Rabbi Yitzchak Breitowitz: Purim and Why We Must Eradicate Amalek

[Music] okay so uh you are the uh the few tonight but we think be based on quality rather than quantity so thank thank you very much for coming and uh tonight's Sher is sponsored for a rafu schma for n Ben zel and Aira bsar Bor Ben feda and as always for all those whose Health has been affected by the war and especially for the safe and quick return of our brothers and sisters held in captivity uh and ultimately for the lasting Unity of is in addition Al for benzar and Bella bana again uh all of the learning should be in Al sh for them and finally for the whole month of sheni Reena and Marell are sponsoring this lecture Series in honor of RAB brtz thank you very much for a speedy victory in Gaza and the safe return of all of our and the Speedy return of all our hostages aain aain vain uh finally good news ion wants to thank all of those who have contributed towards the purchase of a safer Torah we have reached 90% of our goal uh we are still looking for partners to complete the payment for this to risk role uh once again as I've said a number of times already uh this will be used as part of a learner minion uh for weekday services not just for shabas uh which is something a need that is simply not uh not not being met yet um you can contribute to commemorate the memory of a loved one or to Simply share your love of Torah and your AK with Kali donations can be made either on the website or by link on the YouTube description box uh in addition uh the peser having is filling up uh so here too you can get information uh on the YouTube uh description box or on the uh on the website who's who's who's running it this year um I'll be I'll be I'll have the privilege of of I I don't want to say running it but I'll be uh reading reading the hag uh for people and uh you know uh unless you're scared I sometimes go a little long but I'll try to be a little more a little more disciplined and I think overall people who come have a very very positive experience okay uh we have brem porm coming up before porm though we have Tanis eser so uh and we have parat Z so there actually a few different things that are coming up in connection with with puim and I'm going to talk briefly on each of those things and culminating with porm porm itself uh first of all on Thursday we have what is called the fast of Esther and uh there are two different opinions in the ronm what is the origin of the fast of Esther it's important to know that the fast of Esther is not even mentioned in the gamorra it is actually a post talmudical fast that dates from the time of the gim in fact in the time of kazal the 13th of Adar which is the normal date for Tanis sester was actually a yum in and of itself not a y connected to porm a y connected to khaka it was nic's day nicar was a Greek General who was defeated in a major war around the Kaneka Revolution and because of that y gim was Y nikn where you weren't allowed to fast later for various reasons that kind of dropped out and Le uh it got replaced by Tinus Esther where you're supposed to fast but either way whatever the historical time frame is what is the origin of the idea of Tinus Esther so most people assume and this is the simple shot that Tanis Esther is because of the three-day fast that is recorded in migil Esther that when Esther got word of hamon's decree she instructed Mori to go and gather all of the Jews they should fast for three days and then she will go to the king and to commemorate that fast we have timeus sester but instead of doing it for three days we do it for one day three days would be too rough now let me just point out chronologically the three-day fast of Esther was not in the month of Ador at all it was almost a year early it was during Nissan the fast was 13th 14th 15th day of Nissan and that is the day that Esther went into AOS and hon got hung the next day hamon got hung on the second day of pesak the war was almost a year later 11 months later in fact the gamar points the Yami points out that uh the 15th of Nissan is of course the first day of pesak and they were fasting on the first day of pesak they did fulfill matah because they would eat at night so they ate the night of pesak they ate matah but they fasted onum so if the tenus of Esther commemorates the three-day fast of Esther it's a very imperfect commemoration because number one Esther's fast was three days and we only fast one day number two Esther's fast was Nissan but we fast adjacent to Pora but okay that's still logical it is connected to the porm miracle we don't like to fast in Nissan so we push it before porm but there's actually a whole other reason that we shown him give for Tinus Esther that it represents an unrecorded fast uh and that is the day that Jews go to war or went to war they would fast to be Z to the ra of hasem now we would think not that way we we would think when a person goes to battle they BFA want to have a good breakfast either because they think it may be their last meal or they just need to be healthy and energetic and yet Yen who realized that their ultimate Victory is from aades they would actually fast on the day they went to war so the Tanis Esther was an actual fast of the Jewish people who were fighting their enemies on the 13th of Adar so it's not connected and why why is it called the fast of eser really it's not really the fast of Esther it is the fast connected to the miracle that Esther effected but it is a fast of Y so we have two different Origins for the fast of Esther one is it is a z for the three-day fast that's recorded in the Milla the other is it was a fast of the before they went to mil one way or the other though we do have this fast called the fast of Esther as you would imagine it's extraordinarily lenient so if people don't feel well you know we're very very lenient in fact in some circles uh women are automatically Exempted from the fast of Esther and I believe I don't want to say for sure I believe that in the brisk Yesa uh the boys are told they shouldn't fast on the fast of Esther because uh they're weak and it would affect their learning and the like I don't want to say for sure but uh I I believe that that is the case but still if you're able to fast you should fast now what's interesting is this this year we're not fasting on the 13th of V because what is it the 14th of V is Saturday night Sunday right J porm is Sunday night Monday which is the 15th but the 14th of Adar is Sunday so the 13th of Adar would be chabas we of course don't fast on chabas so you would think so let's fast on Friday right if we don't fast on chabas which is 13 let's fast on Friday so the answer is there too with some exceptions we gen generally do not want there to be a fast on Friday because we don't want you to enter chabas not feeling that well because if you were to fast on Friday now the truth is the 10th of T is an exception but we don't like fasting on Friday because you're not going to feel well when chabas begins so therefore when the 14th of Adar is on Sunday or on shabas Tinus Esther is pushed to Thursday now here's an interesting question when the n of falls out on chabas okay yipper we fast on chabas that's a separate thing but even the ninth of a when it falls out on chabas we don't fast on chabas so when do we fast we fast after chabas we fast Saturday night and Sunday and the gamor says because you don't want to bring sadness early so how come interesting question every other fast that you don't fast on chabus when it would fall out on chabas or Friday you push it off Tinus Esther when it would fall out on chabas or Friday you fast on Thursday you bring it on early why is Tinus EST different than the ninth of of so the shame mm says a wonderful answer it's like it's one of those answers that once you hear it you wonder how could you even ask the question it's such a simple answer he says the following why is it the case that when we fast for the ninth of I push off the fast right Tish is on chabis I don't fast on Thursday I fast on Sunday so the gar gives a reasona we don't want to bring tragedies on earlier than we have to the fast of the ninth of a is a fast of tragedy it is a fast of Avance a fast of mourning a fast of Calamity it is a sad day of the year why should we bring it on earlier than we have to so if we can't observe it in the proper day kazal said don't do it early push it off as much as you can the fast of Esther is exactly the opposite whether you look at it as Esther's three-day fast or whether you look at it as theim fasting it is a fast that brought us Redemption and Yeshua it was a fast that is not mourning a tragedy it's commemorating a Salvation that the almighty brought upon us it was a fast that prevented tragedy rather than a fast that commemorates tragedy as a result there's nothing wrong with bringing it on early Bring It On meaning the mood of Tinus Esther is not sad at all right normally we associate every Tinus with a certain sadness whether it's Tish whether it's the 17th of Tas where the luos were smashed whether it's the tenth of Taves when nadra began his Siege against Jerusalem whether it's some Galia where the great Galia was assassinated after theb B mikdash these are days of sadness these of days of tragedy days of grieving days of mourning what's Tinus Ester Tinus Esther is the reminder to us that when we turn to Hashem with prayer and sincerity and purity of heart he will answer our prayers it's actually a Tinus that should give you great joy and and therefore the shamm says there is no with bringing it on early it's not included in the principle of not bringing on tragedies before you have to again so it's really such a simple answer in effect that it really answers the question in a wonderful in a wonderful way so that's the idea of Tinus sester now this year everybody gets the benefit because you know uh when you keep porm on the 14th and you have a regular Tinus sester on the 13th that means you're not allowed to eat until you hear mcgilla even though it's dark maybe you can have water or something so that actually means that people sometimes have to suffer through a long mcgilla reading before they can eat this year we don't have that problem because the fast is going to be over Thursday night there's no McGill eting until later in yush however we never have that problem right that's another reason to live in yam because even in a regular year where we keep Tinus Esther on the 13th when the fast is over you're entering the 14th but we don't read Millan the 14th we read Millan the 15th so as a result Tinus Esther does not go directly into porm in Yim there will always be a day off so that makes it a little easier meaning to say you can break the fast at night you don't have to wait till after the after the Milla so among many many reasons to live in yam maybe it's a minor reason but this is a a a benefit that you get uh based on based on shushan for okay so that's Tanis Esther which we're going to have this year on Thursday uh obviously as you know it's uh a day fast it is not the night before it begins Dawn and everything has many many opinions but the standard opinion is it is 72 fixed minutes before Sunrise so whenever Sunrise is go back 72 minutes that's where the fast begins and therefore if you get up before the amod Shak point you are still allowed to eat and a drink so that's always the big question people have to raise H what's more important sleep or coffee that's going to be the one of the major questions of Life uh that people have to determine okay so we then go from Thursday we go to chabas and chabas in addition to the regular Torah reading which is part we have special ma z which reminds us hasem says remember what Amal did to you when you were in the desert they encountered you and they attacked those who were weak and straggling and they did not fear God and it shall be that when God gives you rest among your enemies you shall erase the memory of amalik low tishk so there's actually three MIT connected to the nation of Amal one is a positive Mitzvah to physically destroy them by eradicating their memory eradicate their memory that actually means it's a funny thing remember remember to obliterate their memory interesting remember to utterly forget them but okay but basically this is the Mitzvah of M eradication as a matter of strict we don't have that Mitzvah today simply because amalik is not around again I know people sayas is but amik is also a very specific nation that is descended from a certain source and Kamas may have the ideology of amik and I'm willing to agree with that but technically they're not the amik of the Torah so there's a Mis with to destroy amalik number one number two there is a positive Mitzvah to remember amalik verbally verbally to declare that we remember the evil of amalik and there's a negative commandment which is expressed in the negative never forget so eradicate remember never forget so even though we don't have Mia today because they're not around or we can't identify them we do have a now the question is how often do you have to remember the pus is you have to remember all the time every day so if you look at uh an a sitter you will find after shakas in many sedur something called the six the six remembrances or in some s there are 10 remembrances and some s there are four remembrances they different things that are counted or not counted but one of the remembrances is to remember and the people that say these six zos or these four zos or these 10 zos will say this verse every single day the question is though most of us don't do that and most of us fulfill Our obligation to remember a once a year the shabas before purin and that's called par so question number one is where do you get the once a year thing if the Tyra says you shall remember amalik what amalik did to you why do you do it once a year so the gamar says a reason the gamar says that it takes a whole year 12 months before you really forget something a memory can remain relatively fresh I think thear seems to be assuming better memories than most of us have but it says a memory can remain relatively fresh for up to a year so if you hear par once that'll carry you for 12 months after the 12 months it gets weaker and you need a booster shot so the goal of par Z once a year is to keep a memory in your mind the entire year because it takes 12 months for a memory to fade that's the Assumption So based on this theer points out the following normally there's 12 months or less between par one par another par but sometimes they'll be 13 months like now last year was a non-leap year this year is a leap year last year there was one Adar this year there are two adars from last year's par to this year's par is 13 months not 12 months so theer says how could we 12 months without a par to remind us to revive our memory So based on this he was mades a very fascinating he said the it's too late to do it now the year before AIP year when they reach par that's where the par thing is and that is read before rashash shortly before rashash you should have kavana in the par of the week to be M the Mitzvah of of course the B has to have kabana as well and that way you get your par booster shop without a hepi without an interruption of more than 12 months and even though obviously that Kaa is not the shabas before porm but but keep in mind they're two different things the in other words the DOA says you have to verb or hear somebody verbalize once a year yeah that's true that's but the T doesn't say it has to be before porm that's what the sages said to connect it to ham the Torah doesn't even say it has to be from a safer Torah so consequently theer says the do imperative of not going 12 months without verbally remembering amik that you could be m in Paras say say before rashash and then by the time comes around you'll fulfill the rabic requirement of mentioning it or having it mentioned the shabas right before porm very very interesting ofam sare um I I I usually talk about it but you know I always talk about it too late I talk about it like before the the relevant par uh we've missed it already we should talk about it before rashash we should talk about the par okay uh so this is why par is is is once Year and that that once a year should be the shabas before por because H comes from am and therefore we want to connect the destruction of H with the destruction of amalik now it does not say beish in the Milla that hamon is from amalik but it does call him hamon the AAG ham the aagi and we know from the book of shmuel AAG was the king of Amal that sha spared and even though Shmo finished a gag off but in the small amount of time between sha letting him go and Shmo killing him AAG impregnated a woman and that woman was the ancestor of hamon you see in a very very powerful way which may be relevant to what's going on today the severe cost of misplaced Mercy sha did not kill AAG out of compassion it's very clear whatever the was maybe because he's a fellow King sha had ra he said listen I did the job 99.9% let this guy live looks like rah out of that Rim came hamon Generations later hamon almost wiped out the entire Jewish people and it wasn't just he had a bad thought the gumar actually says for reasons maybe we'll get to that the Jewish nation in that generation was deserving of Destruction had we not done shuva through the fasting and everything else Hon's plan would have been carried out it could have been carried out which means the raim that sha showed one almost resulted in the total Destruction of the Jewish people when galad Shalit was released and of course I mean we're all very grateful and he should she'd be healthy got got for I don't want to cast any aspersion but just to note the empirical fact he was released in exchange for a thousand terrorists one of those terrorists was sinir who was the architect of who was serving a life sentence not only that we also gave him brain surgery I mean we did a lot of lot of Tas for him uh but he was serving a life sentence in an Israeli jail he was released as part of a Exchange program and a few years later he is The Mastermind or was The Mastermind of October 7 that killed at the time on that day 1,200 people including rape and torture maming hostage taking and people who are still being victimized as well as theim whose lives are at risk as they go into war so an act of Mercy but you see what an act of Mercy can cause when it's not a proper Act of mercy and this was sha soal wanted to be connected to Esther because millat eser is about the destruction of Amal and it's so interesting that morai and Esther are descendants of sha and therefore they rectifi they fixed that which sha failed failed to fix again I want to point out that in so far far as the torah's Commandment of par is concerned it didn't have to be on that particular shabas it could be any could be any doesn't have to be on chabas it doesn't have to be in a minion it doesn't have to be in a safer Torah you just it does have to be verbalized you verbalize uh you can e use the P or your own words but if you use the P you say you are M the mitvah of Z the need for a Torah the need for a minion and the need for a z which is the shabas before porm those are rabic requirements they are not Torah requirements that's why the common statement that we always make that par Z is a Torah obligation you know needs to be qualified a little bit uh remembering a Malik once a year is a Torah obligation but it didn't have to take the form bka of par so now let's go back a little bit and let's talk about amalik you know amalik is an actual or was an actual person right the Tyra mentions am like before attacking us in the desert before there were a nation it mentions ASA had a son elifas and it describes elifas as many wives and it describes alas had a concubine p wasn't even a wife a mistress a concubine whose name was timna and it says that timna had a boy from alas who his name was amalik so amalik is the grandson of Asa the son of elifas from his PES from his concubine timna why is that important now the Torah does spend a lot of time if you look at par tah giv spends quite a lot of time on giving as's family tree as's descendants yes's descendants it's quite a big it's quite a big deal in the Torah at least relatively speaking said there's some very very important lessons here that are may be a little bit disheartening the medish gives us a very interesting backstory to the alifa timna relationship timna came from Egypt and she was actually of the royal house just like Hagar actually came from the paros timna was in the royal family and timna had a great yearning to be connected to the family of Abraham and she wanted to be accepted as a gorus etc and they rejected her they thought she was not righteous enough so Tim's attitude was she so much wanted to be connected to Zarah aam that she said if I cannot connect to the good side I'll connect to the bad side to the ASF side and if I can't connect as a wife with the Dignity of a wife I will be a p leish I'll be a nobody so her motives were actually very good she was so again misplaced I mean you don't say if I can't marry the sadik of the family I'll marry the Rish of the family that's that's not logical thinking but emotionally it stemmed from her desire to be connected to kadua so why did amalik turn out so bad if timna had the noblest motivations of connecting to kadha why did timna why did timna give birth to amalik the Hitler Russia used to say you see from here how powerful and destructive rejection is timna was a rejected woman even alifa rejected her in a sense Al Al alas didn't make her a wife she was a pish she could take it she was righteous enough that she could take it but her son little amalik somehow absorbed rejection rejection rejection every day of his life and says the product of rejection produces aik now we have to understand this he's not giving amalik a pass he's not saying oh we should have mercy in amalik because they were rejected as a child you know it is true I mean even Hitler right Hitler was rejected his paintings were rejected but you know many people go through rejection and they don't grow up and murder 6 million people so we're not negating responsibility we're not saying oh the amols of the world are not responsible of course they're responsible but at the same time from our perspective we have to realize the devastating cost that rebounds to us when we reject when we're Marik applied this practically it was very well known that he was extremely reluctant to ever ask a boy to leave the Mir Yeshiva even if the guy wasn't learning the guy wasn't doing very much so people would ask him theal other R would ask him you know why don't you get rid of the guy andit's standard line was I don't want the responsib ility for possibly creating more amalik in the world this is the K of rejection you know we we can we can debate this as a policy and this okay maybe I I don't I don't need to be skeptical I me one could argue well you're actually doing the guy of favor by putting him in a place where he's more productive oh okay that's fine but I I don't want to debate you know his educational policy and the like but it was predicated on the idea that rejection can create such a rage in a person that he becomes a force of Destruction a force of violence a force of hate so in a sense we have a certain responsibility for creating the amols of the world it does not take away a one iota from their responsibility but we need to be aware of our responsibility as well this is what used to say again a very very powerful idea well am eventually became a nation kind of a ban nation that wandered around in the desert and they were the very first nation that attacked us when we left MIM so here's the point I want to make if you look at tanak you see there are three times that the amalekites aggressively attacked us I'm not counting when we attack them the first time is when shortly after we left mitan amalik was the first nation that attacked us racal the first of the Nations the second time amalik attacked us is also in the Kish but it's a hidden it's a hidden reference 40 years later when Aron haken died and the Clouds Of Glory that enveloped us scattered because those Clouds Of Glory were in the Merit of Aon remember the man came in the Merit of Moshe the traveling water of well was in the Merit of Miriam the clouds of Glory Aon the Merit of Aon when Aon died in the 40th year the Clouds Of Glory dispersed we were vulnerable so it mentions in thees we were attacked by Canaanites and Moshe prayed and the Jewish people were able to defeat their enemies this is recorded in Paras but if you look in rashi rashi brings a kazal that says we were not attacked by Canaanites we were attacked by amalekites amalik tried to attack us but since amalik remembered from the first time around that MOS renu's prayers were effective they wanted to disguise themselves as Canaanites so that when Moshe says save us from the Canaanites the prayer is not going to work because they're really amalekites in other words they dressed by cananim so that Moshe would pray for salvation from cananim and and supposedly that would help the amalekites M Abu suspected a disguise he didn't know for sure and that's why the Torah says mosha renu's prayer was God should deliver this nation whoever they are let them be cananim let them be aalim and the like but this is the second time amalik attacked us in the desert now the next time amalik is prominent is in the story of sha when sha is commanded to kill but but but again there that was we attacked amalik it doesn't say amalik attacked us but the third time when amalik was the aggressor is the story of Miguel aester where it wasn't the nation of amalik but made a gazer against am is right so we have three places in tanak where a m tries to destroy us one right after you see two 40 years later when Aon died and we lost the unnown a covero three in the time of hum so keep those three things in mind and now let's look at the reasons why we are vulnerable to amalik amalik is a demonic evil force that seeks our utter obliteration but it's very clear from the Kash that amalik is not only hating the Jews amalik hates God amalik is Waging War against the almighty amalik is trying to defeat the idea of God in the world amalik stands for mikra coincidence happen stance amalik stands for power you know it's interesting the closest to Amal even more than Hamas that we've seen in recent centuries is Nazi Germany that that's the closest Paradigm to amalik and if you read mine I've never read M for say but if you read Hitler's own book uh you know I hate to say this I can get in very big trouble for saying it uh it is an insane book it's it's written by a crazy person but it's remarkably insightful Hitler IM Mo had a very good understanding of Judaism and he hated it because of that Hitler said Judaism brought conscience into the world Judaism brought morality into the world Judaism limited the ability of the strong to control the weak now that sounds like a commercial for judan he was saying and that's what's so bad about it because what matters in the world is power and might and dominion and it was the Judaism and the Torah that put all of those limits what what is remarkable is that in his insane evil he understood exactly what the Torah was doing but as an amalik he hated it he wanted to destroy it right but at the same time he understood what it was and this is what the Torah says aik wages war against God not just Jewish people it's a m against the morality of the Torah it's a m against the notion that human power should have limits it's a m against the notion that the strong must take care of the weak all of this amalik is against so so what makes us vulnerable to amalik so theim tell us that amalik has power over us only if there's some aspect of amalik that exists within our personalities and as a result in cabala andas the Mitzvah of eradicating Amal is not only a reference to the eradication of the amalik outside of me but it's also a reference to the eradication of the amalik that is within me so what is the amalik within me that makes me vulnerable so what's interesting is let's compare the first desert attack with the second desert attack and you can identify two weaknesses that make us vulnerable to amalik weakness number one is the very first time they attacked us and they attacked us in a place that is called ridim that's the name of the place right but kazal say ridum is not only a place but ridum is an acronym for certain attitude ra ra now translated literally this is an idiomatic expression that doesn't really have an English counterpart it literally means R their hands were weak towards the Torah what is the IDI mean let's imagine you're crossing the street you're crossing a busy street you're Crossing King George and you have to hold your baby well God forbid you don't want to drop your baby so you something you care about a lot you hold very tight when you don't care so much let's assume you're you're you're holding a tissue in your hand you blew your nose and you have a tissue now even if you're not a litterer unfortunately too many people do litter but let's assume you don't intentionally litter but if it blew out of your hand you know it wouldn't be the biggest tragedy in the world so you hold something loose so this is an idiom when we talk about your hands are loose your hands are weak that means you don't care so much about it a mik attacks us when our attitude towards Torah learning and Torah mitzvas we lack passion we lack excitement we lack gmach we're complacent even if we're fir we do the Mitzvah but we do so without a brand Without fire without enthusiasm complacency boredom coldness of the spirits because after all amalik represents coldness now kazal see this in the word the first Achilles heel that makes us vulnerable to Amal is the indifference and lack of passion we have for and this is a problem not only for those who don't keep Mitzvah it might be a greater problem for those who do keep Mitzvah we do things out of habit we go through the motions sometimes we even resent you know cleaning up for PES or whatever whatever it will be right we don't have a in our that's a and when there's that coldness that's the root that makes us vulnerable to aik now see that in the word sees it in a different word now the word K is a very very interesting word because there's a lot of different amalik ideas in that word one of K is they encountered you in the way and encounter mikra is a word that means coincidence accident and that goes to amalik lives in the world of mikra things are just coincidence there's no hash there's no Divine Providence so that's one lesson of the K Rashi gives another lesson of the K again from the medish that K means they made you cold K made you C so she says the famous mushel that when the Jewish people left mitam they were like a boiling hot bath a scalding hot bath everybody was afraid to touch them they had the 10 plagues and the splitting of the Red Sea I'm not going to touch these people amalik was the very first one who jumped into the boiling hot bath you jump into a boiling hot bath you're going to get burnt Amal got defeated to be sure but you know what happens the bath is not as hot for the next guy meaning amalik created the precedent that you could try to fight the Jews yeah we lost but maybe the next guy will win that's how Rashi understands K they made you cold they cooled off the bath R sadok goes with the same meaning of coldness but he goes in a different aspect he says Amal represents coldness of the heart coldness of the heart vers n to feel warmth and passion right it's very interesting in some ways this is a little bit autobiographical now R sadok was actually born in mate was not born into a family and he became in his 20s and he was a genius he was a genius from a very young age uh know sh poim he knew everything uh but he became Aid a little bit older and The Story Goes that yeah he was wandering around Europe meeting different G different rim and uh he walked into the iser the ish bitzer who is his Rabbi the M sud and the iser was talking and uh know were listening not listening you they're used to it they were they were not necessarily so moved but if saduk was transfixed he was frozen in place and all of a sudden he started screaming The Story Goes he says my heart is on fire my heart is on fire and then he grabbed his head he says until now all I was was a brain I wasn't a person but I want to be a yid I want to be a person I want to have a heart again very very interesting red did have a very acute awareness even though if there's any who could be a bonafied intellectualized approach it is R was acutely aware that you have to combine as they said about the classic biography Mo the mind and the heart and when the heart is not there says that's kirus when there's Kus that's amalik seemed to make the same point through the word so that's a heal number one the ofal was R for and I tell you or kirus the coldness of the heart we then come 40 years later iron aen dies theot leave am via disguise at least attacks us the mforum say this is a second Achilles heal AR Ain represents as Pavo says the spiritual dimension of oh sh shom a lover of Peace A pursuer of Peace one who was proactive in trying to make Shalom o he loved the's creations and the way the saer explains it quite logically through the love that he had for everyone he brought them to T very important he didn't you don't bring somebody to Terror by denigrating them by insulting them by pushing them away you bring them to T by love it's not two things it's notos number one Marvin L Tor number two rather it's all connected oh so Aon is the height of and unity and shom and love when he died there was a weakness there was a diun in the AK and the love in Claus and that is Achilles heel number two perod divisiveness polarization within the Jewish people make us vulnerable to amalik and the reason is the following because amalik is really from our brother ASF How could a brother hate a brother right ASA is our brother the answer is me the mid if we hate our brother or at least we don't have Ava for our brother you know our fellow Jew then we're going to suffer the hatred of someone who should have been our brother in a much more intensive way I mean obviously no Jew behaves like a mik I mean but but the concept is if we don't show the Ava that we're supposed to show then on the other side it gets magnified into the sin the violent hatred of amalik so you see these are the two the the is the reason for the first attack and the sin and lack of is the reason for the second attack so now let's go to the story of porm story of porm is the final attempt in tanak of amalik or a representative of amalik to destroy us what's interesting is in the time of purm we actually see both factors at work we see well they're they're a bit subtle but let's take the sin first you can see a remember when H is talking to and H is trying to convince that the Jews are worthless get rid of him and you know they don't contribute anything he says they're scattered and they're Etc they're not unified together so remember the important teaching of The Zo hashem's name is not mentioned in Miguel AER true but whenever it says H it refers both to a on a lower level of meaning and to Hashem on a higher level of meaning so when it says hamon said to the m about the Jews a b c and d that sentence has two meanings in the human said to the human and indeed you know you don't discard the hon is talking to but a higher mytical meaning is the spiritual of is Prosecuting the Jews speaking to God and saying they're not worthy right double meaning you got to read everything higher meaning lower meaning meaning cabalistic meaning so to speak so the very first thing that H said is there is a nation that is scattered and divided among your Nations so let's first look at lower meaning then we'll look at higher meaning lower meaning is human ham is speaking to human and is simply making the point that the Jews are not concentrated in one place you have a few here a few here a few here therefore again Pat they're not able to organize an army it'll be very easy to kill them because you don't have a large concentration of Jews in any one place that's lower meaning higher and deeper meaning is the is saying to Hashem the Jews are undeserving because they're divided amongst themselves Moser M the very pagam that made us vulnerable when Aron died existed in the porm story itself the sin that existed now it is true that usually speak of sinam in connection with the destruction of the second temple uh Mori is right before the construction of the second temple but nevertheless the roots of that sin were already there the Moser maor now we also see it's Milla sester the first weakness complacency indifference and lack of passion for the Torah now where do you see that so again this is a little subtle the gar Milla says that rabi Shimon barai was asked why are the Jewish people why were the Jewish people worthy of being destroyed because we actually were on the verge of being destroyed so R sh sh initial answer was because they were n when aish made a party in shushan many Jews went and they enjoyed the party and they deserve to die because of that now the then asked well that's only the Jews in shushan what about other Jews so he had to come up with other aaras but the very first thing that he said was they were of Misa because they enjoyed the party of so the question is obvious what sin did they commit they ate trafe they drank wine that non-jews handled those are AAS to be sure do you get the death penalty for it if I eat TR I don't get killed I'm not of for it so how can you say they're of Mis because they ate and drank at the party so say the a wonderful Terrance it does not say they're K of Misa because they ate at the party you're not K of Misa for eating TR they're of Mis because they enjoyed the party well what does that mean if you enjoy the food you're just eating tra so here you have to have to remember something why did Ros make the party at the time that he made that party so there's a complicated gamarra we don't have time to go through all of the numbers but essentially aash knew that the Jewish people are supposed to be in exile for only 70 years and he miscalculated where do you start the 70 years from he was wrong but based on his calculation the 70 years were over and God did not redeem the Jewish people so the conclusion would be either God changed his mind and is never going to redeem them or God doesn't have the power or there is no God or whatever it is so this was a party celebrating the fact that the Jews will not be redeemed so says theas emus when it says the Jews enjoyed the party n it does not refer to the fact that they enjoyed the food and the wine that's not a but they enjoy the idea of why there was a party who needs a mikdash who needs GA who needs we're happy here we're fine here what is that called complacency indifference lack of passion lack of Yearning lack of growth we're fine where we are and we're fine as we are so it turns out that that's the first pagam the first defect R foram so it's fascinating if the first time amalik attacked us was rough T and the second time amalik attacked us was and lack of Isel the POR story combines both the and and this explains why when we finally had the Yeshua and the GAA and kazal enacted that we observe a holiday of porm to give thanks and to celebrate they built into the holiday mitzvos and Rich rituals that address the defects that made us vulnerable to amalik in the first place if porm is a celebration of the downfall of amalik we have to eradicate that within us that makes us vulnerable to amalik the ton of divisiveness and polarization is obvious in the mitzah of give food to people speciala to take down the or to build Bridges to remove barriers to be friend to connect in fact that's why it's brought down many say that you should get a to give because you want to get more people involved called maros increasing friendship that's the tikon that's the rectification for by the way that's why Esther when Esther proclaimed to fast she her first words were come and gather everybody if the problem is the ton is now p is also a t for the lack of passion in and this is again in a bit of a subtle way at the end of the mcgilla when it talks about the holiday of porim it mentions they fulfilled what they had accepted so K have it's an awkward language they recepted God's Torah that they had accepted at Sinai at Sinai they accepted God's Torah under duress compulsion we'll have to save this another time to try to explain that but it says God held a mountain over their heads and said if you accept the Torah that's good if not I'll Crush you so Shas is cabala sa out of fear trepidation a certain degree of coercion and duress and porim we accept it out of love and gratitude that which he had previously accepted out of fear so porm isal with love what is the difference between doing something out of love and doing something out of fear well there are many differences but one of the differences is the passion and excitement you have when you do it when you do something out of fear you do as much as you need to not to get hurt but you don't have enthusiasm you don't have gak when you do it out of love you love what you're doing M if a attacks us because we're complacent we have lack of passion Maya is a ton for the coldness of the heart and the so it's fascinating that we became vulnerable on because we have the two weaknesses of amalik and when we celebrate purm we have to address both of those weaknesses so again beem may be a of G of Yeshua uh we say in shakov you know the the song that we sing after Milla it's part of a longer really that that you are their salvation in every generation and you have made known to us that those who trust in you and those who seek refuge in you will not be ashamed will not be humiliated forever and beem may the words of that be m so I'm good to get [Music] sh