Rabbi Yitzchak Breitowitz: Purim and Eradicating Amalek

my baby [Music] thank you thank you for coming and we're rapidly approaching the great great for him happiest day of the year and after that is pesach which is also supposed to be a very happy time although some people get a little anxious over it and we do have a lot of dedications for today first day Mazel Tov congratulations to everybody Postman family and the birth this week of a baby boy grandson the baby should grow up and the breast should be on time and where Hashem is part of the ebonya family another member of the family in addition Aliyah for Israel Ben Yosef Yehuda the father of Ed regular as well as the father of Viola lubric Tonyo Ben Israel um that yard said is on the seventh of other we hope that the debris Tower should be Lili nishmatam a refuge Lima Forum halavi van Ester and David bengitullah again may they have a refugeot Israel then we go on and the following special dedication by Rina and Mark questel for the entire month of other appreciation of this year as a foreign should be filled with simra for all of them Israel again it's something to really think about because unfortunately as all of us are aware there have been a number of of tragedies and terrorist incidents and you know I am I myself from West Hartford Connecticut I did not know the young man that tragically died in terrorism but in fact it's from my hometown I haven't in my parents show and he also was a talmud of Wars many years ago before before I was there so in some strange way I have a lot of connection with him and what a tragedy it is and along with all the other tragedies the the Pali boys that were brutally killed so so we hope indeed that the month of others should be filled with simra and and Yeshua in addition has started its maternity of your name for Purim as well as Kemper de Pittsburgh which is providing help for people for pesach fundraising campaign um and you can talk to everybody posting about how to do this how to contribute and there's a link that can be found in the YouTube description box as well as the eboner website let's see if I'm missing anything one more thing here okay registration for the pesos has already begun and you can find the information on the Ibana website the musician I hope to be mustative in the in the Seder okay so a lot of announcements but yeah they're all they're all good announcements so I want to talk a little bit about the holiday of Purim um even though that means we're not going to fully cover the partial of the Sabbath well I will tell you one little short for it about Parsha State Saba parsha's truma discussed the mishkan Parsha State Saba is continuing that but it focuses primarily on the Priestly garments on the big day Kahuna now that's a very important thing if a coin is not right they say close makes the man in the case of big day Kahuna it is 100 the case because if a coin were to do the service in the temple without or the Michigan without wearing the proper uniform not only is that a sin but the entire Temple service is invalid so it's a very important thing the big thing Kahuna are a very very major part of the service and that is is all about but it is the only Parsha in the Torah since the birth of Moshe where moshe's name is not mentioned obviously in the partios of gracious where Moshe wasn't born yet his name is not mentioned but once Moshe was born in parashat shmot every single part of the Torah mentions Moshe rabeno except for parcel and there is a famous observation I'm sure you may have heard it from the Vilma gone that basically says that Parsha state is at least in a non-leap year is always read the week of the seventh of Adar and the seventh of Adar is indeed the yard site the day that Moshe rabane who died although he was also born so it's a kind of allude to the fact that this is the week of his absence Moshe rabenu's name is not mentioned also it is treated as a fulfillment of the curse that Moshe gave himself after the sin of the golden calf which we're going to read about next week so Hashem said to Moshe let's make a private deal let me eradicate the Jewish people I will make a covenant with you right so I'll make a private deal with you Moshe and Moshe turned it down mosha turns Hashem down Moshe said you either forgive the people and we're all together or not or race me from your book now which brought down that even though moshe's curse was conditional erase me if you don't forgive the people but it wasn't proper for him to talk that way so in a sense Hashem says you're going to get some of your medicine and you will be partially erased from the Torah and that partial Erasure was indeed in parashat's parashat titsava so that's an interesting observation about parashat I will also leave you with a question which I'm not even going to answer at all but it's something you think about if you look at true mantis of it the division is normally a very neat division truma is mishkan is big day Kahuna and that fits 98 of the content of the two partias but here is the thing we read all about the mishkan in truma and then we read about the big day Kahuna into seven and at the very end of that we are given the instructions about the golden altar remember there are two altars in the mishkan and in the base of mikdash there is the outer altar in the courtyard which was big and you brought all the corbanos but then in the temple building itself or the Michigan building itself there was a much smaller golden altar called and that was not used for carbonus only on Yom Kippur some of the blood was sprinkled but generally speaking on the inner altar you brought kitoris now the inner altar is described in after all the big de Kahuna it is actually out of place in trauma we talked about the our own and the shohan and the menorah and the outer altar it would have been quite logical to talk about the golden altar at that point so question for Thought question for discussion I'm not going to answer it because my here is not about that why is the discussion of the MS bayach have deferred until after all of the big they could that actually is a difficult interpretive question okay so I don't only give you answers I try to give you questions that you can think about or research or look into but as I say the main thing I want to talk about this week is the holiday of Purim and if you think about like what are we celebrating on Purim we're actually celebrating two different things you might call that a positive aspect and a negative aspect the positive aspect is that Hashem we almost were destroyed we were in danger of being wiped out and God saved us there's a Yeshua there is a Salvation at the last minute so to speak gave us the ability to be saved from our enemies that's the positive celebration of Purim the Yeshua gedola but there's also a negative it is actually a celebration of the downfall and destruction of the evil of a Malik we are celebrating not only the fact that we're saved we are also celebrating the mapala of Haman now Haman remember was from amalek remember the way all of this works was the very first king of the Jewish people and show all happened to be from the tribe of binyamin and we're going to read in fact we're going to read the hotel rib this week is going to be that episode and he was commanded as the Torah command this but he was given a specific command it is now time to eradicate amalek and Shaul did a great job he did 99 of the job but show spared two things he spared the king of amalek and he also spared a lot of the sheep and the Novi shmuel comes to show all and says to show why didn't you do the will of God and Joel says I did the will of God I eradicated amalek and Hashem says why do I hear the bleeding of the Sheep and Joel says well I was afraid of the people the people want to bring it for corbanos Etc effective spread down the the safer weak arm regressive album says a very very interesting idea sinned in failing to carry out the amalek Mitzvah and one strike and he's out God says you are no longer going to be king David sinned with Bathsheba which one could argue was a worse sin and although David suffered that was responsible for Shalom trying to kill him his own son and the baby that he had with bathsheva died but at the end of the day David remains so reviews not given a second chance and David is given a second chance what's the difference so he actually gives two answers both answers are very very interesting answer one is that shaol's sin was a failure to carry out the duties of his position he failed to fulfill his obligation Davidson was a sin a personal sin a Yates are Harrison but it was not malfeasance in the performance of his office so even a personal sin if you do chuba God will allow you to keep your position but malfeasance in office is grounds from roof now this is actually very very fascinating I think in the 1300s and this is actually a major debate in American constitutional law this was relevant to Bill Clinton if you remember years years ago when Bill Clinton had various Affairs and and the like so the question is is that grounds for impeachment can a president be removed because he cheats on his wife some constitutional Scholars said hey that's a personal moral failure that has nothing to do with his conduct as president others say if a person has bad moral character that taints everything revasive Alpha was actually suggesting in this first answer that the only grounds for the removal of a Melech is his failure to fulfill the duties of a Melech and a personal moral failure is between him and God but God will allow him to keep his position very fascinating mama says political repercussions but then reverence if album gives a second answer which I think is even more powerful he says the difference between shall and David is not the magnitude of their sin maybe David's sin is worse than Charles sin but it's how they respond when the navi identifies their sin you'll notice that the first thing shaol did was deny that he sinned it all he said I did what Hashem said and when shmuel says how come I hear the sheep and now God is here so Shoal can no longer deny his sin but he offers excuses he shifts the blame he blames others the people made me do it he didn't take responsibility for what happened and shmuel gave him Musa around that shimul said you're humble you're modest you think you're nobody okay so at one point was very very modest and humble but you are the leader and as the leader you must take charge you can't allow yourself to be controlled by people and the like and indeed and I'll come back to the fact that Joel apparently changed uh in the opposite direction we'll get to that in a moment now when David committed the sin with about travel now it's true it's true that gazal say that technically David may not have sinned in as gross away as we might imagine it says every soldier who went to war gave his wife a guess and therefore David actually lived with an unmarried woman so it was not technically adultery and the gemara even has a lush on that anyone that said that David's sinned is making a mistake but I'm going to tell you an opposite statement anyone who says David didn't sin is also making a mistake because it's impossible to Simply say David did nothing wrong the book of Shema says befarish he did all something awful so we have to understand the idea that even if David technically did not commit an offense spiritually in God's book he was guilty of adultery because the expectation was that the soldier would remarry his wife and he was guilty of murder because he didn't kill Uria but he sent him to the front he positioned him to be killed and as the Navy said it was you that killed him with the sword of the ammonite maybe it was an ammonite Army Amon that killed him but you were the one that killed him right so we we have to be careful sometimes I think sometimes in the Yeshiva World uh you know they said how can you say he doesn't did anything wrong well the book of small says David did something really wrong so khazal are not whitewashing because now they're telling us the other way around that even though David was technically okay being in technical compliance is not enough sometimes they say in Washington DC that the standard of ethical behavior is you did a non-inditable offense meaning to say if what you did won't get you indicted okay that's called morality well the book of shemal is telling us exactly the Opposites yeah David had all his cards in order no availa at all and yet is not alive anymore so the prophet who comes to David is says to the king I want to ask you a question there were two men a rich man and a poor man and the rich man had so much so many sheep and the poor man had one little sheep and the rich man was making a party and the rich man took the sheep of the poor man which is all he had in the world and he slaughtered it and gave it to the guests what do you think should happen to such a guy and W this outraged that the selfishness that the egotism at the lack of compassion the lack of caring and he says such a man deserves to die and of course actually he doesn't deserve to die man who had worse than he did that but the government is saying morally such a man doesn't even deserve to live so NASA and Ravi then says you are that person you did exactly that and dovet only said two words I sinned now the thing is David actually had excuses he had all the excuses give him David could have said she had to guess what do you mean David could have said I had a right to send a soldier to the front Gomorrah even says that he had the right to send Doria there David had the excuses but David didn't use them because he knew that his heart at that moment was not pure so revise if Alba says the difference why shall gets the second my shoulders not get a second chance and David Gets a second chance is not because shaul's sin is worse than David's sin but rather David takes responsibility for his action he doesn't try to deny it he doesn't try to defend himself and show all equivocates denial defense and that a leader cannot do meaning leaders can make mistakes leaders make mistakes happens all the time but a leader takes the acharias for a mistake and then Hashem says that could be allowed to go on like Harry Truman used to say the buck the buck stops stops here and whether you're rosh hashiva godal a politician in theory in theory one should take responsibility for the decisions that that were made now going back to the Purim story adag the king of amalek shall all spared because he had wrath I guess Kings like like kings is the actual person who finished the gag off but in the relatively brief time we don't know between the time our God was apprehended and that God was killed a god managed to impregnate somebody and that was the ancestor of Haman that's why he's called Haman who comes to my God so what do you see from here had mercy on a Malik now that looks like something merciful out of that Mercy came an enemy who was on the verge of destroying the entire Jewish people in fact Demar tells us we were worthy of being destroyed meaning it was not a done deal that Haman wouldn't be successful Haman could have been successful so what do you see from here as the gamara says when you have mercy on amalek you can't imagine the consequences that might ensue and indeed the Quran makes the point he who has Mercy and those who were cruel he will have cruelty to those who deserve Mercy the same shall who is so motivated out of compassion that he couldn't kill the king of amalek when later David Gets shelter and refuge enough a village near your shalim where there were many kohanim who lived what did massacred City through Doge Doge his advisor he massacred the city of nov Ira kohanim where did the recommend go right if you have misplaced Mercy you'll have misplaced cruelty that's exactly what what happens here now but there is a poetic symmetry because shall all is from the tribe of binyamin and he failed to kill our God and that resulted in Harmon who had a gazera against all of the Jewish people but who engineered the downfall of Haman Mordechai and Esther Mordechai and Esther are from they are from The Tribe of Benjamin so Mordechai and Esther against Taman were able to be missacking able to rectify what shall failed to do it's very very important to understand that in a sense the descendant of shaol was able to destroy the descendant of our God the king of of our mother there is a short story I think I mentioned before from Roald Dahl that's how you pronounce it the d-a-h-l famous British writer I don't know if he's still alive Willy Wonka Chocolate Factory rolled out but he wrote children stories but one of his stories it was an interesting thought experiment about a doctor who gets summoned in Germany to to a house and middle of the night because a baby has whooping cough and a baby is seems to be on the verge of death and a mother begs and begs and begs this is my life this is my child this is the most precious thing and the babies like beautiful but suffering so much and the doctor's heart is filled with compassion he wants to help the baby help the mother so let's imagine everything sounds so important and wonderful and good let's imagine at that moment you were given prophetic clarity and that baby you knew would grow up to be Adolf Hitler that would kill you know six million Jews and a few millions of other people as well what's the merciful now we we can't make judgment like that because we don't know I mean this is a theoretical question but what would the merciful what is true rahmanas at that point is the true rahmanas to heal Adolf Hitler knowing again we never know but this is a theoretical knowing that he'll grow up and kill six million people or what they what would the truly merciful thing to do is give him a lethal injection so there'll be no Hitler in the world now this this one right I mean if we were I mean it's totally theoretical but if we were faced with such situation you're gonna kill a suffering baby in front of his mother right that sounds horrendous and yet you're going to save six million people now it is impossible for a human being to make such a judgment impossible so we don't make that judgment but there's one entity that can make that judgment and that's God so when God gives us a command to kill amalek and people say that so inhumane God knows that the amaleks are going to be Hitlers and God is telling you kill the Hitlers before they become Hitlers now again I want to be very very explicit sometimes people use this rhetoric to justify you know Killing Children of terrorists or whatever it is you know we can't do that we can't make predictions I mean the child of a terrorist might grow up to be the Exotic of the world or whatever it is we can't extrapolate beyond the Divine command so I'm not saying we should use a Malik as a prototype for anything we should not but within the specifics of the command where God himself is giving you the Judgment that's exactly what is what is going on so the point is that Purim has a double aspect to it Purim is the joy of being saved the joy of God redeeming us but it's also the joy of the downfall of amalek and that he couldn't the rectification of the mistake that shaol made now it's very very interesting that this even has halachic ramifications I don't want to get into it too much you know that normally a Mitzvah that is a time-bound positive commandment like citizens or Talent women are exempt from but one of the exceptions to that rule there are many exceptions actually is reading regular hearing regular every woman as well as man is obligated to hear the mcgillon for him and the reason is because they too were beneficiaries of the miracle I think so some have argued the following some have argued that that since men and women are equal in obligation there's nothing wrong with a woman reading Magilla to a man now to do it publicly would be a coalition problem but but let's say husbands and wife if the husband has laryngitis or whatever or the wife happens to know how to read the Magilla better than her husband which by the way is entirely possible today so some posts can say why can't a woman read Magilla for a man she has the same obligation as a man but toastfos brings a shita of the Bal hillchoscadolos the bahag one of the early gaonim that says that even though a woman is obligated to read Magilla she cannot read it for a man and the question is why not I mean normally when men and women have the same obligation Kiddush is a good example a woman can 100 make kiddish for her husband because the Gabe kirish men and women are equal that's another exception so if a woman could make kiddish for her husband why can't a woman read Magilla for her husband what's the understanding of the bahat so in London in the analytical Theory they explain it this way in Reading Magilla we are celebrating two ideas we are celebrating Redemption salvation and we are celebrating the eradication of amalek so some have suggested since the eradication of amalek is connected to war women are always exempt from combat so therefore a woman is not obligated in the eradication of amalek so it turns out when a man reads Magilla a man is commemorating two ideas the woman is only commemorating one idea that of the miracle and therefore a woman cannot be mostly a man because she does not have the same obligation as the man of course according to that you can raise a very good question so why do women go to show Parts actually says a woman is exempt from because they're not involved in war so the Bible could very well follow the safer where mahmir that we tell women to go but the truth is in Europe it was not that common I mean now you know partial soccer is the big thing everyone is going to practice in Europe it was not necessarily that common because many we shine and say women are exempt from parashat zachar because remembering amalek is connected to Waging War against amalek and women are not involved in the in the in the war so here's the thing about amalek I want to share with you if indeed Purim is not just a celebration of salvation but it's a celebration of the downfall of amalek there's a very important you sold that one has to understand and that is the power of our Malik over us depends on having a certain aspect of a Malik within us meaning there's an amalek Within that gives power to the amalek without and therefore when the Torah says eradicate amalek it's not only referring to eradicating the amalek outside of you but it may refer even more to eradicating the amalek inside of you I think there's a movie series or something about The Nightmare on Elm Street and I've never seen it I promise you but the conceits I read an article the conceit of the movie is that somehow the nightmares you have in your mind can become the reality of what you face in the world and you change your nightmares or you get rid of your nightmares you change your reality well this resonates actually with this idea of amalek what gives a molec power is the negative attributes of amalek that are within me and as I eradicate the negative part of amalek Within Me the amalek out there vanishes it loses its power it becomes an illusion it becomes nothing at all so therefore since Purim celebrates the eradication of amalek we are thinking about the inner amalek now what is the inner amalek that drags us down and makes us vulnerable so in truth there are two ideas remember that amalek initially attacked actually amalek in the midboard it's half this twice the first year we left metrium and the 40th year the last year of the desert when Aaron died the first time amalek attacked us was in the Oasis of refeed them this is before our Sinai because I'll tell us that the word refill them although it's the name of an oasis is also a contraction of two words weak hands that means complacency roughly your damn they didn't care about the Torah so the Achilles heel that made us vulnerable to amalek was a lack of passion with respect to the mitzvah meaning you can have a person who keeps everything I keep the mitzvahs but I do so without a kishmak I do so without a passion I do sell an automatic pilot or maybe I do so with resentments no it's a bother it's called coldness of the heart and the coldness of the heart makes you vulnerable to America that's why it says they encountered you in the way so Rashi says which means encounter can also mean major cold now Rashi takes that lotion in a different metaphor Rashi says when the Jewish people left mitzrayim everybody was scared of them because of the plagues it was like a boiling hot bath a molec jumped into that bath they got burnt but they cooled it off for the next guys that's how Rashi understands it they made you cold SoDo takes the same etymology is connected to cold but he he goes a little different he says that it doesn't refer to the fact that they took away the fear that people had for you but a Malik represents coldness of the heart when your heart is cold a mole comes in so the first encounter with amalek represents coldness of the heart now the next time I'm olick attacked us was 40 years later when iron died and when iron died the Clouds Of Glory that were in the Merit of our own dispersed we became exposed a mother protect us now let's see what that really represents symbolically symbolically we know that Iron's Mida was always the lover of Peace the pursuer of peace because he was the person who brought shalom actus Unity togetherness fraternity love Arun brought us the anonyme of the Clouds Of Glory that surrounded us and protected us when Aaron died a certain aspect of his media disappeared meaning there was less of us Israel there was less activists there was less Unity we didn't deserve the clouds of Glory so that's the second to kelicia the lack of unity among Israel The Sinner so if you compare the first struggle with him of a Malik with the second struggle of omic you see the two weaknesses that make us vulnerable to our Malik you see the coldness of the heart and the lack of enthusiasm Hashem and you see The Sinner and the lack of unity within the Jewish people and when those two things are present I'm sorry when either of those things are present we're vulnerable to amalek what's fascinating is at the time of Purim now when is Purim Purim is during the 70 years of the Babylonian exile but it's towards the end in fact the second base Amicus was built from Esther actually Jewish dayavish so the second base to make this is built shortly after the Book of Esther but in the Book of Esther itself there is no Besame but you find in the Book of Esther that the Jewish people were guilty of both pygamim at the same time that's why we were so vulnerable to amalek because we had the Amma Lake within us both times how is that so so I'm going to take the second aspect first if you remember in the Magilla when Haman is negotiating with that he wants to destroy this nation so the Mela says to Haman yes there's a certain Nation method that are scattered among all the nations their laws are different than everybody else's they don't care about the king's laws Etc and it's not worth the king's time or energy to keep him around and if the king wants I'll just eradicate them for you now it's you do it's a very well known idea that the Book of Esther does not contain the name of God well for sure it's the only book well it is the book that does not contain the name of God there's a Mach Locus if sheer hashiram contains the name of God that depends on the word shall have vesia is that which means a torch is that one word or two words if it shall have it is just a poetic word for shall have it so hashem's name is not mentioned if on the other hand you read it shall have it car a torch of God so you do have one mention of God in the shiroshima Esther for sure does not shirashiram perhaps does perhaps does not depending on shalhavesia tells us that even though mcgilla sister does not contained the name of God whenever it says refers not only but it refers to hakadish thus in the dramatic part of the Magilla when it says that's the beginning of the of the change of things that night the king could not sleep so can't sleep but the measure says and also brings then the possible the king of Israel Hashem does not Slumber or sleep right double meaning so that means whenever you see Melech there's simple meaning and higher meaning simple meaning higher meaning is Hashem so here's the thing when there's a dialogue between Haman and the Mela the dialogue is existing on two levels lower level is the human prime minister Haman is negotiating with the human King higher level is the force of a molec is arguing with God in Samaya so now let's look at the two perspectives Homan says to them there is a nation that is scattered and dispersed on the lower level is telling us hey the Jews are not concentrated so they don't have the power to fight you on the higher level is saying to God they don't deserve to be saved because they are divided and separated among themselves [Music] and that's exactly why when Mordecai convinces Esther to do something about this Esther says go and gather the Jews for fasting because if our weakness is we have to come together so that's how you see the pagan of lack of actus from mephosia reforic now where do you see that there was a particular weakness of a lack of passion for keeping the Mitzvahs that the kri resalev the coldness of the heart the roughy them in the Torah so this is a bit more subtle that is the gamar amigila discusses why the Jews deserve to be destroyed what did they do that was so bad and one of the answers that's given is because so many Jews enjoyed the party of akashviros and therefore there were high of Misa because they enjoyed the sauda now here's the question what sin did they commit by participating in the students let's assume they ate non-kosher Foods they ate non-kosher wine that's that's an Avera of course but is that you're not high of me some of that you don't get the death penalty for that so what is the aveira there were nanu misuda social or Russia that would make them high of Misa so here's what this was Emma says it doesn't say they're getting punished because they ate from the suit it doesn't say they're getting punished because they drank at the suit they're getting punished because they enjoyed the suit now what's the problem made his party the third year of his Reign for a particular reason had said that the Jews would be in exile for 70 years miscalculated he started counting from a wrong point it's quite a complicated discussion but he made a calculation that the 70 years were over he was wrong because you're supposed to start counting from a later point so he took the Calum of the base of mikdash and what was his party about his party was about the fact that the Jewish people are never going to be redeemed they'll never go out of Gallas there won't be a base on mikdash there won't be a return to to every Israel and there were Jews who came who celebrated that so it's not the question oh they ate Trey foods and they drank traef wine yeah that's another but they wouldn't have been deserving of death but essentially they're declaring we don't need a base that make us we don't need Eric Israel we're fine where we are that's complacency that's indifference it's lack of passion so and that's the shot they enjoyed the party meaning they enjoyed what it represented we don't need it we don't need this other stuff we'll find where we are shushan has Chinese restaurants Kosher Chinese restaurants glad kosher Pizzeria whatever it is we have everything what are you going to get in Eric Israel anyway Ben and Jerry's you can get you know whatever so what do you see from all of this you see from all of this that why did Harman have such a power over us because of the amalek inside of us there is the amalek of indifference and complacency or Russia and then there's the amalik of and when there's a Malik inside of you you are vulnerable to the amalek outside of you so when Hashem Hashem accepts archuva and Hashem allows us to be saved we have to thank Hashem by kind of eradicating those amolex within us so we're no longer vulnerable so let's look at Purim let's look at the halachrik observances of Purim you see the halachik observances of Purim are designed to eradicate the internal America right lack of access separation this is why Purim bedafka we go out to connect to people we have Michelle we exchange gifts of food autonomously of young him those who are poor we try to help that's why it's brought down that specifically you should give him to somebody with that you may not have the best relationship with but you have to be careful with that because people might take that as an insult you know I give you because you know you're not really that much of a friend so I figured I'll give you 12 months you know you know you have to be careful not to do that in a hurtful way but you reach out that's even that's even the meaning of Shalia right you know the meaning of is although your yots say certainly but the Minogue is instead of me giving it directly to you I get an intermediary someone else to bring it because you're involving more people in the process more people in the process is friendship although you got to be careful sometimes sometimes what people want to do I mean I've been guilty myself is you kind of circulate so I'm going to give you Charlotte minus and you give the same thing to somebody else to repackage it and then it goes in a circle so sometimes you wind you wind up getting back that you gave away it goes around in a in a circle in that particular way uh but but whatever it is uh it's Marvel Reyes creating friendship and autonomously of yonim is about caring about people having compassion caring about people in in need so that's a Tequan for mofos are Bane that's very very good now what is the t-con for the lack of passion the complacency in rookness so here there's another aspect of Purim that we often don't focus on but it's very very real Purim is said to be a day of re-accepting hashem's Torah it mentions in the Magilla blue they fulfilled and they accepted they fulfill they re-accepted what they had already accepted at Mount Sinai we accepted the Torah but we accepted the Torah by Hashem holding a mountain over our heads there was a certain element of coercion in Mata I'm Purim we accepted out of love and gratitude what we had previously accepted out of fear and that's why indeed that's the action that's actually the meaning of the results famous statements that Purim is holier than Yom Kippur because Yom Kippur in the Torah is called Yom kippurim kippurim they have atonement but you can also read it Yom kippurim Yom Kippur is a day like Purim which implies actually that puran is holier than Yom Kippur now if you had to pick two days that are most different in the calendar for a menu Kipper are really really really different days you know Kippur is fasting you're in show all day poorim is eating drinking rejoicing but the difference is Yom Kippur is the culmination of the Sinai kabala Satora because yeah we got we heard the Ten Commandments on shavuas but the first Lucas were broken on the 17th of Thomas so what happened to Yom Kippur Moshe brings down the second little house so Yom Kippur is the culmination of a Kabbalah Satora that occurred by Hashem holding the mountain over our heads so Yom Kippur is the completion of accepting the Torah out of fear pour him is accepting the Torah out of love and since love is greater and higher than fear that level of Holiness Purim is unique even greater than Yom Kippur now that's the Cure it's a lack of enthusiasm when you do something because you have to do it you're going to get punished so you'll do it but you'll do it without enthusiasm you do it without Joy you'll do as little as you need to get away with it when you do something out of love your whole motivation is very very different so you see Purim is all about rectifying the inner amalek that drags us down our two problems were lack of unity coldness and complacency in about as Hashem Purim we thank Hashem by accepting the Torah of Love which generates enthusiasm and by Michelle which is all about actors and unity togetherness and the like because how do we thank Hashem for destroying on my leg by ourselves trying to destroy the amalek within our own personalities okay so that is the idea for him as being connected to the downfall of a Malik but now let me just briefly talk about the other aspect of Purim that maybe is more familiar to people we're fine so here we know that one of the most beloved Mitzvahs of Purim at least with in some circles is drinking unporn a person must drink and pour him until they don't know the difference between cursed is Haman and blessed is Mordechai and that's brought down in the although it's in this way and suffice it to say that one has to be very careful about drinking on Purim the truth of the matter is the way there are mod pascans it just means you drink a little more than you usually drink and the Mitzvah is only at the poorim meal which is the day of Purim at the meal you're sitting at the table it is not a reference to a drinking in the street or drinking at night or whatever it is and you know I don't have to give a whole speech that unfortunately over the years there have been tragedies that occurred as a result particularly of teenagers uh drinking automobile accident so I'm not here at all to Advocate any type of heavy drinking on Purim in our generation it probably is not an appropriate thing because you have to know how to handle your liquor I don't just mean physically but there's a spiritual element of this as well but nevertheless it does say a person should reach a level where they cannot tell the difference between cursed is Haman and blessed is mordecai what's the particular significance of not telling the difference between them like why is that something important so in the introduction to the naseebus was a great one of the great acronyms says commentary to mikula zester he offers a very very nice explanation to not knowing the difference between cursed is Haman and blessed is Mordechai and he says the following he says the gemara says if you remember when Haman took off his I'm sorry she took off his ring and he gave it to Haman that gave Herman the authority to act as the king so it says the removal of the Ring did more good for the Jewish people than 48 Prophets and seven prophecies that's how many are mentioned in Tanakh because what do the prophets say over and over again do chuba do chuba duchova duchova we never listen but when that ring was transferred to Haman and our lives were in danger all of a sudden everybody does children did more for the Jewish people than 48 prophets and seven prophecies so this gives us an interesting perspective on Purim we typically think we're we're grateful Emporium because God saved us we're not grateful that we were in trouble we would have been happier if we wouldn't have been in trouble but if we're in trouble we were saved but in reality that's not true we're grateful not only for being saved we're grateful that Hashem put us in that trouble because it was that trouble that brought us to a chuba that we otherwise wouldn't have had so the concept is cursed is Haman refers to the bad part of the story our lives were in danger is the Salvation a person has to reach a level of simcha that they realize that they're grateful not only for the good part of the story but even for the so-called bad part of the story and that's an important lesson in life because that reminds us that even in the adversities even in the tragedies of life there will be a hidden light a hidden bracha of God that we have to be aware of and that's the that's how you reach it with simcha with joy to understand the perspective that in reality even the din is the meaning of Shema foreign I sometimes see God's mercy and I sometimes see God's judgment but in reality Hashem all of it is hashem's Mercy Mercy itself comes wrapped in different ways so I want to wish you all a very happy and joyous poor and may indeed pour in be a time of gaula and Yeshua as it was it's it's kind of strange that we're kind of still facing almost the same and you know almost 2 000 years ago we had a government in Persia that wanted to wipe out the Jewish people in 2023 57-83 we have a government in Iran that wants to wipe out the Jewish people's idea some things don't seem to change much but it means Hashem we should have a poem of the same of the same way so thank you [Music]