Moshe and Purim Part Nine
What’s the name of the holiday? Purim. Why? Why did Haman throw lots? Why didn’t he choose a day? Because he didn’t believe in chance, he believed that the answer was important.
That’s why when it came out in Adar if this man believed everything was chance he would have said oh wow this is a sign that I’ll be able to be successful. Which means that he took this as a sign that this is what God wanted him to do. Haman was not a total “oh once there was a wicked wicked man” that’s not the way it was. Haman was a very sophisticated enemy.
The worst thing that we do to ourselves and to our children is to present all the enemies of the Jewish people as being total idiots. They weren’t; they were brilliant, they were manipulative, they dealt with God. All these generations present all Christians as idiots, Know: there is sophistication there’s meaning, there’s substance, the difference between Amalek and the Jewish people is kchut hasaarah– the thread of a hair. So it takes a lot of work. And sometimes that work, to internalize it takes a certain release, of barriers and that’s why you drink.
And by the way its not drinking to be selfish, if you ever watch movies or television shows there are always two guys at a bar who are bombed out- ‘you want to know what happened to me?’, ‘yeah, but we lost the game’, ‘my wife left me’, ‘and my car broke down’- these two guys are pouring out their hearts and they’re not having a conversation. That’s not what Purim is about, to be bombed.
It’s where you have a high, so all the barriers and inhibitions are gone. You have a joy, the ability to feel it is a gift on Purim. Because the way that God deals with us on each yom-tov, on each holiday is actually a recreation of how God dealt with us on the original day. And we can take advantage of those gifts. The only way to take advantage of Purim is to know that what I’m going to do on Purim is defeat certain inhibitions, certain masks and barriers, that I put up between myself and other people, between myself and God, between myself and myself.
I have to prepare for it, I have to understand the holiness of it, I have to make myself into a vehicle in order to accept it and accept God’s control and then one will be astounded by what one can change in ones life over Purim. A good Purim is irreplaceable; it is greater than Yom Kippur. Because on Yom Kippur your fasting and on Purim you’re drinking. If you can be holy when you drink, and I’m not talking about ‘holy dancing’ but really working on yourself and internalizing what happens in a pleasant high, which by the way has to be wine, you do not fulfill the mitzvah whiskey or beer you don’t. But hopefully well have a chance to get to that.