Tetzaveh-Purim - Praying at Moshiach's Door

You're listening to the weekly partial podcast with Ari Goldwag recorded with Hashem's never ending assistance in Roma Israel 5786 2026. This expression is part and we have the clothing of the co we have the clothing of the kohan and the the priests and I'd like to focus in right after that on what the puzz says speaks about the inauguration of the kohanim into their priesthood into become into becoming kohanim which of course lasts till very till this this very day the kohhanim today any kohanim that we They are invested in this with this power of being priests because of something that we find in this week's para because he says inf 29 verse1 this is the matter which you are to do and and I want to focus on the word because the med is going to speak about the word davar a lot this is the davar are this is the matter or maybe this is the word as we'll see that you are to do to them in order to sanctify them to be kohan to be priests for me go on to give a number of different things that are to be done that will be done for the kohanim or by the kohanim in order to inaugurate them into their holiness their special holiness that they are to serve on behalf of the Jewish people in our relationship with Hashem in the Mishkan in the sanctuary. And of course, they also bless us. There's lots of things that the Kohan do. They teach us. They're they are teachers. But I'd like to focus in on this matter of dar which means a word or it can mean a matter or it can mean a thing. So the the what is the concept here that the Torah is teaching us in the inauguration of the kohanim as kohanim and we're going to see interestingly this medush connects us to the story of morai we're about to come into the holiday of pur pim is next week on Monday night Tuesday and if you're in Jerusalem so it's Wednesday Tuesday night Wednesday and in In the story of Purim, there's a central moment, a moment which seems to be the moment of redemption. [sighs] Hammon Arasha, the evil Hammon who wants to destroy the entire Jewish people. He has this idea to hang Morai on a gallows 50 cubits high, 50s high. And he comes into he comes into the king and is very excited about his idea. instead turns it on him and says, "Hey, what do you do for somebody that you want to that you want to do? You know, show your appreciation for it." And it turns out that whereas Haba was coming in to ask for the destruction and the death of Mori, Akash told him to take Morai and to show him honor. And he did so by placing him on a horse, dressing him in royal clothing, and saying, "This is what's done to somebody who the king wants to show his appreciation to." And in that moment, it's the turnaround moment of the story. That's the moment where it's clear that Morai and and Esther and the Jewish people are going to come out on top and that Ham and Amalik and all the enemies of the Jewish people are going to be destroyed. But in that moment, there's something odd that happens. Morai gets down off of off of the horse and we would think that he would start celebrating, but that's not what he does. The says that he returns to the entrance the shame, the gate of the king, and he puts on, as Kazal explained, he puts on, he returns to where he was before. He was back. He goes back to his sackcloth, back to his ashes, back to his mourning and his as we'll see his prayer, he returns to it. And of course, the question is why? If everything is turning around already and it's clear and all the signs are headed in the right direction, why does he go back to his prayer? Why does he go back to his sackcloth? So hold on to that question for a moment because we're going to focus in a bit on the concept of the dra the the word and we'll see that it's connected of course to prayer to the that he was that he was saying on behalf of the Jewish people for our salvation and it's connected to the way that the cohen the cohen is inaugurated into his purpose into his job into his priesthood through the concept of prayer through the concept of what can be accomplished with one's words. Let's see this together says the and this is the matter. This is the word. This is the thing that's done in order to inaugurate the priest. The says take with you words. It's a chapter chapter 14:3. You want to know how to get back to Hashem, which is we're always just trying to get back to our real place, which is our connection to how do you get back to Hashem? Take with you words. Words are the tool that a person can use in order to connect to Hashem. I pik refers to entering into the the place of Hashem into the mishk the sanctuary of Hashem. How do you do that? You have to you have to clean your hands. King David tells us I'm going to clean my hands. Going to make sure I'm clean. Which is another way of saying I'm going to do chuva. I'm going to get rid of all of my mistakes. Going to fix my mistakes. Right? How does it finish off? It says to make heard with my voice. Thanks. Right? There's lots of things I can do with my words. I can, as we'll see, I'm going to learn Torah with my words. Going to have conversations like these that we're having together. I'm going to pray. I'm going to dive in. going to reaffirm my connection to Hashem and my belief that his power is that which is anything that I need in life is is coming from him. That's what is prayer is. There's another aspect which is the concept of of thanking God of saying thank you Hashem of showing my appreciation which really means I'm showing that it's not me. That's what means we we bow before Hashem. You say thank you Hashem which really means I'm saying it's not me. I admit that I can't do it by myself. So how do you get in to the sanctuary of Hashem? Which means how do I get into a real relationship with Hashem? You might think that it's only done by bringing by bringing sacrifices. No, the way in is by making my voice heard in thanks. Using my words to say, "Thank you, Hashem. Thank you, God. I admit that it's you." Says like this. Okay, look. It I will add it doesn't just mean to thank. It means to admit, right? Means to thank. It also means to admit. It can mean I admit that I can't do it without you. It can also mean I admit that I've done something wrong, right? I admit that I've made mistakes. Hashem, help me get back to you. Okay? To the master of the world, God. They say, "Look, we find speak about the fact that if a nasi a nasi is a is a prince makes a mistake, so he can bring a carbon, he can bring a sacrifice and it can be atoned for. Mashia, someone who's anointed, meaning a priest, a coin. So if he makes a mistake, if he sins, so he can bring a carbon, he can bring a sacrifice, get back into a relationship with Hashem, atone for himself. What about us? Do we have any corbonus that we can bring? What about are there are there can we fix our mistakes? So he says there's a Pik that says if we make a mistake we can bring there's a carbon that that can be brought on behalf of the entire Jewish people. So the Jewish people say hey wait a second we're we're we're poor we don't have the money for these animals. What do we do or I would I would say we're in a time when we don't have a bish currently hopefully soon but right now we don't. So what do we do? How do we bring the carbon? How do we get back into our relationship with Hashem? So Hashem says, I request of you to use your words. Use your words. It can be it can be I use my words to admit I've done something wrong. I use my words to thank Hashem for the things that I have. I I recognize it's from him. says, "Take words, use words as your means to return to Hashem." And I will I will forgive you of all your sins. Another place that we find the word which means words, it's also besides for the fact that it's the voice that's heard in admission. admitting I've done wrong. It's also used in the conict of concept of the words of Tyra. He says these are the words that king that that Mosher Rabenu Mosher Rabenu spoke. So what's the idea? Simply in this context, when I learn Torah, when I have when I listen to a duvar Torah, when I speak out of Torah, what I'm doing is I am developing inside of myself that spiritual that spiritual sensitivity. What is it that Hashem wants? What is Hashem's will? What does God want for me? What does Hashem expect from me? How do I get into a place of submitting myself to Hashem's will? That's what Tyra are. Words of Torah. Words of Torah. [sighs and gasps] Says, "We don't know any Torah. We're not we're not big. We're not great Torah scholars. We don't we don't know this stuff." So, responds and says, "Okay, you can do fidui. You can learn Torah, but I'll tell you another trick. I'll tell you another or a deeper maybe you know if you don't have anything else you don't have that intellectual uh ability so here's what you do all you need to do you need to have some emotional ability cry you got to cry and you got to pray and if you do that I'll receive I will listen to your prayers and what are we crying and praying about let's be the fact that we're distant from Hashem. The fact that we're disconnected, you know, every problem, every problem that we have, we can really draw it back to the fact that we're disconnected from Hashem. Oh, I don't have money. Well, I'm disconnected from Hashem. That's maybe why this is a problem for me. Or any problem. Uh, but get back to how do we get back to Hashem? Cry and pray. Hashem, help me. Hashem, I feel desperation. Help me. felt desperation in Egypt. They cried out. It was their prayers that caused them to be redeemed. Israel groaned from the work and they called out to Hashem. That's one example. Then the message brings another example which I'd like to actually expand upon. It's very interesting. But I want I want us to keep holding on to the first things that I mentioned to you that this is the foundation of what it means to be a priest to be a Cohen. This is it. This is the matter. This is the word. This is what their job is, right? To get us to do vid to get rid of our sins, right? That's what we're coming in there to the Mishka and to the sanctuary mainly to do to reestablish our relationship with Hashem and get rid of the mistakes that we've made. Right? And I said the kohanim are the ones who they help us with that. They facilitate that relationship. So this is the foundation of it. Vid admitting our mistakes, thanking Hashem, words of Torah. They teach us. And here we have prayer. We use our words for prayer. Crying, awakening our emotions. We find that to be true in Egypt. I'll give you another example. May Yeshua, the days of Joshua. Listen to this. It's really interesting. Was it not through prayer that I did miracles for them? And before I read the quote from the I just give you a little background what's going on there. Yoshua leads into the land of Israel. First entrance of the Jewish people as a nation into the land of Israel. And we're coming to conquer to destroy all the idolattors to to kill out the people of Cananan the Canaanite nations who were here and to establish a kingdom of people who believe in one God will have the most powerful impact on the world perhaps in history. What happens when we come in? The first place that we conquer is Eureko Jericho. Completely miraculous. They surround the city seven times around walls come tumbling down. Destroy kill out the people of don't take a single item out of the spoils. Don't take any of the bounty of Jericho. It's not permitted. Jewish people move on to the next city which was called I. And in that battle, the first time they battle against I, 36 Jews are killed. And Yahoshua is stunned because he has a promise. No one will no one will be killed in battle. Hashem is on our side. Nothing happened in Jericho and right. Why did this happen? Let me read this to you. Yeshua of the when he hears about it, he rens his garments. He tears his clothes in mourning, in sadness. How could it be that 36 people died? And the pik tells us we look inside and the sukim is not here in the medish but looking looking it up and we see that the tell us that says to the reason that 36 people died was because there was somebody who took from the spoils and that somebody was somebody named aan took from the spoils and as a result of that the Jewish people lost that full connection and 36 people side this whole process where they figure out who it was that made this made this judgmental error. They get rid of the problem is killed and they return to I and they're able to conquer. Hashem gives them very specific specific instructions. What did I say to Yoshua? I said is very interesting what it means. What they do is they set up a an ambush. The Jewish people set up an ambush for the people of Ay. The people of I all leave the city. 12,000 of them. They all leave the city. They don't know that the Jewish people are lying in ambush. They think, "Oh, we have already been able to to attack and kill some Jews. We're going to finish off the job." That's what the people of I thought. They come out of the city. Hashem instructs Yeshua to send people in to the city. They start burning the city and smoke starts to rise from the city. The people of I look back and they see this spectacle and they're like, they get befuddled. They become mufal, confused. Hashem says, "At that moment, what you are to do, Yeshua, is to take your take a Roma, take a dagger and lift up the Roma in the air. Lift up the dagger and that will be the sign for the people, the Jewish people who are lying in ambush to come out and ambush the people of I and and destroy them, which is what happened." But now here's the interesting thing. The hold up your dagger. It was symbolic as Mfor explained. It was a symbol of course of the for them to ambush but it was also symbolic of of the fact that they are to focus themselves just like when Moshabu held up his hands held up his hands while the Jewish people were fighting with a malik. It was to remind them that Hashem is the one who is fighting on their behalf. Hashem's power is inside of them. So too, Yoshua holds up the dagger. And the dagger being held up is to point to the heavens to remind them in battle that it's Hashem who's battling on their behalf. And he's instructed to not take down his hand. He held up his hand with the Roma, with the dagger the entire time that they were battling until they vanquished their enemies, till the Jewish people completely won. Never stop saying. Never stop praying. Never stop saying it's Hashem who's doing it for me. With Hashem's help, we will succeed. Never stop saying that. Never stop saying it. Never stop praying. Never stop dinging for Hashem to help me. That's what is I can't do it by myself. Hashem, please you do it for me. But it can't stop just because you started the the business. This the doesn't end there. The does not end just because you started. Hashem, help me out and now I'm going to do it on my own. No, no, no, no, no. You got to keep dabing. Keep praying through whatever it is that you need to accomplish. Yeshua is holding up that Roma. He's holding up the dagger to remind them it's Hashem who's helping you know, keep praying and he holds it up and he holds it up and he holds it up. The sign is to remind them to keep holding on to that. The measure brings a number of other examples of this and then the measure speaks about the fact that this is what happened also in the time we're going to now return to Mori and Hmon and we're going to also return to the khanim the priests and we're going to keep bringing it back to that because this is who they are and this is who we are supposed to be. We're we're a kingdom of priests, which means we're a kingdom of priests and a and a holy nation, which means that we're connected to Hashem. That's what we are. We are a people of prayer. This is who we are. No matter what we're doing, we're constantly domining. We don't stop. Not for a moment, not when it even looks like we're about to succeed. We keep we keep up our dening. The message says over here brings us back to the story of Purim. It says says Hashem is going to get rid of our enemies. Hashem is going to expel from our faces from in front of us our enemies. Zah Hammon. This is a reference to Hammon. Ham of Russia. I wanted to destroy the Jewish people in one fell swoop from children to to elderly men, women, children, everybody. He was an oppressor and an enemy. So he is the one that the when it says says that Hashem is going to get rid of our enemies it's referring to Hammon it's referring to that particular individual or any individual who wants to destroy us heaven forbid they're going to be pushed away we can think about the individuals today who are similar to Hmon I just saw I have to mention it someone created usually have hint Someone created not [snorts] too funny. But Hashem will push away any of our enemies because these enemies are not just our enemies. Why is he called an oppressor and an o enemy? He is an oppressor of the one who dwells on high. of the heavenly forces Israel when we're doing what we're supposed to do. Of course, we are the ones who represent Hashem in the world, right? The enemies of the Jewish people are trying to push away those who represent Hashem in the world. They are enemies, oppressors of the one above and they're enemies of those below. That's us. Okay. Now I'm going to bring it to I'm going to bring it to the end of this mish. Still a bit left. We still have some time. The says says that we the Jewish people will trample the platforms of our enemies. Right? What's a bummer? It's a platform. A platform was used in those times as an altar to sacrifice to their to their gods to the idolatry. We will trample their idolatries. We will trample their power. Right? They they used idols as a means to get power. We will trample them. What's that referring to? Morai. It's referring to the days of Morai, right? What happened? Morai is trying to get up on the the Gar McGill says Morai is trying to get up onto the horse. He's wearing the clothes, wearing the royal garments. He's about to get up on the horse. There's no way to get up. Hmon leans over and Morai steps on him, gives him a good kick, and gets up onto the onto the horse. So, we It's representative of the fact that we trample our enemies. Ultimately, Hashem gives us the power to trample those who are trying to take away Hashem's power. Who's the one that caused Morai to get what is it or what was it that what did he have? What merit did he have to get to the point where he could trample on Hmon where he could kick him down? It's because he prayed every moment from the beginning of the story until the end of the story. He did not stoping says knew that which was going on. I'm not talking about at the beginning when Hammon gave the money to so that was like as as it were a payment or a bribe to be able to do whatever he wanted with the Jews. Morai knew about it and he puts on his sackloth and he starts doing. He starts praying. So he ded and he didn't stop. What's the proof that he didn't stop? Even though he sees himself being lifted up, he's sitting on that horse. This is what will be done to a person who the king wants to show him honor where the king values him, right? The gig is up, right? He's clearly on top. Hmon is clearly on bottom. But he didn't allow it to. He didn't feel a gyo. He didn't feel lifted up by it in an unhealthy way. He didn't stop dening. He did not stop dvening. Says he went back to his place in the in the gate of the king. It means think about Hashem's gate, the ultimate king. He goes back to the gates of prayer as he was before. the curses that seem to be on their way to the Jewish people, they don't end up happening to the Jewish people. They end up landing upon our enemies. And we don't have to think very far to think about how a gallows is raised for Morai and a gallows is raised by the Iranians, the Ayatollah, a nuclear program which ultimately will be the source of their own destruction. But Hashem promises all of the curses that seem to be heading towards you will end up upon your enemies. [sighs] those who chase after you. You think that you're going to stop domining? Love, don't stop domining. Looks like Looks like things are heading in the right direction. NASA is killed. The kamas is weakened. All of the, you know, Syria fall, all of it seems like everything's headed in the right direction. Don't stop dening, Morai. Things look good. Don't stop dvening. Don't stop praying. The says even when you see that your enemies are getting crushed, you come back and listen to the voice of Hashem. You come back. Go back to what it is. What is your power? It's in prayer. Come back in. Come back to the words to the No, it's not me. No, I made a mistake. Admission of mistakes. Admit it all, Hashem. No, I want to just be connected to you. I don't want my heart to be I don't want to feel like, wow, it's me. No, don't don't get stuck in that trap. Do what did he went back. He returned. He returns. We got to return. He went back to his morning. He went back to his sacloth. He went back to his t which really means to say that he recognized that I've made mistakes and those mistakes can still affect me spiritually. It's all about just being connected to that's it. All I need is a connection to all of my problems fall away here too. It says also coming now we're coming back. Okay. So Morai doesn't stop dominating. He doesn't he keeps it. That's the only thing we got to keep domining even when things when things are good, when things are bad. Just keep domining. It's just about being connected to and this is the inauguration of the kohan. This is what it looks like. This is who the kohan are. This is who the priests are and this is who we are. [sighs and gasps] This is the word also messed up. The high priest there's a mistake that he made. He allowed the Jewish people, he facilitated the Jewish people's sin of the golden calf. Hashem was ready to destroy him. Was very angry. He's ready to destroy Aram. The ultimate disconnect. But Hashem says, "I'm going to listen to prayers on behalf of our the is what what saves him." The the danger is there. It's there because we're disconnected from Hashem. It's there. Start dabing. Start dabbing. Get back into connection. Use your dar. Use your word. How does it happen that he is indeed anointed, chosen to be the facilitator of our connection to? It's through the do. It's because of the and it's unceasing. the Kuranim, that's who they are. They're the ones who've been praying on behalf of the Jewish people for 3,300 years. Not stopping, not stopping till this day. And if you're in Israel, every single day you get a braha, you get a prayer from them that you should succeed. Why? Because it started with Aaron. No, we won't be destroyed. We've we've become disconnected back into connection through the word through through prayer through words of Torah through vid through admitting our mistakes. Back in back in don't stop. It's not over. Even when it's over, it's not over. Not it's not over till it's over. It's not over ever. Back into back in to connection to I want to bless you. I ask you to bless me. Hashem should help us that we should be able indeed to see that it's all about this connection. Hashm should help us to be able to pray to davin to admit our mistakes. Hashem should help us to learn his Tory should help us to have the kind of salvation today that the Jewish people had in the times of Purb. Thank you so much for listening. Have a wonderful Shabas. This podcast was made possible through the gracious donations of listeners like you. For more podcasts like this, please visit www.rigoldwag.com or search [music] on iTunes Arig Goldwag.