the Gemara, all of the very same concepts that were that were in there are still being applied today. Applied today to technology, applied today to all kinds of new processes in terms of food production. It's an amazing thing. Exactly all those same same things, those same concepts are still applying today. Nothing's outdated. It's all totally focused on today. All of the questions of whether or not you can carry a phone on Shabbat, all these different things, all these things have been uh discussed by the rabbis. All the same concepts all being applied today as they were thousands of years ago. And this should give us strength and this should give us encouragement that when we're fighting against all of the different Amaleks, whether it's the Amalek on the inside or whether it's the Amalek on the outside, you should know that you have all the wisdom at your fingertips available. Anything you want to know, you can just look it up. You can go and call up a rabbi. You can go and get the answers to your questions. This is what we need to realize. But sometimes it comes to a certain point where we get the clarity in our lives. And I thought of this idea today. I was learning with my chavruta. And the Purim story is an amazing thing. Ahashverosh was a very very close friend of Haman. So much so that he actually gave over his ring, his signet ring. Which actually meant that in many ways that Haman was actually more powerful than Ahashverosh. He had the right. Ahashverosh did not have a signet ring to make the dict. Only Haman. It's a crazy situation. But Ahashverosh was still the king. And of a sudden, it all started to come together. He couldn't sleep one night, and he suddenly remembers the whole thing about how Mordecai saved his life. Just at that moment, Haman walks in. And when the king asked him, "What should I do to the man who finds favor in the king's eyes?" Of course, Haman thought he was talking about him. And he said, "You should have him wearing the royal clothing with the king's crown on his head riding on the royal horse in the royal limousine." He tells him all these different things. Yeah, it clearly was showing. You don't have to be too much of a psychologist to understand that Haman's motive was very clearly he wanted to be the king. And Ahasuerus picked up on that immediately, and he said, "You know what? It's exactly what you told me you're going to do to Mordecai." And Mordecai's paraded around. Yeah, and Haman ends up getting splurged with some other um offensive materials. He said it wasn't just a dirty bucket of water. There was all kinds of the worst offensive materials inside that bucket that Haman had splashed on top of of his head. And he comes home. And he feels absolutely forlorn, broken. But before he knows it, there's not even time, he gets dragged over to the palace. And Ahasuerus goes out in the middle of the meal because he's angry because Esther says that Ahasuerus that it's Haman that wants to kill me. He wants to kill my nation. He wants to kill me. I'm also a Jewess. And Ahasuerus's anger flares up. And he actually, some say he was he was flared up because he wanted to calm down about Haman, his friend. But then when he went out there, he says that he saw Haman's sons. It was really angels. He saw Haman's sons chopping down the trees in his orchard. And now he was doubly angry. And he comes back in, and all of a sudden he sees he cannot believe his eyes, but there's Haman with all the garbage still on his clothing lying down on the queen's bed either trying to do who knows what or trying to kill the queen. And at that point he says, "Are you going you're going to try and and and overcome the queen in front of me? Trying to kill the queen in front of me?" And Haman is hung on the very same gallows that he set up for Mordecai. All of a sudden says and the anger of Ahasuerus was abated. Why was it abated? So, think it's the Alshich Hakadosh who says, "Because all of a sudden everything suddenly came together." He suddenly had absolute clarity. Who was responsible for Vashti dying? It was Haman. Who wanted to kill his wife now? It was Haman. Who wanted to hang the guy that saved his life on a tree on a gallows? It was Haman. And all of a sudden he realized everything came together. And he was suddenly And Haman wants to be the king. All of a sudden everything just makes sense. Absolute clarity. Now he realizes now he's doing the right thing. All of a sudden everything was clear. And I was thinking, if you look in the words there, you see exactly the same thing as when it comes to the bracha that was given by Yitzchak to Yaakov. Yitzchak did not want to give the bracha to Yaakov. He wanted to give it to Esau. WHO COMES FROM ESAU? AMALEK. AMALEK IS A DIRECT DESCENDANT OF ESAU. A SON of Esau's son Eliphaz with was Amalek. WHOSE WHOLE LIFE WAS DEDICATED TO TRYING TO destroy the Jews. And so IS THE AMALEK OF TODAY TRYING TO DESTROY the Jews. And by the way, there are many explanations actually that Iran is actually descendants of Amalek. Because what happened is what is when Sennacherib, King Sennacherib came came in to go and destroy all of the nations as he was making his way, of course, to the land of Israel to destroy the base of Migdash. That's really what he wanted to do. But he was not successful in doing. As he [clears throat] was coming there, all the all the nations dispersed, including Amalek, cuz they were terrified. Where did they go to? They went to the closest neighboring nation, which of course was Paras and Madai, was Persia. And of course, yeah, [clears throat] the the Persian women were very happy to go and take upon themselves the Amaleki men, and therefore, literally, the Persians of today, the Iranians of today, actually come from Amalek. Actually come from Amalek. I saw that in a in a explanation from Rav Resnick, Rav Yisrael Resnick, a big big rabbi. So, literally, we're talking about Amalek today. Yes, it's Yishmael, it's the Ishmaelite nations, it's the Muslims, for sure, there's no question, but it's also Amalek as well, no doubt about it. So, I was thinking, you have the bracha of Yitzchak, and Yitzchak loves Esau. He loves Esau. He looks at Esau as being an expression of him, a gibor, a strong man, and he thinks that's who he That's who he's supposed to be, his his firstborn son. And then he realizes, no. Why why why did he realize it? Says Rav Shimshon Raphael Hirsch, cuz all along Rivka had been telling him, "Look at Esau. He's really he's not good. You have to realize he's trying to trick you." And Yitzchak never believed it. But all of a sudden, when Esau came in, and the rabbis say he saw, whatever this means, the gates of Gehenna opening up underneath him, he realized that yes, that Esau was really a rasha, and when Esau came and he said, "Give me a bracha." And he realized that everything that Esau did was really only for his own good, cuz he wanted it for himself, not because but not because he necessarily wanted to carry on the ways of his father. He actually despised the ways of his father, the spiritual ways of his father. And that's why Yaakov was destined to get the bracha. And he realized as even just with a little bit of hair on his hands and hair on his neck, he was tricked. And all of a sudden, dawning upon him, "Wow, I've been tricked all along all these years. And really Yaakov is my son who's a tzaddik, the one who's destined to go and inherit all of my spiritual royalty and to carry on with that. That's who he really is." And Esau, some people say actually he was trying to fix up Esau. He understood who Esau really was, but he realized I can't fix up Esau. I have to I have to pass this on to Yaakov. And so he said, "Baruch gam baruch hu." He will also be blessed. Actually, very interesting, gam baruch hu that we say in the Megillah also, gam the gam the gam Harbona. Also, gam, the same word, Harbona, who some people would say was Elijah the prophet when Leah and Laban said to Achashverosh, "By the way, if you want to know what to do with Haman, there's a gallows, a 50-ft gallows over there in the back of his house. Go, you can go and hang him over there." Gam, the same words. And you say and you see that that Mordecai screamed cried out tremendous cry, "Etz'akah gedolah u'marah", a great and bitter cry. And Esau cried out a great and bitter cry, exactly the same words when he was not giving given his blessing. And you see all of these things all of a sudden coming coming together. And all of a sudden you realize the Amalek that we're really dealing with today is exactly the same Amalek that Yaakov Avinu was dealing with. And that those blessings that were given over, which were spiritual blessings, have still remained until today. We're now we're dealing with the spiritual world, the mixture between Amalek and Ishmael together, combined together into one force, trying to harm the Jewish people, which is exactly what's happening has been happening. But that please God, one day very soon, we will merit to see an end to this, an end to all wars. And please God, we will have the Geulah Sheleimah with Mashiach very, very speedily in our days. Amen.