Search Results for: purim

Wedding on the Temple Mount: From Servitude to Liberty: By Moshe Feiglin

I really envy the sweet Jewish couple who married last week in a surreptitious ceremony on the Temple Mount. I hear the cries of all the Temple Mountaphobes sitting behind the public broadcast microphones and in the name of the public rob my tax money in order to control the public’s consciousness.

I hear their genuine fear of the Temple Mount. And despite the fact that in just a few days we will be celebrating the Exodus from Egypt, the festival of our liberty, they are still stuck deep inside Purim. Not the end of the story of Purim, but its beginning.

Why was a total holocaust decreed upon Israel in the Purim story? Because when redemption didn’t seem to be coming following 70 years of exile after the destruction of the First Temple, ( according to Ahashverosh’s calculations),the enlightened king celebrated the ‘New World Order’; he celebrated the Pax Ahashveroshana. With no redemption for the Jews in the offing, all the nations celebrated, drank and generally gave free rein to their animalistic urges at Ahashverosh’s feast; at the capital of the pseudo-kind kingdom that ruled from India to Africa.

The king also invited the Jewish sages to his feast. Complete equality for all. All the chief rabbis attended: the Ashkenazic, Sephardic, ultra-orthodox and modern orthodox. They all came to drink at the feast. Not before they made sure that all the food would be strictly kosher, under the supervision of the most trusted kosher certification (I am not making this up. All of what I have written is taken from the sources on the Scroll of Esther)  including a partition to separate between men and women according to the most strict stringencies of Jewish law…

After all, it is unthinkable to insult the king. We are responsible leaders. And then, Ahashverosh serves them the wine…in vessels stolen from the destroyed Temple in Jerusalem. And they drink…

At least if they had shed some tears into the wine served to them in the Temple vessels…But Rabbi Shimon Bar Yocahi explains that this holocaust was decreed upon Israel because not only did the newscasters of the time reject the whole Temple Mount idea, Israel’s message of human liberty under the wings of the One G-d – and exchanged it for the message of the liberty to enjoy lavish feasts under the servitude to man – but Israel’s leaders of the time also found their place in the New Order. They had funds for their yeshivot and Torah institutions. So everything was under control. They felt that they had overcome the extremists and that now, politics were in the hands of level-headed people. So they drank a little bit of wine, so what?

Enter Haman – the Amalekite. Amalek always shows up just before the redemption, when Israel gives up on its destiny and it message, preferring sweet servitude. That is what happened just before the Jews were supposed to enter the Land of Israel. All of them sobbed, just like the afraid-of-the-redemption newscasters.

Ultimately, they entered the Land. But not before the entire sobbing generation died in the desert.

The same thing happened throughout history, until the Balfour Declaration in the 1920s, when the British called upon our Nation to return to its Homeland (and even provided us with a foundation for a modern state). But the Nation of Israel did not show up. And once again, destruction was decreed upon that generation.

Yes, it is always the flight from our message that precipitates the next holocaust. Not  a lack of ascent to the Mount, but estrangement from it.

And who saves the day?

Mordechai.

“Have we gone mad?” cried the Shushan broadcasters. This crazy man is throwing a match into a barrel of dynamite. What was so bad about bowing before Haman? Let him keep his vision to himself and stop endangering all of us!!! Now we will all die because of one old man who insists on sticking himself right in front of the eyes of the world. And he angered Haman, who is always on the lookout for a way to bring us trouble…

And then, it really happens! The intifada breaks out because of Mordechai! Haman decides to annihilate all the Jews! And the broadcasters are proven right. Those whose world is narrow like the world of an ant, who are completely detached from the message of the Nation of Israel, those whose only concern is survival – to reach 12 o’ clock at night and to worry about tomorrow when the sun rises – cannot understand the situation differently.

For the covenant that safeguards our nation’s wondrous eternity has a terrible price. The Creator, Who made an eternal covenant with us, is willing to put up with our temporary weaknesses in fulfilling the commandments. But the King is not willing to give up on the vision and on Israel’s destiny.

If an elite force errs in navigation and misses the mark, it is generally hit hard by the enemy and lessons are learned. But when the elite force decides not to carry out the mission, it makes its existence superfluous. That is the time to bring in a new elite force.

Mordechai understands that in order to save Israel, they must cling to their purpose, cling to their destiny and not fall into servitude to Haman. They must refuse to become servants to the Pax Ahashveroshana. They must choose liberty.

Mordechai would not kneel or bow to Haman, the Third Intifada brokr out and the Nation of Israel was redeemed.

Ben Gurion also understood this principle. The ‘mad old man’ (as he was called at the time) insisted on declaring statehood, ‘provoking’ the Arab armies to finish Hitler’s work and annihilate the small and hopeless Jewish community in Israel.

And how much death ensued! 6,000 fatalities, fully 1% of the Jewish population in Israel, were killed in the War of Independence. And all of our newscasters and talk show hosts today praise this extremist, who understood – from a completely secular perspective – that flight from our destiny makes Jewish existence in the Land of Israel superfluous. It leaves us in the Pax Brittania and sends us back to the desert for another 2000 years.

I really love you, dear couple. You are so beautiful, so simple and dignified. Continue to safeguard your anonymity. It is good that you are not being interviewed. You entered the covenant of marriage in the place of the covenant of the Jewish People with our Father in Heaven. You safeguarded that covenant for us all.

The frightened leaders have forgotten that covenant. But you are the Nation.

You are the Nation, you are its soul – its lofty spirit.

In your modesty, you brought us out of the servitude of Shushan to the Festival of Liberty.

And who knows how many people you saved.

From Jewish Israel, here.

Shushan Purim and the Slight to Eretz Yisrael

March 19, 2014
Laws of Megilla and Hanukka, 1:4-5:

Every city, whether in Eretz Yisrael or in the diaspora, that was surrounded by a wall at the time of Joshua bin Nun should read the Megillah on the fifteenth ofAdar. This applies even when a wall does not surround the city at present. Such a city is called a כרך.

Every city that was not surrounded by a wall at the time of Joshua bin Nun should read the Megillah on the fourteenth of Adar. This applies even when there is a wall surrounding the city at present. Such a city is called an עיר.

In the capital of Shushan, the Megillah is read on the fifteenth of Adar although it was not surrounded by a wall at the time of Joshua bin Nun, because the miracle occurred within it and at that time, the Jews celebrated on that day, as Esther 9:18 states, “And they rested on the fifteenth.”
Why was the matter made dependent on the time of Joshua bin Nun? To give honor to the cities of Eretz Yisrael that were in ruin at the time of the Purim miracle. Although they are in ruin at present, this would allow them to read the Megillah on the fifteenth as do the inhabitants of Shushan, since they were surrounded by a wall at the time of Joshua. Thus the commemoration of the miracle would include a remembrance of Eretz Yisrael.

One will notice that few cities in Israel actually do observe Shushan Purim, although it seems the intention all along was for them to observe it. Why not? As Wikipedia states, “Further doubts have arisen as to whether other cities were sufficiently walled in Joshua’s era. It is therefore customary in certain towns including Hebron, Safed, Tiberias, Acre, Ashdod, Ashkelon,Beersheva, Beit She’an, Beit Shemesh, Gaza, Gush Halav, Haifa, Jaffa, Lod, Ramlah and Shechem to celebrate Purim on the 14th and hold an additional megillah reading on the 15th with no blessings.” That is, the Talmud makes the observation contingent on a positive Masora, tradition, that a cry was walled, and how do we know that those cities had walls?

The answer is, of course, that we know those cities had walls. All of the cities that were worth mentioning in biblical times were by definition walled. In our days, the problem is not knowing which cities were walled; rather it is finding where those walls were. In Talmudic times maybe it was possible to see the remnants of some, or there were still some positive traditions where they had been, but we would need to resort to archeology to answer the question now. And, because archeology and deciding halacha don’t mix – Rabbis don’t care to ask the archeologists where the walled cities were, and archeologists don’t care to keep religious holidays – the information is not shared, and the pious Jewish masses and their leaders continue to insult the Land of Israel by observing Purim on the 14th of Adar.

From Avraham Ben Yehuda, here.

Haman’s Evil Eye

By: Rabbi Shalom Arush – 3/12/2016

The “good eye” is to be grateful and to thank Hashem. The “good eye” is holiness, the spiritual fiber of a Jew. The word in Hebrew for “Jew” – Yehudi – is a derivative of the word lehodot, to give thanks. A Jew is, therefore, one who should be grateful to Hashem and to his fellow human.

Zeresh warned Haman, her husband: “If Mordechai is from the seed of the Jews, and you have started to fall before him, you cannot prevail over him for you will surely fall before him” (Esther 6:13). What did she mean, “if”? Of course Mordechai was a Jew – they all knew that. But, there was no greater ingrate than Haman in the whole world. Hashem gave him everything – wealth, power, success. As viceroy to King Ahashverosh, who was busy with his harem, Haman was the virtual ruler of 127 countries – the entire civilized world! The whole world bowed down to him. Everything was his. But he declared, “All this is worthless to me” (ibid, 5:13). Why? Because one Jew – Mordechai – wouldn’t bow down to him. This is the height of ingratitude, the “evil eye” of Haman, the spiritual impurity that is known as kelipat Haman.

Like Adam and Eve, Haman had everything. And like them, he too was dissatisfied, for he failed to look at all the abundance and good fortune that were bestowed on him and he focused on the one tiny thing that he lacked. This is the mean spirit of stinginess, known in Hebrew as a “constricted eye”, the opposite of gratitude and magnanimity.

As such, Zeresh is in effect telling Haman that if Mordechai has the quality of the “good eye” that is characteristic of the Jews who constantly praise and thank the Creator, then he won’t be able to overcome him, for the “good eye” is stronger than the “evil eye”. No evil eye can prevail over a person with a good eye. Mordechai surely had a good eye, for the Megilla testifies that he sought the good of everyone (ibid, 10:3).

We Jews pray every day in the Shemona Esrei prayer, telling Hashem, “You are holy and Your Name is holy, and the holy ones will praise You daily”. The “holy ones” are the ones that guard their eyes; these too are the ones with constant gratitude to Hashem.

Grateful people succeed. That way, they always have something to be grateful for. Their “good eye” causes a wonderful upward spiral of gratitude and success.

A grateful person excels in his fulfillment of mitzvoth and in his relationships with people. He respects his parents, for he appreciates every little thing they’ve ever done for him. He appreciates his wife and looks only at her good qualities, paying attention to all the wonderful things she does for him every single day. In return, he enjoys the blessings of both his parents and his wife, and he succeeds even more. He is a walking example of gratitude for his children; they see how he thanks Mommy and how he respects his own parents. They too follow suit, so he ends up having much gratification from them as well. And more than anything, he is thanking Hashem all day long.

The Gemara teaches that it is forbidden to do a favor for an ingrate. One wonders why. Suppose a person wants to do something completely altruistic, and he knows that he’ll get no thanks for it. What could be wrong with such an action?

The Gemara answers that doing a favor for an ingrate is like committing idolatry. Idolatry? Isn’t that a harsh term? The ingrate has an inflated sense of entitlement as if everyone owes him and he deserves everything. In that respect, he is making himself a deity, just as such arrogant ingrates as Pharaoh and Haman did. Therefore, doing any favor for such a person is like serving an idol.

Conversely, a grateful individual has no sense of entitlement. Since he doesn’t think that anyone owes him anything or that he deserves anything, he appreciates each tiny amenity in life that comes his way and expresses his gratitude both to Hashem and to his fellow man.

A person with Haman’s level of ingratitude is never satisfied and usually depressed. He is blind to the myriad of favors that Hashem does for him every moment, for nothing pleases him. But if a person follows the way of Judaism, he should be saying thank-you all day long and singing songs of praise to Hashem.

Happy Purim!

From Breslev Israel, here.