KLM: Want more Kavanah for Purim? Prep for Purim with Rabbi Asher Baruch Wegbreit

[Music] welcome back to klm we're in the ibanez basa midrash and what's coming purim's coming what would be the pinnacle of purim if you could look up let's say towards a mountaintop and say what would be the pinnacle of of the experience you would want to have on purim you know who can teach us esther malka we should strive for her level now her level is incredible probably not going to get there right away but esther i think is a role model of what we love and let me explain based on the gra and his parish of the mcgillis esther so the gra raises a question that you should really think about if you learn the gemara in my second megillah it's talking about all the hidden miracles that took place um in the megillah and we have that esther fasted three days and we realized it was three days no eating no drinking no bathing no anointing nothing it was an intense three-day fast and then she comes to appeal to achashveros you know moroccan instructor go appeal for the jewish people now she has to uh she has to really um look good for that and so the the gemara begins with saying that angels like her she couldn't even keep her head up but angels lifted lifted her head up there were angels involved in several miracles in that time of lucking this is the one we have to learn from okay the gemara says that when akhis varus at the climatic moment in the second suda with him on and esther says someone's persecuting our people and they want me dead and he says hey the who right the famous azo who right when she was asked that by akersferos the gemara says right there who's who's sitting there there's ah the gemara says she was going to point at akhishvarosh and then but what happened amalek went like that and pushed her arm away so the villain going says does that make any sense that if if mordechai said p appeal for the jewish people save the jewish people i want you to make an effort i want you to make an establish right now appeal to the king about haman and esther was going to nail aches fairies now we know she's right i mean the gemara says that akhispheres hated the jews even more than amman and they made a whole deal but why would she do that why would we need an angel to save the whole thing and then she ends up pointing at haman listen to what the cross says and this is why esther is our role model he says it's the way of siddiquim of righteous people that even when they're involved with other people their mind is really actually also connecting to hashem they're if you will they're in communion with hashem all the time and that's why they when they're in given situations they're there but they're not totally there because they're with hashem so she was in like this reverie like this almost dream state as she always was she was always so close what does the word devacus mean it means to attach to get attached now the gemara says how do you attach to hashem hashem is first of all he's not physical he's not spiritual even okay but the mars is also like a consuming fire so how do you attach to hashem the according to the ron bon and the high atom you know how you do it with your your soul your heart well your thoughts of your mind where your neshama is and the feelings of your heart where your the soul is also not physical okay and that can get attached to hashem so the real the people on the really high level they're there with people and they do everything they possibly can to connect and act properly but still they're they're like their heart and minds is actually connected to the shame simultaneously so the grass is like this what happens when you're daydreaming um say let's say you want to say shimon and sometimes you know your mind was on ruben so you say reuben oh i'm sorry shimon right so when akhishwaris asked her asa who is this person who is against the jews so she was she was so connected for a moment she forgot herself and she said well you know acha sparrow sent you and then and that's why he needed the angel to push it away okay what an example of the vacus of attachment to hashem so now that's but in truth this is what klm is all about because the wrong you know i at one time i had some summary students at my shabbos table i said what's the purpose of life and i said and they said to serve hashem i said you're wrong now now you might find a little surprising that i'm saying that but they are wrong why because it says in messi is asharin the purpose in life is devakis is to cleave to hashem to set yourself for sure in the world to come but even this world the whole purpose is to cleave to hashem the means is serving hashem right serving hashem is a is the derek it's not the destination so devacus is what we always want to do an emporium where we are celebrating purim it's a chance for great to vegas however it's a spiritual principle it's a physical you don't uh you don't like skip rungs on the ladder we have to make we have to step by step head towards the vegas and the first thing we have to do is put get put a firm foot on the first rung of the spiritual ladder and guess what that is having kavanaugh for the mitsubis so right now we're gonna look at um i identified five you could make more or less five minutes of purim we're gonna uh we're gonna take that first step and make sure that on purim we have cavanaugh for what we're doing and then we're going to try to go a little higher okay we said that if you want to climb towards devacus towards attachment to hashem you have to put your rung on the your foot on the first rung of the ladder which is to have kevana for the mitzvos and as we just mentioned a moment ago that if our goal is attaching our hearts and feelings to hashem in a very deep way like esther did if we want to do this however the path is the mitzvah and as rabbi poston mentioned mitzvah is from a lesson of bonding so the mitsu is the bonding agent okay for devacus having said that kevana what does kavanaugh mean most people when they hear kavanagh they're thinking of focusing in prayer that's important that's called kavanaugh slave but that's not what we're talking about here we're talking about cavanaugh mitzvos which means having intention to do the act as a mitzvah before you do it right and how much difference does that make let's take a look here the ron was one of the greatest roshonin in jewish history the ron says this the reward for a mitzvah with kavanagh cannot be calculated meaning if you compare it to someone who does the act and he did a mitzvah sometimes sometimes the context won't make that clear he did something but if you compare him to someone who had that intention and focus beforehand no comparison so with that in mind our first step is the uh to have the basic kavanaugh for the mixes of purim and notice the language here prime yourself before performing these five porn missiles to prime ourselves primaries priming is to get into like as prepared and ready state now what's really amazing is one of the greatest rabbis of all time the high autumn it just to give you a feeling for his greatness he was in the same city as the vilnigan all right and the villenegon said this man the item should be the post sake right and so that's how great he was and the high adam wrote several principles about menses and one of them he says you must prepare he says i contest about myself the high autumn the great height on that any mitzvah that i didn't prepare beforehand i didn't do properly now if such a great person says that then obviously we need to prepare and that's what the cavanagh beforehand is about is to prepare yourself you say to yourself i'm about to do a mitzvah we have this little uh thing i i heard a very wise scheme to help people um make successful changes let me just give you this scheme we uh it's really worth hearing it says if you want to make a positive change in your life so the first thing a strong commitment because if you don't make a strong commitment it's not happening okay but that's not enough then you have to set a time because if you don't set a time even though you have a strong commitment it's not happening and thirdly you have to set a reminder i know this by experience you know i taught michele and we always were working on how do we put this into action and you would say i'm going to do this right and even you would think of when you're going to do it but if you don't have a ding like a reminder or something like this it won't necessarily happen so purim has a world of intense beautiful mitzvahs and you have to you can easily just slide into doing them without being prepared preparing your intentions towards hashem so we try to make this set of time right this is approximation of what time the mcgill is read on the night so you have around let's say 6 35 after marv so just you would want to by the way i i'm making this poster available just send me an email you'll see it in the below by the subscription link in the givenet so anyhow this poster can help why because it's it's alerting you to the mitzvah of the time so around this time at night there's going to be chris mcgill so all you need to do is take it probably be two and a half seconds and think the following if you say it's even better but think it you just think before it this one's a little easier because the the balcory is going to make an announcement because you cannot uh fulfill the myth of chris mcgill unless you know how to read yourself but if you're listening you're uh for men particularly the obligation is to read the magilla so he's reading it for you so you have to have in mind uh i have intention that the baal corey will stand in my steed and read it okay now we have an uh myth to listen to it for that to count the point is you're going to get a little help there'll probably be an announcement but if like for example women are hearing megillah readings etc so anyhow but take this moment you can't calculate the difference this will make just think i intend to fulfill the mitzvah of chris mcgill you're aligning yourself and preparing before the act occurs same thing in the morning depending what time your minion is this is meant to be 8 30 in the morning no it's a little brighter over here say mitzvah i i i intend to fill the mitsubishi now here's where i think this klm effort is very important when we get to these crazily busy mitzvas okay what do we have we have two mitzvahs that are going to take place most people some people will um set it up earlier but most people are working on the gifts to the poor matunis levione and childhood monum immediately after the megillah that's the thing you know every year the kids are sending them out you're going out et cetera so there you don't have a gaba announcing everybody please have in mind the mitzvah manos or the mitzvah martinez lavioni so that's we remember here's the time it's after the mcgill reading you're launching into those myths this take a few seconds and think i intend to fill mitzvah tonight i intend to fulfill the mr shah manos and then the afternoon the highlight for many the purim suda right the drinking the feasting the singing the everything right so that one's gonna be even more challenging to do you have to stop prepare right because if you don't if by the way you have to make a commitment to this if you make a commitment i'm gonna i'm gonna elevate my purim with these thoughts these seconds of thought i'm gonna you commit to that here are the times and you have to be you poise yourself to maybe set a uh an alarm so okay the last one is to film it's a pseudosporin this is the first rung of the ladder that leads to the vacus and right now we're going to take it another level okay but this ladder this step must occur first okay so i want to point out that the embedded in all of these mixes are very deep um spiritual emotionally connecting things taking place in these mitzvos after all they're divine so i'm going to quickly talk about these few and then we'll take a little more time on the chris magilla okay you know the the gemaran sanhedrin says a very shocking thing it says um that um uh the there's a puzzling initially it says to vlade mishta tamid a a good heart is constantly at a mishta at a feast right they're constantly like at a party so it sounds good and it depends the gemara has several ways to explain that and it says by the way it says all the days of a poor person are bad so you hear this a good heart he's like he's always had a party and a poor person is some uh all his days are bad so the gemara this is the one i want okay shocker this one's not so bad it says mishtab tamid aksari a cruel person if you're always happy when they're jews in uh in ukraine and all around the world all this if you're always happy that's a sign of cruelty judaism has very high standards for emotions cruelty you could all you think of as kicking a cat but if you're callous and not sensitive to the poor that's considered cruel so look what they designed on this super happy day of purim matanos levione right now it's take a moment and feel for them because see metastation is also mitsubitsudaka and the the idea sadaka is not just handing over money you have to feel their situation you have to say thank god i'm not a recipient and i'm able to be a donor okay so that's a little deeper thought is that re uh if you want to put more into this mitzvah have some compassion for the people who are going to receive your matanos love youness and monos right so this is a day a beautiful day of octas and friendship and that's what unifies the jews and that's what is the one of the key secrets to our success so just also don't just send it but say have in mind the myth of avas israel after come up i love the people i'm sending as if they're myself right so these are dimensions you can add to that and then finally suda's purim sudas purim is and uh the whole idea of getting drunk till you don't know or not the holy deal one of the primary ideas is to recognize it's all from hashem that's the mitzvah of yehuda hashem which is a tremendously important mystery you say you know it says melissa it's all this it all goes to the same direction hashem saving his people getting them to grow and then saving them right so you have the deeper uh step up the ladder for sue's purim is to reflect on hashem's unity and how he's doing everything for us and be filled with uh love okay that's the uh that's the higher rungs of the latter for these mitzvahs now we're just going to conclude with i want to go into a little more detail of the deeper uh chance for devacus with korea's megillah chris magilla so there's there's the first rung is to have in mind the mitzvah of chris mcgill before it's performed but this there's another step before we get deeper and this is so important to stress the mitzvah chris megillah since the person's reading it for us we have to listen to every word we have to boy this is the time for concentration and kavanagh in that sense you really have to focus don't let beautiful ideas distract you from hearing the whole magilla so i want to stress that it's super important but you know thank god for most of us we've heard the megillah several years so we're fairly familiar with the text which maybe gives us her permission to go a little deeper okay now the idea to go to deep deeper is really in the gemara the gemara asks the famous question uh halal we were saved from death right the in in egypt we just got out of slavery but here saved from death famous question of the gemara so we should be reciting halal and by the way halo halo how do you translate that praise right a little more than that says rabbi miller the word hallel comes from wild he says it means super enthusiastic praise that's what hallow that's why we sing it and and get excited now the megillah is supposed to be like hallel you hear that it's supposed to have that thing but how is that done you're just okay the one reading the magilla he could uh what can he do he could read it with some enthusiasm but we're listening we're fulfilling the message by hearing him so how do we make that joyous praise the answer is that if we and the bill negon explains this if we see the deep miracles that are taking place the hidden miracles if we see them and get excited about them and as the yasod voda says feel love and gratitude towards hashem so i'm going to give you an example of how you can do this you can use my example it's on the first pasik or you can prepare ahead of time just prepare iris suggest prepare a cup of sukim where you're going to do it your heart and mind are going to be singing hollow okay so let me just read the first passage it says okay so uh it says it was in the days of aquaspheres this is the akhesveros that ruled from hodu 127 provinces so this is a verse we can maybe reflect on because i think everyone knows it and has heard it i want to present to you so we can say hollow about this verse is uh the rich and let's see the reason is the orahimakash he wrote a short commentary on mcgillis esther so listen to what he first of all ask he says like this what is the significance that akhishveros ruled from hodo akush the gemara says he ruled over the he was one of the three kings that ruled over the entire world so why is that important that's the first question there's no coincidences anywhere certainly in the in the magilla but the second is even more of a question he says why do i care that it was 127 provinces okay first of all he told me he rules over everything and i need the number of provinces he rule what's that for those are his questions now listen to what he has to say it's so beautiful sometimes we know it the jewish people are let's say the enemies of the jews sometimes we need to be shaken up we need a kind of tough love we need to grow and so what does hashem do he will set us up for difficulties and oppression and things like this but you know but what he is very mock pete is hashem's particular to do the following if he's going to have someone be his appointed representative to arouse us to chuva through threats and scary things he wants that person to be very hush of to be very distinguished because if some if we need a little bit of shaking up from somebody and it's just some low life nobody that doesn't make us feel good it's about the jewish people's self-esteem the the national self-esteem if someone's going to be out look at you know yama hitler yamakushimo was a just he was such a low-life losing uh painter barber whatever it was he was nothing to be but since hashem uh decided this person uh is going to be in place uh he look what he became almost a ruler he almost ruled the entire world it's a principle hashem wants us if he has to wake us up it's going to be by someone who's very great and powerful because he thinks we're great that's number one why 127 because hashem's always looking to help us to succeed and 127 says the gemara magilla those were the years of saray menu and the gemara says let the merit the of sarah maynard who lived for 127 years helped estra malca who resided over 127 provinces it was supposed to bring it's like a mentioning to bring merit and and school to help us succeed what a loving parent so you hear this is he care hashem cares about us even when we have to experience hard times to wake us up he cares about our dignity in the process and secondly he's trying so hard to help us that's look what's in now isn't don't you want to sing hollow over that so when you hear the me akhashveros you think well this this guy who also gemara says he might have been just some average joe he became an incredibly powerful ruler to give us dignity and finally 127 he's trying to help us out so when you hear the words let your mind reflect on that miracle and let your heart say shem you love us so much thank you okay that's my that's my example of how you say uh you turn your crease megillah into hollow which we should all be zoho to do [Music] is foreign