Purim: Amalek, Remember! - Rabbi Yitzchak Breitowitz

[Music] he's our co-star dealing with the construction of the Michigan which is a very important and interesting topic but in light of the fact that poram is coming up I want to go a little off the topic and talk about some thoughts of for him that are relevant you know there's a med rich that tells us that when hummin issued this decree that the entire Jewish nation would be would be wiped out and Mordecai's declared a fast day the three RS Esther declared a fast day for three days and three nights and by the way according to the South's chronic chronology at least one of those nights was the first day of Pesach the seder meaning that year they did not keep the mitzvot matsuri the mid source of the Seder because they actually fasted see we make we sometimes make a bit a bit of a mistake the fast day and the hanging of hummin occurred during Pesach 11 months before the war against the Persians so really a lot of the poram story actually occurs during Pesach and in fact some even have a min up on the second day of Pesa with generic Israel is the first day of homo adds they eat a kosher 'la Pesach women touching and they sing the poor hymn song Shoshanna ciacco on Pesach itself to commemorate the hanging of hummin but be it as it may in the middle of the fasting in the middle of the fear the trepidation will we merit Hashem salvation Mordechai utilized a time-honored technique he stopped the child and said to the child tell me the path so that you learned in school today and later and it was kind of a belief out of the mouths of babes with time a time of prophesy or a message of divine assurance and Mordecai stop three children to make a Kazakh to establish a fact and each one gave him a puss that gave Mordecai hope the first child that was stopped and by the way these three verses are the verses at the end of all they know that Chabad says other people in every city but most people don't say them the first park is Lt Romney Park I'd piss on do not be afraid of a sudden fear when we show us to show him and the calamities of the wicked he Tsavo that they will come don't be afraid his plastic number one he then stops child number two and child number two says sue eights of this so far they engage in council conspiracies this sue far and it gets annulled debreu de varville oyako they speak words and they shall not come to pass te manu kale for hashem is with us so sounds good number three and again these are the Mazda verses after all eh no odds acknowledge who Hashem is speaking I exist even unto old age meaning no matter how many years have passed I'm still here ani srmo late I will carry your burden and I will help you escape from your tribulations so Mordecai heard three verses from the children and as a result of hearing those three verses he saw this as a divine message of hope a prophecy as it were which will reassure I'm the Israel that Hashem will save them as Hashem has saved us and helped us so many times in the past again this is a beautiful Gomorrah a passage in mistress Magilla but the Vilna Gaon offers a very striking interpretation about why these three verses were specifically chosen and that is all of us know that ha maan is although the Megillah does not make it quite explicit but it's a well-established well known idea that hammam is descended from a Moloch how do we know because he is referred to in the Megillah as ha maan ha a gaggy which would be an otherwise unknown term except for the fact that the Amalekite king in the book of Shmuel that show was commanded to kill well he was commanded to wage war against all of them were like but the king of our my leg was a god and if you recall so all did fulfill the mitzvot by and large but he did not kill a guy and he also spared the sheep and eventually Shmuel Hanavi took over and small nobody kills a gun but cuz I'll have a tradition that in the small gap of time between a dog being let go by Sheol and ksham well killing agog a god managed to impregnate an unknown woman and that unknown woman was the ancestor of her mana and that is why her mom is called ha maan hag Aggie he is deemed to be a descendant of our God he is therefore an Amalekite and that is indeed why in a more Kabbalistic vein Mordecai and Esther who are these descendants of Shawwal essentially our Messiah can they rectify the omission of Sheol in killing a God so Mordecai and Esther their descendants kind of finish the unfinished business now if you accept the very well accepted idea that ha maan is i'm elect so let's go back to this there are three encounters of Amalek that are predominantly described in tanaka in some detail the first encounter we have with our Malik is very shortly after we leave Mitzrayim Amalek attacks us in the oasis of ref eden and that is the very first time in fact that is the reason why i'm alec is so hated and despised because when we left mitzrayim everybody was fearful about messing with the Jewish people Moloch is described as you'll recall the scalding hot baths that nobody dared approach I'm sorry the Jewish people rather described as the scalding hot baths that nobody's there in approach I'm a leg jumped into the bath they got burned but they made it a bit cooler for other people so as I'll say that I'm sorry Bill McGowan says that the first person do not be afraid of a sudden fear the suddenness is referring to that very first event where a Moloch attacked us without provocation without warning and therefore in a sense you know Sigmund Freud Rajan sequence writes our first major book larva is his book on the interpretation of dreams it's very classic a book where he talks about dreams as being a wish fulfillment there's still an open debate whether for I borrowed ideas from Kabbalah you know who knows but one thing is very interesting Freud points out that there's a phenomenon in dreaming that we might often dream about an event that occurred in the past in which we were successful we'll actually dream about a success we actually add if you passed a major test do you made a major accomplishment you will dream about it because that is a mechanism that is a subconscious mechanism to build your confidence for the apprehensions you have in the future by rehashing pre-existing successes in life that is how you build a sense of confidence that you'll be ok so the Vilna Gaon says puss ik number one do not be afraid of a sudden terror is actually referring back and describing the very first encounter with our Moloch that was a sudden unprovoked unexpected attack and it reminds Mordecai hey remember that past attack where I protected my nation now the second encounter with a Moloch was after our own died i Rona Cohen died in the 40th year of the wandering in the desert and because I'll say when I rent a Cohen died we lost the protective clouds of glory right there were three miracles in the mid bore on each of them came in the merit of a distinct personality the well of the traveling water supply came in the merit of Miryam the month came in the merit of Moshe revena and the clouds of glory came in the merit of our on the clouds of glory protected us from enemies when our own died the clouds of glory were NIST elec we were exposed we were vulnerable and the Flemish records that there was a man I read the king of the Canaanites who attacked us but Rashi gives us a convoluted complicated backstory based on the Midrash that although it is described as the king of the Canaanites that's only how they appeared and disguised themselves they were in effect Amala tights who disguised themselves as Canaanites because they figured Moshe would pray for victory against the Canaanites and that wouldn't cover the Amalekites so they disguised themselves so Moshe as prayer would not be focused and Moshe suspected some type of deception and that is why his prayer was very vague he simply asked a Shem give me deliverance from this nation he didn't say which one so it turns out that the second attack was in year 40 and this was an attack that involved masquerade and deception that's called a council trickery that's the second person who threw a son this so far they engage in conspiracies and trickery and deception so therefore the Vilna Gaon says tussock one is makovan against the attack and roof Edom which was year one of the exodus tussock two is the attack after the death of our own in year 40 and therefore they are retrospective rather than prospective they are calling on Mordecai to remember the past as a source of strength now the third major attack is the Gazzara of hummin which is the present the thing that's going on in the Megillah itself now the Guara Magilla recounts that when Haman is debating whether he should go through with his outrageous plans because it is a fairly outrageous thing to do to simply wipe a nation off the face of the earth so one of the arguments that people make to him is hey don't really mess with the Jews look what God did for them in Egypt and look what God did to the Egyptians you know maybe it's better for you not to fool around with this so hummin made the arguments that this so-called God of Israel is an old entity that was a very long time ago and as a result God is no longer in his prime pointing to the destruction of the temple because remember hummin is coming and then after the Babylonian exile so apparently God is not fighting for his people anymore maybe God is old God is retired maybe he's going to Miami whatever it would be so pus turk number 3 says I may be old right that's a month but I'm still around so therefore the Vilna Gaon says tussock one is dealing with Rafi dim the Oasis of Rafi them plus ik 2 is dealing with what happened after our died plus ik 3 is the present situation and that gives Mordecai hope and trust and and be tough on so I want to take this comment of the ground I want to build on it a little bit you know this Shabbos is of course didn't hear you yeah yeah show it's also obviously an encounter with a Moloch but there we were the aggressors the Vilna Gaon is referring to three times Moloch initiated aggression against against us so I want to build on this a little bit we know that this Shabbat that's always the Shabbat before for him is in addition to the regular Torah reading we have the special reading to remember a mulligan it's kind of a paradoxical Mitzvah remember to obliterate their memory from under the heavens do not forget you'll not forget to utterly forget them that's kind of a paradoxical Mitzvah but it is a Torah Commandments indeed now let me point out it's a bit of a hybrid the toga does not say that the Mitzvah has to be done this Shabbat that's a rabbinic ordinance to connect it to pour him theoretically you could fulfill it any Shabbat or not it doesn't even I'm sure about any day they any day of the in the year in fact because I'm sofa was a very interesting whole logic issue you know normally there's only 12 months from parshat so hard to parse out so far 12 months but not always sometimes there are 13 months for example if next year would be a leap year which happens not to be we do pressure to hire another Shaney so from this Shabbat to the next pressure so far would be 13 months now the some supersets theoretically that's a problem because because the reason why cuz I'll enacted enough to read about a Moloch once a year is because we say the intensity of a memory fades after twelve months so we need a booster shot so the sum so for says if that's the case you have a problem when there's thirteen months so because of this he actually says that in the year before a sonamoo Barrett when the when the show we have zebra when the cahal reaches partially safe side which is the natural place of Amalek that's before Rosh Hashana commonly you should tell the stars on to have qivana to be mowed see us in part shot Sarkar because since it's going to be more than twelve months we need to have our booster before the 12 months elapses it actually is a halala monster that the sam Sofer said most people are not aware ever the most people don't do this but nevertheless there's some so for advises that it be done okay but being as it may therefore it's very very clear that both parts are higher and to some degree poram itself is commemorating the downfall of the evil of Amalek meaning to say poor it is kind of a double-edged cerebration it is first and foremost a celebration of the salvation of the Jewish people obviously that's the main thing but it is also a celebration of the downfall and destruction of Amalek that is something that that we celebrate as as well there is a thought that really has its origin in hazael but really the citric acid --is our mark if they a lot they elaborate this thoughts in very very great detail that in order to be subject to on my leg that is outside of us there has to be some infirmity in some weakness within us that makes us vulnerable to our moment and to put it in the opposite way when we talk about the mitzvah of eradicating and destroying a mullet it is not merely a mitzvah that is fulfilled by the enemy outside of us but it's refers to a mitzvah within our own personalities that we must eradicate the Amalek within because there is a concept that it is the amo lake within and I'll describe what that would be that makes us vulnerable liam a lake outside and therefore the best way to eradicate the Amalek that is outside is by eradicating the Emelec that is in sight so what is the on Moloch that is inside first of all let me make a preliminary point you need to know I'm sure many of you already know the genealogy of this a Mollica Moloch was a person who eventually created a nation Amalek was the grandson of a Seveso had a number of sons one of Aesop's children was le fuzz and le fuzz had regular wise but he also had a concubine a pea leg ish and the pea leg issue was a woman from Egypt called Timna and from a leaf Aziz liaison with Timna came this son Amalek now here too there's a very interesting story about Timnath Timna like Hagar was of the royal house of Egypt she was related to the Pharaohs and Tim not very much wanted to be mr. Beckett she wanted to cleave to the seed of Abraham because she had to desire for kedusha but she was found to be wanting they did not accept her so her thought was if I can't connect to the righteous seed of eyebrow it's like a now goes family I will connect to the other seat of Honor I'm the ace of family and out of that relationship came on millech the great reflection Elevens used to remark that you see from here the devastating impact that rejection can produce in the world now again this is a complicated issue and it can certainly be it can certainly be misunderstood you know we're not suggesting as kind of a liberal philosophy might suggest that criminals and brutes and barbarians and murderers and terrorists are not responsible for their actions because it comes from rejection it comes from poverty it comes from oppression certainly Judaism believes in personal responsibility and Judaism believes in accountability and we believe in free will and we believe that human beings do have the capacity and the responsibility to rise above their circumstances I mean that has to be clear no one is saying Hitler is off the hook because Hitler was a rejected artist in his youth in Vienna but at the same time meet cedeño looking at it not from the perspective of the responsibility of the perpetrator but in terms of our responsibility towards other human beings it cannot be doubted that when there is rejection when a person feels rejected and their spirit is crushed there is much devastation that can come out of that not only their own personal devastation but even devastation towards others if you look at the lives of dictators and you look at the lives of brutal regimes you will often find with Saddam Hussein Stalin you will often find this type of media under climb celebrity was the great Russia Shiva Mir here in you shall I am so he never he was very very reluctant to ever expel a students from the yeshiva and when people will tell him oh you know student is learning get rid of him he would say I'm not going to create more on mullets in the world people need to be accepted they need to be embraced and then they get strong and then their goodness can come out when their spirit is crushed all sorts of evil comes out so that's an interesting side aspect of Amalek but be it as it may if we understand that in order to fight amalek we have to work on things inside of us not just outside of us so we have to examine what ghazzal identified as what makes us vulnerable to a moment and you actually see two different ideas in Cazale why we are vulnerable to Amalek the first idea is Amalek has power over us when we have coldness and indifference towards the spirituality of the TOA this is called career us how lave coldness of the hearts cuz I'll see this in the word RIF feeding now refugium is a place it's an oasis but refugium can also be a contraction of two words goth foo your day hem minutes are on rough Edom is rough ooh yeah diam their hands are wax are weak and this is an idiomatic expression that refers to a person who made all the myths votes you may go through all the motions but without passion we talked about this last week without passion without excitement complacency boredom indifference that is the medium in which Amalek flourishes when we don't have passion for our abode sfm or what's even worse when we regard a vocation as a burdensome thing that is called Rafi dim and rhapsodic even reads that into the words I share car car by Derek Carr comma Derek means made you cold but literally means encountered you but because I'll have a trash made you cold and Rashi uses that trash to refer to the boiling hot bath but Rob Southwark has the same etymology and instead of looking at it advanced he says a Moloch represents the coldness of the heart and by the way this is you know this is actually a a fairly serious crisis among people who are religious this is not an issue of you know Kira for ho Kim you know we want to bring people far from Torah to the Torah this is an issue that is called T Ruth Grove in people who keep the Torah there is sometimes and all of us have certainly periods like this there's kind of a deadness a deadening inside a lack of sensitivity the Bible Tonya writes about this quite a lot in Netanya he talks about boots a certain sadness but it's not necessarily depression but it's a certain Tim some blockage in which you're like in heaven you're like a stone like a stone meaning you dive in you learn you do mitzvahs but there's no cute there was no life force that seems to be going through in fact in many ways without over psychoanalyzing the alter rebbe in many many ways this is if we had to pick one sentence why he wrote the Tanya it is precisely because of this because to IQ digress for a moment the alter rebbe writes in the hakama to me Tanya that many many have seen him were obviously coming to him and they needed counsel in their evolution and he couldn't see everybody that's a friend you have hundreds if not thousands of followers so he wrote down the essence of his advice in service of God so even when people could not see him personally they would understand but essentially essentially the struggles that his Cocina had we're exactly these struggles they were all religious people right they were not people who weren't putting on tefillin and these were people who were very very from very observant very learning by and large but the thing that they felt was lacking in their life was this passion and deep feeling and his goal in tanya was to encourage them to keep on working and keep on struggling and eventually those feelings are going to be unlocked because the alter rebbe thesis is that you don't have to acquire the quality of love of God and reverence of God it's already in you and you simply have to find the mechanisms of unlocking that which is already within you as opposed to acquiring some new type of type of skill okay so Achilles heel number one if I can use the Greek a Greek metaphor Achilles heel number one that makes us vulnerable to our Moloch is coldness of the heart and weakening of our passion that is the first attack right the first attack of my modeling came because of that because I'm all that attacked us in rugby them so therefore when we think about the first downfall of Amalek we think about the coldness of the heart within us in which we must engender passion and excitement in a vote assertion there's an old saying for most refined intervention used to say the old year is saying severe it's designing it it is hard to be a Jew that's no the other thing all right to be true indeed it's hard to be in truth but he said he thought that had a very detrimental effect on the whole generation of Jews in America the children of immigrants that came to the 1920s the immigrants were by and large religious their children were not basically the generation that grew up in the United States from Jewish immigrants their children from the 1920s till World War two almost a hundred percent left Halak judaism almost after World War two and at that point you sided started having Ishii vote and then some of them came from Europe etc there began to be a bit of a rebuilding but many many people thought orthodoxy would simply die in America there'd be no way at all and remote refine steam obviously it's a complicated phenomenon but he said when the message that a kid gets who's growing in freedom where he has all the options is Judaism is hard but we got to do it anyway at some point the kid is gonna say well why do I have to do it anyway if it's hard and I live in a land of opportunity and a land of freedom ok now the second Achilles heel that makes us vulnerable to the unlock the hatred of emilich is Senator Koenen the own hatred that we have against each other polarization lack of octaves now where do we see now we have to try to prove this where do we see see lack of passion we know brings on Moloch because that's repeating that we have a textual source but where do we see in the Hamas itself or in Kazan that's a not phenom within our makes us vulnerable to the Cinnabon myleik me buckets so here let me share with you a very interesting Gomorrah in moussaka Bava Batra I think Maria miserable Vostro makes the observation then on millech can only be defeated by ruffles children Amalek cannot be defeated by layers layers children now let's show how this is a true pattern the first war against amo legend roof Eden was led by Moshe a famous close disciple eventual successor Hosea been done who was later named yahushua been done yo sure been done is from the tribe of ephraim who is from yo safe who is from Raquel the first king of Israel that was given the commands to eradicate on Malak is shown on the left from the tribe of Benjamin and we find that although show was given the commands he did not completely carry it out Davi tamela was not able to complete it there were Amalekites throughout the reign of David because debate is from shape of Judah and once again the pattern is our Miletus defeated by raquel children not rachel is that according to some a fortune this is the whole raison d'être of shows my office in other words you know there's a whole problem in the Martian why is this first king from the tribe of Benjamin Yaakov avinu said on his deathbed bruh hooks loius or same as me ever done the scepter of authority of royal authority shall not be taken away from you who done Mullis belongs to shape that you who done the Rambam even says that the whole kingdom of the ten tribes was in elicit illegitimate Kingdom and of course if the famous comment of the Rabanne is the Hasmonean kingdom the cosmonium we're an illegitimate kingdom he says they were wonderful warriors and we're very grateful for what they did but afterwards the Jinni they should have abdicated and found some Davidic descendant this is a famous run bounded by your feet so how do you understand why Hashem chose show so some want to say so actually I up to him I have a political answer actually I'm gonna give mommy give me my political answer the first request for a king show was shortly after Pema gosh we give up her luggage Bagheera was an awful awful Civil War of all of the tribes against a tribe of Benjamin and Benjamin was almost decimated almost totally destroyed it could be a college Parker wanted B'nai Israel to kind of understands that benyamin needs to be reintegrated as part of the nation and no longer be an outcast and as a result they were given the first monarchy what made me think of this was the aftermath of the united the u.s. civil war in which there were special dispensations made to some of the rebel states during reconstruction to kind of show that they need to be reinvented that's my political answer but one of the answers the before team give is that since Amalek can be defeated only by raquel children and not Leia's children we needed that first king to take care of our Malec which he didn't do unfortunately and that is kind of always on jetrel okay now similarly foreign Mordecai and Esther come from Shawwal and finally there's the enigmatic Mashiach Ben Yossef who will be here before Mashiach Ben David and he will be killed in a war we really don't know a lot about him but part of his role would be to participate in the downfall of our molec before Mashiach Ben David so this is a pattern that does carry through and that is Amalek gets destroyed by Zahra Raquel and not Sarah Leia now the quarry doesn't say why the Camorra just says this is the way it is but the before she explained that that is because if I'm a leg represents hatred simple hatred for it for what Judaism and what Jews represents a sonata Phenom then there's a metre can I get me de all of Laius children as well as the rest of the tribes demonstrated hatred towards Yosef and therefore he who hates is vulnerable to hate it is only the children of Raquel Yosef who was both the victim and Benjamin who was did not participate they are liberated and freed from the taint of hatred and therefore they are less vulnerable to the hatred of Amalek and are able to defeat on mullet moreover raquel herself not just your children Raquel herself demonstrates the power of love even when it's irrational because you'll recall that Rafael was aware of the deception that a loved one would practice and trying to substitute her older sister and Raquel gave her right so he/she and Yaakov devised hand signals in the dark they would be able to recognize each other and Raquel gave those hand signals to Leia this represents the power of love this is why the Navi year mio in a beautiful classic that's been set to music number of Mugu name of called Borromini Sh'ma like the voice that is heard on high raquel neva carbonara it is Raquel that cries in unity my maracas would I dress all the mother practice interesting rock so we may know the street cuz we put him a new birth Afghan and Raquel is there a service streets in your slave there's no Rico sorry so Rocco is the only one of I think that your if got an over cap to check that is really Rifkin Bacharach Ibaka has - Watson streets ok but the word he may know I think is only is only in in Rocco's then we put record we although we we say sorry you may know terrific the reason why Rocco has such a unique color because Rocco represents more than anyone else the power of love the power of caring about someone even when it's against your selfish interest and therefore she can code wash em and say show your love to the Jewish people so it turns out therefore if the first Achilles heel that makes us vulnerable to a mullet is roughly a day had Minnesota the second Achilles heel is cynically numb and lack of ayahuasca Sorrell and that is in the second attack the first attack was repeated the second attack occurred after our own died and the clouds of glory left now let's think for a moment what does around himself represent our own imperfect us how they write having me tell me dog shall our own be a disciple of iron oh if shovel a lover of peace Road Dave show up a pursuer of peace olathe Sabri is one who loves all of God's creations are there by the way though that word its open include Jew non-jew maybe even animals and omec are volatile ha and he draws them near to the Torah and for some Sofer explains by the love that he shows them he draws them near to the Toba he does not draw them near to the Torah by condemnation by denigration by insult by Moosa you know the negative way of tokoha he draws them near by the power of love so when our own died and the clouds of glory dispersed that was the physical event but spiritually our own death meant a diminution in what I were in representing hence our Mullica Texas the second time so the first time roughly a day in Minnesota the second time the Sonata kingdom and the lack of our streets are not we now come to pour him in pour him what I want to show you is pour him we are vulnerable to our Malec because both see boats both reasons existed exactly at the same time meaning on poram we can identify both the roughly am and and thus in a subpoena let's take the Senate's keen on first because that's that's a little easier and this I did mention that is when Haman I mentioned this last week when Haman is making his case against the Jewish people the language he uses is yes no I'm afraid there is a nation that's my foes armor for rugby mmmm that is scattered the Midrash tells us that although Harmon simply refers to the fact that because the Jews are geographically dispersed they are weak and ineffectual but the spiritual claim is they are mahfouz iruma for God among themselves they are divided there is dissention there's polarization their synonym and that makes us vulnerable and that is why Esther's first response when she hears what's going on is less Kano's go and gather all of the Jewish people because if we are vulnerable because the foes are muffle round we are scattered and disunited we need to have a unity and togetherness so that is the problem of Sanatana but where do you see that during Purim there was a certain complacency or laxity or a lack of passion and tolerance so here it's a bit more intricate but I think you see a beautiful point this way the Gemara says the grandma killer discusses why was that generation KY of misa in other words why did they deserve to be almost eradicated it's not at the last minute discuss in a fashion so the first answer that was given is because many Jews attended the party of extremist and they enjoyed the party and for that reason there were coyotes so the question is well you're not trying man I mean what did they do so they had trace foods right they had trade food they drank non kosher wine you're not tired you don't get eradication for that so what does the gemara mean that because they enjoyed the party they deserve to be eradicated so the specimen says a Gavazzi Guterres it doesn't say they ate the food they ate than they drank it says they enjoyed it now why is that a problem because why did I flesh fear right admit the Megillah begins with the description of a very very fancy elaborate party banquet that Irish made for a hundred and eighty days after year guess the Kings didn't have too much governing work to do just you know let's have a party for 180 days in which there were representatives of the 127 countries or provinces that he ruled over why did he make such a huge banquet in the third year of his reign so without getting into all of the details the Gemara explains that he knew that the Babylonian exile was only supposed to last seventy years on the Jews were supposed to go come back to Israel and he miscalculated based on his calculations but he counted from two earlier points the seventy years had expired after two years of his reign and the Jews aren't being redeemed so this was a celebration that there would not be a redemption there would not be a goal uh there would not be a Shabbat coz there would not be a Binion base anything now when the gomorrah says the jews enjoyed the party the sin was not for which they deserved obliteration was not that they ate tray food but they enjoyed the party that means in other words they enjoyed what the party was meant to symbolize meaning who needs a rich israel who needs a base of mukesh we're comfortable here we're productive here we're accepted here we get invited to Royal banquets here and that is complacency that is deadness when a person stops yearning for gula which represents closeness to Hashem then in effect maybe they're even keeping the tour end in itself but they're doing so without passion without yearning without a sense that they want to grow in their other decision so we see therefore that the two fatal flaws that make us vulnerable to our mullick were both present in the poram story Rafi damages encounter number one is laziness and laxity and lack of passion in our vote a session that's number one and that was shown in the fact that they had pleasure in this party that signified nothing has to change Achilles heel number two which is the second attack of Amalek when ayran died that represents senator Koenen that's exemplified in the poram story in mahfouz our roma fahrrad been army so in effect a malik number one is refuted i'm a mullick number two is synonym i'm malik number three which is ha maan is a combination of riffing as I am and sin as freedom and that is why when we celebrate the vanquishing of a Moloch we are also celebrating the needs to rectify their Moloch within us in these two ways one of the outstanding characteristics of poram is of course Michelle Obama notes sending food to your friends and might honestly have youngnam the charity to the poor and of course the Rambam makes the point it is a bigger mitzvah to give more charity to the poor and give less miss la cama notes because that but whatever it would be the whole purpose of those mitzvahs is to create friendship fraternity compassion togetherness because we are vulnerable to the hummons of the world when we armor foes are before Radburn on when we celebrate being liberated from the hummons of the world we have to be mr. ken that refers armor for Ron with love and togetherness and responsibility in fact that is even that gives the reason that's given you the the Kapila when you give me slow in my notes you're supposed to use a sheliak meaning if i want to give you a shovel coming out i shouldn't give it directly to you i should get somebody else it could be a kid who ever will be a third party to give it and the reason is because when you get more people involved there's more friendship meaning to say it's not just I'm showing you friendship but also the somebody else involved will get a treat etc you want to be Marbella Reyes to increase friendship because that is how we defeat our mullet that is how we defeat a mullet we don't defeat a mullick when we live in mock locusts and periods and again let me emphasize that sonata phenom is not only hot smoke locusts it also refers to coldness and indifference that is also Sinatra no hatred can exist by ignoring people they're not my clique they're not my group they're not my keeper they're not my ass all of that is she not you know I saw something on the internet I can't reproduce together I don't remember was a long time ago but it was about a a person who was about to jump off a bridge the guest roommates area tonight he's gonna jump off a bridge you know yeah and usually he's looked like a religious Jew so somebody tries to stop him it says please don't jump are you Jewish the person says yes and then kept on going are you rusted or miss nage it's not yet good I'm too and it went like ten levels down that they were the same but after ten steps it turned out are you a brisker or a telomere that's a firework went and the person said I'm a brisker says go jump they're like no 99% in comment that little thing man forget it with them at that at that point okay now we also see though that poram and this is a little less numb poram is also eighty good for their rough where your daily Hammond and I thought how do we know this there's a very interesting causal on the verse in McGillis Esther can you move the key okay blue they accepted what they accepted what does that mean they accepted on poor him out of love what they had previously accepted out of fear duress or compulsion and this is based on a difficult teaching it's actually difficult to fully understand that as Martin toccata even though we seemingly praise the Jewish people because they said now sevenish MA there was a certain element of compulsion the way cuz I'll describe it Hashem held the mountain over their heads like a barrel and said if you accept the Torah that's great if not I'll squish you about the pancake and this is where you will be buried and the Jewish people said oh yes we accept the Turin we did it under fear and pour him in gratitude to what I shall did for we accept it out of love which we had previously accepted out of fear and compounding now the difference between doing something because you love the person that asked you to do it even in human relationships and doing something because you would have to do it really is very strongly connected to the passion that you bring when you do something only because you're out of fear you're gonna get punished you'll do as little as you can get away with and you will do it without enthusiasm and without joy when you do it out of love you bring an excitement and a pleasure that every time you're doing it you're showing your love for someone that you care about so the fact that forum is Kabbalah totora may Ahava is the t-con of rafinha diam reef Jana Diane comes when you don't have love for what you're doing when you love with what you're doing and you love the the entity that commanded you to do it Akash Marco you do so with it's love what's so therefore what turns out is the following poram is a combination of the two Achilles heels that makes us vulnerable to our mullick and we express our gratitude to mush em by addressing and rectifying the two weaknesses that make us the two weaknesses are refugees they have minato ha and Sinatra nom poor him we bridge and overcome Sinatra nom by mich la vaca my notes and my turn ugly of your name and we bridge the rough ooh you didn't have me not so have I come a lot hot so wrath be Ahava and now again that's a theme that perhaps we don't emphasize that much important you know we don't but but nevertheless it is clearly there and it's something we should think about let me mention a third idea form which is not connected to this thought poram is Miss su Gao as a day of - fela a day of prayer and there's a very interesting analogy that the syph ray kabbalah say you know normally when a poor person asks me for sadaqa i am entitled to demand some verification that he has a need unless he's asking for food if he's asking for direct food if I have it I have to give it to him because if he actually needs foods he wants food not just money then you have to be afraid to he might he might drop that but person asks for money the luck is you can say show me a letter of course letters aren't so hard to get some some minimal verification but on poor in the halacha is call hypo shake your dough no symbol call approach nature though means anyone who puts out his hands you gotta give him doesn't mean you have to give him a lot but you have to give him something poor him we don't ask any questions poor it you don't have to be qualified you don't have to be deserving you get no matter who you are no matter what your situation so there's a me documented me that since for him is a smile of call that pochette yeah Joe no slim low so too with a shun normally when I dove it Hashem might say where's your letter what are your credentials are you deserve it are you entitled maybe you're not the right person to get this prayer answer but important just as we don't ask any questions on some level of college portal also does not ask any questions and therefore poor him is a day that's very mister Gao for its Fela fact some people have a minute against it's not tremendously widespread because it's a bit of a hardship that they get up very early poor in morning assuming they don't have a hangover from the night before and you know they get a four o'clock in the morning and they spend 3-4 hours to heal him to feel at and then by the time the day begins 9 o'clock already whatever it is after Magilla then they're able to do all of the other myths votes that you do important but they do set aside a few hours in the early morning to be me you had for its fee lap so it's something it's something to do think about let me just end with one final thought of forum from her foot nur very interesting point we know that the Cohanim made a rule that for holidays and festive occasions we are obligated to praise hashem through hollow aware of the chapters in salem that are hollow we say how well pass actual circus but even on the rabbinic holiday of Hanukkah which is mature Bunin we say a full how well for eight days now Rosh Hashanah Yom Kippur we do not recite how well and that the Kumari already explains why since God is deciding who will live and who will die so the dominant emotion of your min Olga M is one of fear and trepidation so the unrestrained joyousness of Hallel is not appropriate but the big question the Gemara asks is why do we not recite how well important forum is a very happy day a salvation of the Jewish people why don't we say hello and you can't answer it's only rabbinic holiday because obviously it's not worse than chronica in fact poram is earlier than kind of the poem is in the Tanakh even though it's rabbinic technically and chronica is is post-biblical so the gomorrha gives three answers three answers for why we don't say how one for him answer number one is we don't say hallo emporium because reading the Megillah is the substitute for hallo by reading the Megillah and acknowledging a scheme' saving us that is the hallo of meaning we do say howell emporium the howl we say emporium is reading the Megillah that's the answer one answer to is we don't say how well on miracles that happen in course Ladas we only say how well on miracles that happen in Eretz Israel so the obvious question is what type of answer is that what about Pesach the Halal of Pesach everything happens in betrayal so the Gemara says well that was on the way meaning to say the miracles and hood Florence that are the msie you bring your parakeet well you say hello but a self-contained goalless miracle it's not bringing you back to Eretz Israel no how old for that and the third answer which actually from the Oman somewhat perspective is quite interesting is we only say Hallel where as a result of the miracle we no longer face the danger that we were facing Konica we no longer faced Greek rule because we overthrew the Greeks we established a Jewish sovereign state but in the case of Bacchus Rao's what happened here even after the miracle of Turin we are still the slaves of Akash favors what's going to stop him or the subjects about the Spanish huh what's gonna stop them from having a hummin the next day some other Amun it's right Steve man and some other guy like that whatever whatever it would be which means in other words unlike Chanukah where as a result of the Wars of Hanukkah we overthrew mouths with Yvonne here we did not overthrow mahouka of a roach and therefore we are still in a state of vulnerability now some have tried to use that argument maybe this deserves a share of its own as an argument against how el ano mots mode you know this is a lease in the States this is a very very burning question every rabbi is interviewing for a position in the north of our synagogue of you know whether it's right or left it has to be able to give a detailed answer what is your position of how well on your MOT smart and then the rabbi has to kind of discreetly ask well what is it if you want me to say you know figure it out one way one way or the other but the truth of the matter is there are conflicting analogies here on one hand the Hanukkah story is a very strong argument in favor of however because the Rambam rights for favors that the howl of Hanukkah is not because of the miracle of candles or even though that miracle happened the the hollow of Hanukkah is the re-establishment of Jewish sovereignty in the Land of Israel now keep in mind that as Moni and dynasty eventually was not a righteous dynasty they were Helenus in many many ways it was not a from government and yet the Rambam said that warranted challah that is actually a fairly strong Yama's modes argument that in spite of government religious not religious etc however some use a counter argument and they look at the poram story by saying well important since we are still facing the original dangers we cannot were not out of the hot water so some have pointed out that yo mot Smallwood's was the beginning of a war it was not the end of any any particular word was the beginning of a massive war that to some degree or another is continuing and that's why some are Michalek between yum you shall I am and yamazawa you shall I am is a devar masu young that's a fin ative thing we have you know your schleimann IRA buy it okay I don't want to address that all I'm saying is that that that's third answer and the contrast with katakana is actually putting aside ideology in politics is actually a major how logic text this okay the Shogun our work actually uses the answer number one McGee la is how though based on answer number one the me Erie says a very unusual haha me he says if you are stranded on a desert island right your ship I got shipwrecked on port or before port and you don't have a megillah' with you but you have your trusty Sidor the Erie actually writes you are makuu you've to say how well with a broker unfor it because the only reason you don't say how well is because Magilla takes the place of how well if you don't have a megillah' you got to say how long that's what the many reasons but submission of rewrites that we don't pass again like the Miri that not only is Magilla a substitute for how well but Magilla on poram is the only way you can do how long you can't do how well through how well you can only do hallow through Magilla now why should that be why should a surrogate how they'll be better than a real hawa so rare foot nur says the following idea the flicker says it's a very ingenious thought he says that the how well that praises hashem for his miracles has to take the same form as the miracle itself Pesa represents what we call nay sniglet open obvious miracle hashem changes the laws of nature you have the ten plagues you have korea's youngsil so because we are commemorating the open revelation of God's miracles we praise him in an open and obvious way through Halle pour in as we know the Megillah itself doesn't even mention the name of Hashem emporium there is actually nothing supernatural that happens at all if you didn't have of faith you could chalk it up to all sorts of coincidences the fact that Irish kills Vashti which makes room for Esther to become Queen well Kings killed their wives all the time that was not an unusual thing Esther gets chosen more that somebody has to get chosen Mordecai happens to overhear an assassination but humma doesn't know Esther's nation and therefore she's positioned to frustrate his plan beautiful novel beautiful story all the pieces fit together but I don't see miracles here I don't see anything beyond the laws of nature so poor him and is a very very important lesson for him is the idea of learning to see Hashem even when his presence is not obvious even when his presence is concealed that is why the word s tear itself I understand that historians and archeologists connected to Ishtar etc or you saw here the moon but because I'll connect the name Esther Chris Hadassah was her given name but the Persian name s there cuz I'll connect to the Hebrew word hast air to conceal possessed ur is the story of concealment of the divine that's why it's a godless holiday it's the only one of our young M Tobin that is a Douglass holiday because go Lewis represents the concealment of God's face so reporters point is ingenious he says when the miracle is concealed the hollow has to be concealed as well and therefore the hollow is concealed in a narrative that doesn't even mention the name of God meaning nice Nicola has Hallel go lujah nason estar has how well this turret and therefore you're not yet say open how well for hidden hidden miracle but this is the important support and therefore poram has a very special meaning for us because in truth all the brush m we have the privilege in our generation to have a medina to have the Jewish sovereignty restored although it's under constant attack maybe with the new American president maybe things will be a little better and that front actually even more than the president the ambassador to the UN is really quite a quite a special person in terms of the way she articulates support for Israel it gives stark and well-deserved moisture to the Security Council listing 20 other things they ought to have been doing instead of talking about Israel all the time but being as it may we even though we are zoca to Jewish sovereignty we are we have not yet experienced the gula we are still in collister this much is a true statement we don't have the base I make that we don't have Shalom we don't have the Messiah we're still plagues internally by Senator Koenen but the message of forum is that even against all of that backdrop you understand the love that a sham has for B'nai Israel and even when his presence is hidden it is like a mother watching out for her children through the latticework you know it says and she rush here in the reference that maid sits minute I reckon that means glancing through the cracks in the window and the ideas if a mother is watching a child's playing and you know the child doesn't even know the mother is watching or he's peering through the latticework to be sure that he's okay and this is what a sham does it's wrong this is what poor him gives us that type of strength that type of encouragement that type of piece hook and BS recession may this poor him again be a time of Gulen and Yeshua and simcha for all of for us and for all the qualities [Music] [Applause]