Rabbi Yitzchak Breitowitz: Countering the Request of Haman (Evil)

[Music] I can cut a show you know as we know this is rush collision of attire and hazael teach us mishenichnas adar when the month of Adar comes which is now Marvin B simcha we increase in our joy and because I'll also say machine is nosov when we have the month of our mu Martin B simcha we diminish our joy so I mentioned this morning you heard that ruff Schwab used to say very nice thoughts that you never bring simpler down to zero I doubt you have more of you have less but you always have to serve Hashem with simpler even on Tish above itself and this interesting point because we know that one of the books of tanaka is of course the book of HR the book of lamentations and the fact that it's intimate means that it came to your ear myoho through prophecy through prophecy and divine inspiration he composed the book of Achor the book of lamentations now the problem is of course that the book of lamentations is full of sadness and mourning and grief and yet because I'll say prophecy cannot rest on a person unless there be simpler and it's not just a car but throughout so much of Tanaka so much of the words of the Nivea are prophecies of destruction prophecies of sadness prophecies of tragedy so you kind of have a self built-in contradiction if in order to have prophecy you have to be a joyous how can a prophet ever give a prophecy that's not joyous and the short answer is although it's hard to fully understand this is that somehow even amidst the sadness and even amidst the tragedy a Jew finds reservoirs of joy to connect to God and reasons to be grateful and as a result it is actually possible to have simcha side by side with grief you know in a robbery one shall I give a class in the about the PSS the Rebbe who is the last to see the surety of the Warsaw Ghetto PSS know was a village near Warsaw and he was an extraordinary person he was an extraordinary person before World War two he was a great great educator a great psychological understand ER of what youth were going through between the wars and in Europe which were you know very frightening in terms of the so-called enlightenment and communism and socialism and he found ways of reaching people but he really reached his heights in the tragedies of the Warsaw Ghetto where he eventually died because he would give people encouragement and he took in the darkest moments of the Holocaust giving them a munna and it was a different type of omona it was not the Emunah that things will be good at the ends because he understood at some point that there'll be a lot of tragedy that's not going to get resolved it's a different level of a moon it's in a munna that even when things are apparently bad you believe and you hold on to our coverage board but that's a that's a deeper and more difficult type of emunah it is not the Pollyanna shamone that everything will turn out good but it's an understanding that's I'm with God and God is with me no matter what we are going through so I think of this because among the little stories that we have is that after the insurrection after the uprising in the Warsaw Ghetto so most of the ghetto was destroyed but there were some Jews were allowed to continue working in Nazi factories so the PSS the Rebbe was actually a person who was allowed to work I mean he was killed a few months later but he actually survived the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising and the story goes that I'm poor him this is in 1943 in the poram of 1943 after the gather uprising he gave he managed to smuggle in an orange which was an orange was more more more than a diamond to be able to give shuttle - to give to a person that needed the prison so the point is that the truly righteous person can see simcha even in the most tragic circumstances the orange the color even amidst the gloom and the darkness and that is how a prophet could have simpler even in Corbin but that's really of right a door for carrot Adar is cool oh cool Oh simpler but it's interesting that rosh chodesh a door has another significance and we really read about it last week but I'm going to talk about it today because it is Rosh Chodesh Aadhaar the Mishna says be a cardioid are mash me in a lush column rosh chodesh Adar we make an announcement that people have to give their half shekel contribution what is that referring to the base on Mick Dodge had a fiscal year an accounting year and the fiscal year of the base of Mick Dodge began Rosh Hodesh Nissan every year Nissan was a new fiscal year for the base in mikdash not Rosh Hashanah in that situation and what do I mean by a new fiscal year the halacha is that all the carbon oohs of the community I don't mean individual offerings but the carbon Talmud and the holiday offerings have to be financed by donations taken from Claudius rail which are the famous half shekel contributions but the halacha is you can't use last year's money for this year's car bonus it's similar to government budgeting that whatever was not spent you know cannot be carried over to the new year so as a result every year there needed to be a new collection of shekels in order to finance the acquisition of the carbon notes the animals and the incense and the oil for the menorah that would be needed for the coming year that means that although people sent in their contributions throughout the year in dribs and drabs there needed to be some money in the temple Treasury Treasury Rosh Hodesh Nissan because they had to buy core Bono's with that money from that date so to ensure that there would be some significant money in the temple Treasury by the beginning of the fiscal year Rosh Hodesh Nissan they began to announce the collection of the money Rosh Chodesh I died one month before so that money would get in I guess they say that doesn't mean everybody gave their money that month a lot of people relate comers just like with the IRS or the Israeli tax authority but with Israeli territory people simply don't pay but but they're sure they should pay though okay but whatever it is a lot of people pay taxes late but there had to be some money so they announced an Adarsh there would be some money by Rosh Hodesh a Nissan and this is the meaning of the Michener's phrase brr-brr mush me and Alice : and that is why the Shabbos before Rosh Hodesh odds are which was last Shabbos we read as the mob steer the extra Torah reading about the Mitzvah of giving half a shekel let me hasten to add that the weight the silver weight of a half a shekel is much much more it's nothing to do with the half shekel today basically if you compute the weight and you turn it into president of value a half shekel would be equivalent to a thirty to forty dollar contribution or around 120 shekel or whatever it's the conversion rate would be so you're talking about a relatively significant although not exorbitant contribution that people had to make to the service of the base of Accession now there's a statement in misako's Magilla there is a statement of rich Lucas rebbi shimon ben Lukesh that's a very very interesting statement he says why did the Torah say as you Tory didn't say it directly but cos Allah said you start giving the half shekels rosh chodesh odds are because golly via duaa it was known to the almighty lifts Nimisha al-marwah ha-olam that harmon would try to buy the right to kill the jews with many many government right he gave us a rush a saris a La Femme key car ass aerosol of him 10,000 key car key cars the talent a huge huge amount of silver 1t part is a lot quite a lot this is ten thousand key cars and that's how much silver he was going to give a hush a rush of course I have a roach in his righteousness told Tomlin he could do the job for free he didn't even have to take the money but okay and therefore in order to counteract this column of Harmon Hashem told us to give our Chicago him first and that will defeat the shakeela Mohammed that's what rich lucky says and that is why we give our column a cardioid our before the time that humming would it would have destroyed us which is the 13th of Adar right that would have been the day of the milk ama that was the day of the milk AMA and in order to counteract this column of hamon we give our skull him first now the question is what exactly does that statement even mean first of all the SH column of Hammond were not given to God they were given to have a rush second of all Hammond is long gone I mean we are still giving skull in because they we don't give the shekel we remember it but we still give or commemorates column to counteract the skull in Mohammed what power do this column of ha maan have today or even the time of the temple even the time with the base of Mick Dodge that we have to counteract the SH column of harm on by are giving Scully what exactly is the connection so let's go back so I'm going to talk about McGillis Esther a little bit tonight in anticipation of poram although we'll talk about other aspects later and that is if you remember ah ha maan has to make a case to achieve a rush to essentially commit genocide wipe out a nation and he doesn't say who the nation is even which this is an example of how idiotic Irish is really because Jerry's is agreeing to the eradication of a nation which happens to be the nation of his Queen but even besides that karma doesn't even say what nation he's talking about he doesn't say it's the Jewish people or whatever it is so what my face just gives them a blank check okay do it to do what you want but Hamid does have to make a case someone has to be a devil's advocate and Harmon says the following yes no America there is a nation Mahfuz our Ummah foe rugby no I mean who is scattered and separated among all the nations meaning they're not concentrated in one place does say hem shownotes McCallum their laws and their practices they don't mix well I think these Jews just don't mix very well they they remain separate versus a hemella ain't emotion but the laws of the King they do not obey the lamella ain't show Vela Hanifa it is not worth the Malik's energy to even keep them alive let's just get rid of them now simple meaning is common the man is speaking to a cough a roach the man and as utilizing traditional anti-semitic tropes basically saying as I'll say Jews are lazy that hummin was making the argument every time he asked you to do something he says it's Pesach today it shoppers today it's circus today they have new holidays like shamea saris that come out of nowhere etc I remember when I had my my very first job I was a law student and I worked in a law firm in the during the summer between my first and second year of law school so I told my boss my Roman Catholic supervisor but I had to take Shavuos off seeing their to sell these things are so far from the things we have to deal with brush em but and put swarek's you know every jumped if you got to get a an exemption you got to get to a shuts so around a half an hour later my suit a very nice man came back to me and he asked me could i supply verification that this is a Jewish holiday because he talked to every Jewish lawyer in the office and none of them had ever heard of Shavuos they heard of you know Passover people keep Rosh Hashanah Yom Kippur even Sukkot at least they're aware of shavoo house literally they didn't know they never heard of they didn't know what it was and he asked me to give him verification but whatever it is certainly you know I was when I was in academia and we had September the semester begins in September so Rosh Hashanah Yom Kippur suckish meaning at Sarat some historic like the number of cancellations goes on and on and on so humming took advantage I'm on set to auto Spanish you can never get these Jews to do anything there's always some holiday going on and then they don't obey the laws of the king so he mentions an example because I'll mention an example that if a fly would fall into their wine they might not that they wouldn't have said but they might pull out the fly and drink the wine which is permitted but if your Majesty touches their wine they have to pour it out you're worse than an insect right so the practices harmon is making accusations against the jewish people to show off a roach that the Jewish people are parasitic and non-productive but there's a passage of the Zohar that's a very very powerful passage the so our notes a well-known observation that the name of Hashem does not appear in the book of Esther at all does not appear although in the Septuagint version it does appear in the Megillah tests are translated into Greek but that medaka was an addition there was a rare example of the Septuagint adding something in the nature of greater religiosity greater firm type putting in the name of Hashem in the muscle Radek text in the biblical text itself the name of Hashem is not mentioned because God is concealed in the book of Esther there are no miracles there are no supernatural things God is acting through the veil of the everyday which is even a higher level of divine providence because it's not through dramatic changes in the laws of nature it's a chamois using nature and politics and processes to further his aim this is a well-known idea that the word Esther itself comes from s stare concealment poram is about seeing the divine in the hiddenness that's why it's very relevant to Carlos in particular but here is what the Zohar says even though I shams name is not mentioned whenever it says hemella amela it is an allusion to Melek mouth am loving the king of all kings our Kurdish border now because of another rule that we have a McCrae oats in with a puto a verse is never taken out of its simple context the Zohar does not mean that it doesn't also mean a hodgepodge the simple shot is it means a have a rush but it also refers to our College Sparkle so for example in the famous verse which is the turnaround of the Megillah that night the king could not sleep so simple meaning is orchestrators couldn't sleep allegorical meaning is he named while you're known below he shuns show Mary so behold the guardian of Israel does not slumber or sleep double meaning we'll call it higher meaning lower meaning so here is the thing when we read common says to the mellah there are two ways you have to interpret the conversation one is humane Hamad says to human Akash favors but it also refers to a heavenly discussion the spiritual force of hamon that is a Moloch is Makati egg is prosecuting in shamayim to a Shem saying the Jews are not deserving of redemption so let's take the first thing that Hamlin says the Jewish people or this um i'ma foes are umma foe Reds they are separated and scattered on the human level of human humming - you mean hush hush he's making a logistical point because the Jews are not concentrating in one place they don't have the capacity to fight you and therefore it'll be easy to kill them because in any given place aren't that many Jews that's the simple plan but what does it mean on the spiritual level the Khoa of Amalek is makati egg in Xiamen prosecuting in shamayim saying the jewish people are undeserving of redemption because they are scattered and divided among themselves they have the taint of sin Athena lack of caring for each other and therefore they are not deserving of your divine providence so it turns out that what is happening on earth is being echoed in heaven in a very frightening way there is actually a discussion in heaven should the Jews be saved or should they just be wiped out so when Hamid is making all of his false accusations - akashi a rush in which he's buying the right you're getting the right to simply wipe out the Jewish people there is a much more serious debate going on in shamayim whether the Jewish people are worthy of redemption because they are mofos aroma farads and when it says da hemella ain't no mo same they don't keep the Kings laws it's not just referring to a cliche Rich's laws they're not keeping the king the laws of the the ones of the Torah so it turns out the following when because I'll talk about the Chicago Mohammed the currency that hum unused to destroy the Jews they're not referring to the currency that the physical harm unused with the human ahave rush but it's a metaphor these aren't the currency what was the argument that a mall like in shamayim the angel of a mulligan Jemima is using to gain control over the juice the lay hummin meaning the the same way that you buy something by giving its purchase price so come on in shaman buys the right to go after the juice with an argument and the argument is my foes are homophobic Baena I'm in the Sheikh Mohammed is not referring to the historical silver coins that Harmon wanted to give a hush-hush it's referring to the kitchen shaman of the foes armor for I'd been on him and unfortunately those tullum are still currents that Kittredge is an ongoing kit rook of ami Israel as we know that the second base of mcvish was destroyed because of sin Athena irrational groundless hatred polarization indifference coldness and it cannot be rebuilt until we rectify that's Sonesta known by the way that is why when mortify finally informs Esther of Harmons decree against the Jewish people Esther's words immediately are lace Kano's let's color him go and gather all the juice to fast and to pray but she didn't just say fast and pray she prefaced the fasting and the praying with bring them together because if Harmons comes from the foes our uma foe read we can defeat harm on only with the opposite of Mufasa uma fahrrad and that's lathe Canosa to come together with unity fact that is why emporium there is such an emphasis on unity we give shelach Manos gifts of food to create friendship maternally have yo name charity to help those who are unfortunate the whole emphasis is an octave and unity in fact that's even the source of the custom when you give me slo-mo notes you it's better for you to use an extra person meaning instead of my giving it to you directly I get as surely as a child or somebody in the middle why is that so because the more people you involve in the process the more friendship and warmth is generated the more access it is you want to be the expression of the post-game is marv death rates to be more birth to increase rates and friendship by the way although it's a little early and we just remind you of the halacha of the Rambam that it is better to give more maternally of youngnam then miss lola went out meaning it's better to give more of your resources to the charity but then to the food packages especially since poor Amir's after all only a month before pay sucks so actually may not be such as i said both in terms of comics and in terms of calories to give so many high-calorie humming sticker foods and the like so good actually maybe par father would be as that's no rubies eights in the Warsaw Ghetto give fruits you know good fruit which as it were in that that way you avoid both of those both of those problems but be this at may therefore how months khitruk which is our Achilles heel these mofos armor farad been army so if we understand that this is the currency of hama ie the coop by which Amalek has ascendancy over us then we can understand what cuz I'll mean when they say we give our skull him first to counteract the shekel of hummin because the mitzvah of matzah sashenka actually exemplifies unity and togetherness in some very powerful ways first the Torah notes in Marcus a shekel when it gives us the commandments of Master su shekel the Torah makes the point how I share lo Yarber the rich person is not allowed to give more Adel the poor person William it cannot give less everybody has to give the same now the question is we understand the poor person cannot give less because there's a minimum contribution meaning listen it's not so onerous if you have to borrow you borrow you know everybody has to give but why would there be a rule that rich people can't give more you know I can tell you this my own experience if a parent of a yeshiva student wants to give more than full tuition the sheep is not going to say sorry we don't accept anything more than full tuition right you're always welcome to give more that's for sure in fact we have kind of two rules in the yeshiva if you want the job you want to be a teacher and the new Shiba he says we're happy to give you the position as long as you don't expect to get paid do you want to come in and be a volunteer teacher or a stash em go ahead and do it and the other rule is we accept more than full tuition we don't say we don't take more than than full tuition and yet when it comes to the temple service the Corbin Oats we don't allow the rich guy to give more in other words you can't walk into the base of mikdash or the Michigan and have a sign that said today's temple service was donated by so-and-so it has to come from the whole community now here's what the sauce Emma says so Emma says that the lesson here is when it comes to equality of access to a Kadosh Barco which is represented by the temple service all people stand with equality of dignity and respect and he goes further and he says this is famous that rich and poor is not only a matter of more money or less money but rich and poor can refer to many many aspects of life there are people who are seemingly rich in many many talents they're wise they're quick they have charismatic personalities they have their natural leaders now we identify people with qualities they seem to be wealthy in many many ways sometimes not in money in all these other ways and then there are people who seemingly although everyone has talents but they seemingly seem to be bereft they seem to be poor and we naturally will value those who are wealthy in all of the talents that we value more than the people who are bereft but in God's book it actually does not make a difference if you are rich and poor rich or poor because you are judged not by some objective standard you are judged by how much of your abilities whatever they are you have given for God's service and good and Noble ways so the person who may not be naturally gifted but does the best that he can with whatever he was given is equal to the person of much greater talent who does whatever he can with what he was given and in fact if the person of lesser ability uses more of his abilities in good ways than the brilliance person who uses less that person who has lesser abilities actually more value example that's given is this this is from the mob it's sort of Moshe ben Yosef training who was a a great great rabbi in the time of revealeth Kyra the 1500s he was the head of the base-10 in spots and then my explains the following story the Gemara gives us a story doctor of yoshua band wavy had a son and the son was very ill and he had what we might call today a near-death experience he actually died but was revived and in his death experience his soul actually ascended to the Garden of Eden and when he was revived he was asked what did he see what did he experience in the Garden of Eden and he said in the Garden of Eden I saw an upside down topsy-turvy world those who are big and important in this world were insignificant in that world and those who are downtrodden and rejected and insignificant in this world were given a place of great honor and homage olan have full very easy and we were sure when lady told his son you did not see a llama for this world is the Obama for you saw a llama meant you saw the world of truth this is in the Gemara the my raises the question though what does the Sun mean when he said the big shots were inferior he can't just mean rich powerful politically well-connected because that's obvious who would have a have I mean who would assume that just because somebody was prominent or famous in this world that that would come that's not vyas point actually so listen to what's in my bit says this is a big finish my says when he talked about the big important people in this world he meant people who were great in mitzvahs and great Centauri learning and he gives the example let's imagine you had a brilliant brilliant Talmud students who is able to learn a hundred pages of Gomorrah a day that that is a phenomenally great pace $100 the day that basically means he would finish us less than a month and around 27 28 days he would finish us phenomena so he decides since he's so much ahead of everybody else he'll learn $50 day which is still a very very very impressive and you have another person who's struggling to do one dot the day or maybe one dot a week so people look at these two people and they say one guy what a genius how great he isn't Torah how much he knows and the other guy we look at with a certain pity wasn't he tries hard he has a good heart but you know he's not really accomplishing that much Paige a week you know what's what's the big deal when they come to Sherman Hashem is gonna say hmm 50 blood a day very impressive but you only gave a sham 50% of your capacity mmm a bladder week well you didn't cover very much but you gave a college bar so no one is 100% let's say 100 percent of your capacity the guy that gave a bladder week is the person who in this world would not be regarded as that significant in shamayim he's on top you know teachers like to give lip service to the idea that the only thing that counts is the effort and you know I know that teachers would like that to be the case I'm not impugning teachers but in the in this world I was gonna say the real world but this is not the real world but in this world effort is not the thing that counts its results you know with all of the effort if you get a 50 under test and so that's only a 50 on the test in shamaya the reality is this is really the standard how much of yourself did you give to God and therefore the lesson the rich person gives the same as the poor person is a reminder that in whatever way you are rich and whatever way the other of your pork Hashem gives you all equal opportunity to connect to him by giving to Hashem whatever it is that you have that's the lesson of Matsusaka that rich and poor stands in potential equality in the presence of the Almighty because Hashem judges us by the efforts we put forth from us on investment again a great great God all who was a Talmud of the coverage time and Oklahoma bosserman died in the Holocaust died in the car together in fact it's very very moving that he actually was in the United States in 1939 I think it was after Hitler invaded Poland he was in the United States and it was already known what Hitler might be doing to the Jews of Europe and he was given the opportunity to remain in the United States he was offered a job offered a position that he University she was a Viennese little hunting and he could have stayed and he went back he said he would not abandon his students he went back to Europe knowing he was going to an almost certain death as indeed was the case and there's a picture of him on the boat back to Poland and he's staring out into the ocean III don't know what he was thinking but the picture is so evocative that you really have a sense that he knows he is going towards his death and in fact we do have there were very few survivors of the coffin aget Oh in Lithuania but one of them did testify what drove a hernan's final words were as they were being led to their death through Belconnen said a Shem has chosen us to be an atonement for the Jewish people and therefore we have to purify our thoughts and our minds and our hearts so we will be worthy of being a para forum Israel so this is ruble on investment but travel on investment offers a very interesting interpretation of a passage in the random the Rambam rights when the Rambam discusses free will the Rambam says every person can be as righteous as Moshe Rabbeinu or as evil as Europa who was the first king of the ten tribes God does not pre destiny to be righteous or not righteous it's all up to you this is called porphyria and the Rambam makes the point that bashira is logically necessary because otherwise there could not be accountability for thin nor should there be reward for goodness because if you didn't choose it's not virtuous so that's fine that's a very good point but people question the hyperbole is it realistic to say I can be as righteous as Moshe Rabbeinu the Torah says there never was and there never will be a prophet as great as a Moshe Rabbeinu who connected to God at a level that no other human being will ever do so in what way Revell Conan asks can I be as righteous as Moshe Rabbeinu and he explains with an idea that's really very similar to the mob it's and thus far semeth we find at the beginning of the book of yahushua who is of course moshe as successor for Yama's moshe ever - m moshe the servant the slave of God died unusual term a veteran reduct word of a complete one of the great biblical commentators says why is Moshe called Everett Hashem because what is the hollow quick status of an event ma Chicana Everett Conner raba what does that mean whatever a slave acquires belongs to his master if a slave finds cash finds diamonds now the slave could hide it don't you know how are you gonna know but by the according to halakha what a slave finds belongs to the master so Moshe is called ever Hashem because every capacity he had he gave back to God this is the red dot so sales of a hunt environment in that way each of us can theoretically be a moshe rabbeinu moshe rabbeinu had much greater capacities that any of us can have but just as everything he had he gave to God everything we have we can give to God and if I give a hundred percent of what I am I am equal to bush Urbania who gave a hundred percent of what he had and in that way therefore rich and porter stands with equality of dignity and equality of potential in terms of their relationship to the Almighty that's the lesson of Marxist a shekel so now let's go back to the text we began with how does our shackling counteract countermand the negative influence of hummin stone so if we define harm on column as the heavenly hummin buying the right to kill the Jewish people with the argument of mofos armor for our rights in a Steinem polarization animosity the half shekel counteracts that because by emphasizing the dignity and importance of every Jew the potential of every person to have that same connection with the rebuttal of them based on their potential so that does two things it eliminates the idea of jealousy and rivalry because I no longer look at a person who's richer than me smarter than me I no longer look at him in a jealous way because I recognize but whatever I am is also precious whenever I have no reason to feel inferior and I have no reason to feel resentful and I have no reason to be jealous and on the other side of the equation the guy with all of the abilities has no reason to feel superior because he realizes we are all equal in our ability to connect to a sham so in a sense the master shekel is an antidote to the senate's enum by eliminating jealousy and feelings of superiority and on either side of the balance scale there's another way this is true as well so this is emphasizing the Equality idea everybody gives the same but there's a second aspect of narcissus shadow that does that accomplishes the same thing and that is the idea that the Mocs of Sascha Keil is expressed as half a shekel then why not a whole chuckle now granted a half shekel is a coin it's not a you know taking a shekel and cutting it in half like a pill cutter but still why is it expressed in terms of half rather than whole the answer is because when I give a half shekel it does not become whole until it is connected by two halves make a whole but a half itself is a sign of something incomplete something defective something hasar and it reminds me that I need other people and it also reminds me that I am needed by other people you see it's it's a lesson that moves in both directions it reminds me how much I depend on others and it reminds me how much others depend on me it gives me a sense of my importance my worth my value but also how important it is for me to connect to others we've talked about this quite a lot because it pops up a lot it popped up and yet she admits ryeom mattandsarah and now in Matsusaka so if you're thinking I heard this before you have but in all of the different contexts that it emerges because it is such an important idea the idea that if we're not connected to each other we are missing something of ourselves but it's not just I need others they need me they need me you know sometimes when they have these space missions so unfortunately there was some tragic you may remember where they used to do space missions the Challenger that burned up things crash and sometimes you'll find that these tragic accidents occur because there's a little screw or a little piece of plastic that's in the wrong place now that thing might cost 30 cents although in government contracting was probably three three hundred dollars but at least it's the same thing you can get in a in a hardware store you know for 30 cents and you might say yeah what importance does this little piece have the answer is without that little piece everything falls apart and very very often as insignificant as we might think we are we are all essential for dad's plan I think I mean I've told you the story before forgive me if I repeat it but the story of Toscanini very very beautiful story Arturo Toscanini was a musical conductor it was a musical prodigy he really was a musical genius in many many ways and there was a reporter I think in the 1950 interview Toscanini and of kamini said to him I don't have time for interviews I'm not feeling well my orchestra is having a concert tonight I'm not even able to attend I have to listen to it on a radio and I have to concentrate and I cannot be interrupted for two and a half hours so the reporter told him I promise I will not say a word I just want to observe you at work so he comes to Toscanini's apartment in Manhattan and Toscanini is sitting in front of those old-fashioned radios those big big radios and the sound quality was not very good but he's closing his eyes with intense concentration and he's listening to a concert that goes for two and a half hours and his eyes are closed the whole time and at the end of the concert he opens up his eyes and he shakes his head and he says how come there's only 15 violins tonight they're supposed to be 16 so the person the reporter couldn't believe it how can you tell on the radio if there's a 50 instead of 16 he said this must be a made-up story so he goes to the concert hall and he talks to the first violinist who's in charge of the string section and he says to him after the concert no tell me how many violins were there tonight so the guy said well normally I don't remember my numbers right normally there are sixteen but right before the concert one of them called up and said he wasn't feeling well so I figured we'll only have 15 who's gonna know the difference so the reporter said well somebody did know the difference a pretty important guy so he goes back to Toscanini and he says this is a miracle probably most people in the audience couldn't tell the difference unless they counted the violins and you're able to tell the difference at a distance listening to a radio where the sound quality isn't even that good and so Kamini said listen I know that most people don't care and most people don't notice and to an average person they can't tell the difference but when you're the conductor and you run the show you know that every single musician makes a difference there is something that is diminished when someone is missing so the muscle is Hashem is kind of the conductor of the symphony of the universe and all of us have parts in that symphony and some of us might feel we have bit parts our parts are not necessarily known by others they're not going to be fully appreciated by others they're not always going to be appreciated by us and we might quite logically think that if we don't fully do our part it's not going to make a difference in the grand plan of things but you need to know the conductor is aware and to the conductor the performance is thrown off if we're not all doing our parts a Shems plan in the world is not carried out in the most beautiful perfect way because each of us have a mission each of us have a purpose again the purpose doesn't have to be public it doesn't have to be famous sometimes the purpose can simply be the creation of a marriage and a family and sometimes it might even be the loving kindness and goodness that even a single person who's not you know a person who never gets married never has children but living a life of virtue and goodness and patience and kindness is adding a beauty to a Shems world there are many different types of missions that people have a mission doesn't have to be something that will be reported in the New York Times or The Jerusalem Post a mission can be a very very private thing but to a Shem it makes a difference the world is diminished if we're not doing what we can do Dada holiness and virtue to the world so this is the second aspect of max it's a shekel that's the idea that each of us standing alone is incomplete because we need to connect to others and others need to connect to us we have what to give and we also need to recognize what others give and share that and connect to that just as last week we talked about Matt Santoro requires a unity of rst throughout so - to build the tabernacle to build the Mishkan of Hashem requires the Oxus and the unity of amuse RAL and this is seen in the master Sascha Keil and this is why our myths of half a checkout counter man's and counteracts going back to the original tomorrow the scholar Muhammad because the Scalia of Hermann are not the silver that he wanted to give to ASHRAE Roche again because that meant that stuff is long gone but it is the celestial shekel by which the co-ack of Amalek the koakuma sorts to buy the right to kill the Jews the foes armor for odds that we have to fight and we fight that through the ideas that are implicit in the annual mitzvah of not just a shekel now although it is true that we don't have a base on Nick - we don't have the mitzvot anymore of musters chuckle until the basin mikdash gets rebuilt but we do commemorate it in two ways number one we commemorate it by the special Torah reading that we did last Shabbat now again if Rosh Chodesh Audry's on Shabbat we actually read it on Rosh Chodesh when Rashad Rashad R is not on Shabbat we read it the Shabbat before Rosh Hodesh and also before Magilla reading you'll see they'll be actually in addition to the maternal leonean which will give on Purim there will be push cos they'll be plates it also goes to Schmucker but there's customary to give a masters a shekel so the way this works is here well again technically you actually give a half shekel but again although the Israeli half shekel is not the half shekel of the Torah but it's brought down in a complicated way that a half shekel simply means a half of whatever denomination is the currency of your country so in the United States you would fulfill the half shekel by giving 50 Cent's in Israel it's just almost a coincidence that it happens to be that that the half of the official denomination is called a half shekel but it's the reason why your yoke say is not because it is a half shekel but because it's half of the legal denomination of coinage and we fulfill it that way and that is called they say fit we make such of course you're allowed to give more but the way it works is they will put out in the place this is what you'll see half shekel coins you pick them up to be Kohner them so they're yours you then put them back so you've given the half shekel and then you augment it with any additional charity and the additional stuff oh you want to you want to do there is a mock locusts a bigmac locusts whether women are high of in half shekel if their husband should give extra for them we actually passed in women are exempt from the mitzvah of half shekel but but many do have a custom of giving so there are different views in terms of the reason why is a technical reason that the Torah says that the Mitzvah of half-shekel is for those who go to the sava those who would be eligible for the military service for skirt I don't want to I thought I'll make a little joke according that's how radium should be possible should be putter from half a shekel so okay Babita Sigma since it says the oats eight survivors rail so women didn't participate in the army and according to that since the draft age was 20 according to that Bar Mitzvah kids are between 13 and 20 but also be putter from masters a shekel but he it was only males from 20 and up but even if there is a technical exemption one has to understand that the spiritual ideas of masters a shackle are very very relevant to all of us the month adar can be split into two words Aleph one dar 12 this is the month where we actually build a dwelling place in our heart and soul it corresponds my much to the party Oates as well that we build a dwelling place in our hearts for the divine presence a clad dark that the one should live in our hearts and our soul and in truth that is the central idea of building a Michigan the pus excels we utterly mikdash make for me a sanctuary Vishal Conte Beto come so I won't well within them it does not say a Shem dwells in the building Hashem dwells in our hearts and in our soul and the month of Adar is specially suitable to create that type of dwelling but as I say just as the physical Michigan and Mick - needed the master Sascha Keil so - to build the Michigan for God in our hearts we have to have the lessons of narcissus shadow to see the dignity and value of others and ourselves and to try to counteract and complement the sin Athena that banishes the divine presence both from the earthly temple and from her own neshama so I wish everyone a hoodie stove and a very very happy a month of Adar [Music]