Purim Uncorked: Discover the Top Reasons Why Singing, Dancing, and Celebrating with Unbridled Joy This Purim is a Must!

Speaker 1:
0:00

What comes to mind when you hear the word Purim?

Speaker 1:
0:06

For some it is costumes, cap guns and bottles of wine. For others, the more learned and inspired folk, it's the Mitzvah, sayom, the giving of Tzedaka, the Sudas, purim, the Kriyasamagila and the beautiful story told therein. For some, it's drunk husbands and vomit. Purim is a very ambiguous and elusive day. The day is different to all and in fact, it's really above definition. It's above time. You cannot place your finger on it. It's a day that, if you ask someone, well, when is Purim? It could be anywhere between the 11th or 15th. In antiquity, that is Yudal, for Teshvah Vahdhar. But nowadays, if you're not living or you're not celebrating Purim inside of a walled city, it'll be on Yudal, it'll be on the 14th. But the Mitzvahs that you are going to celebrate? They bring to mind even more uncertainty about the actual Mahus, the actual content of the celebration that is the day of Purim, for they are rabbinic in nature, yet enacted by prophets or a prophet. And yet, although only Mitzvahs are a bonon, they take precedence over literally any Mitzvah who says the Rambam, except for a dead body lying out in the open that must be buried, the Mitzvah of Mitzvah, the Rambam, of course taken from the Gemur and Mesacht M'gilah, even if Rab'ashar Areli should be Toichshir broadcasting the londus that he's heard from Rab'nachem. Parts of it's about why Rakhv may be kaina or Manhig may be kaina. Why and how Are there so many differences between Rashi and Tosvos and the Sogya of Khardul and Bavabashara? It doesn't matter. We must close the Gemurras and go and attend the Kriyasa M'gilah and take part in this Rab'nach Mitzvah. It doesn't seem to add up. If it's Rab'nach in nature, why does it seem to trump all other Mitzvahs? If you should seek education about the holiday of Purim for after all, education leads to motivation your first stop will probably be the very detailed telling of the story. We get all of the details of the M'gilah and the miracle that happened back in Persia with our great heroes Mordechai and Esther that would prove triumphant over the evil Haman-i-Rasha, a man that sought destruction for the Jewish people. And when you should follow that narrative in the M'gilah, you are going to only be met with even more uncertainty, more of a muddled picture of why we are actually celebrating a day of Mishda, the Simcha, for the story doesn't seem all that miraculous Really.

Speaker 1:
4:20

Although I'm living in Lakewood and I'm a right-wing kid. I don't think it would be audacious or outlandish to testify that the Purim M'gilah reads to the really unfocused mind like nothing more than a Hollywood drama, like nothing more than a novel that has been created from the belly of a Gentile. It's about beauty pageants. It's about a selfish individual, an envious player. It's about big parties, grand displays and without even a meager single mentioning of the name of Akhadash Baruch, it really makes you wonder what makes the holiday of Purim so powerful that it should take precedence over other biblically ordained mitzvost arisa. What makes things even more pressing Is that there's only one holiday, or one, for a matter of fact, one scroll that will be extant, that we will still have when Mashiach should arrive in Herobiumenu Amin, and that is the story in the Megillah of Esther. All the other stories, all of the other books of Tanach, those scrolls, well, it is actually a mahlukas between Rambam and Raivid, the end of the laws of Megillah in Mishnatora. But, following the opinion of Rambam, there's only one book that will remain with us, and that is the Megillah Esther. But why? Why are the lessons inside of the Megillah so powerful? Why are they needed? And if we can't figure it out before Acharas Hayyamim, so that when actually Acharas Hayyamim, mashiach arrives, why is it that the Megillah must be present then? And let's throw a little bit of Hasidish Taira on this spiritual fire we have going.

Speaker 1:
6:48

The day of Purim is so holy that it is even Yom Kippur. Yom Kippurim that is just a meager comparison seems to be dwarfed by the holiness as present in the day of the real OG, purim. So why is it that we will drink alcohol until we become inebriated, wrecked, smashed, blitzed, intoxicated? It would seem to be counterproductive, missing out on the holiness of the day that is even more important than Yom Kippur, to define this day and to properly prepare for it. Here's the topic of today's discussion. Success, victory, it must be had, for without it we could, god forbid, miss out on the most important day on the calendar for the Jewish people.

Speaker 1:
7:59

So it is that we begin to try to unpack all the different lessons we are to take with us from the holiday of Purim. To begin, we must be educated that you probably already know the Purim took place after the second Commonwealth. It really seems to be. If you zoom out and view the holiday of Purim from the bird's eye view of Jewish history, it seems to have really prepared us for the great dispersion, the great wandering. For after this, from Persia we would continue to wander country to country, never really comfortable in any of the countries, spending gullus for a couple hundred years, probably tormented or maybe enjoying the good life before becoming the official scapegoats of that country before we began wandering to the next country. So Purim is that last dance where the wise leaders of Kalei, israel will pen the lessons needed for going through the gullus to become the clarion call of Chazal for what we should look to when we will feel helpless on the ground, beaten down by the exile, alone in the diaspora. And probably the lesson that immediately jumps off the page from flipping through the words, the pages of Michael Sester, is that while the evil visor Haman, he sought genocide on the people and all seems lost. Have you had to bet on who would win? You would most definitely take the minus one, 10, the minus 2000 on the Persians and Haman side, the Syrian, macedonian rule.

Speaker 1:
10:09

But Purim teaches us that as long as we're in gullus, the omnipresent is omnipresent. He is as all protecting and all saving as he's ever been. And whether or not we can see Hakanash Baruch with our own human eyes, it doesn't change the fact that God tarries with us. The K? Avram V'Yischuk V'Yakov hears every single one of our tears in gullus. He tests us to bring us closer to him. He sees all of our size and our pleas, all of our pain, everything k'chotah sairah witnessed and governed and maintained.

Speaker 1:
11:01

That K Avram V'Yakov blessed be he that, when all seems lost, all of the details and the narrative of the Hollywood story, the Syrian, macedonian, gentile Seaming novel, it all comes together in a great climax when Haman is the manhig and Mordechai is the rachov, he's the ba'al and the Jews win. The Jews are on top. God is the Zalba, hakanash Baruch, watching over us. And there is no difference between the miracles of Yitzi Yosme Tzrayim, the open miracles of Yitzi Yosme Tzrayim, and the hidden miracles of the perm story. It is the perfect lesson that Chazal have left us with, as we were, go venturing into the dark, unknown, the wilderness, while we will travel for 40 years seeking the promised land, but we must first go through the dark midbar, the lessons of Purim.

Speaker 1:
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They're constantly preaching that, while it doesn't seem like there is any direct correlation between the pain of yesterday and the triumphs of today, but in fact God is knitting all of humans' deeds and their issues and thoughts into the grand divine plan. And what was just a sleepless night of insomnia from a Chashverosh, a couple parties, some threats. Chashverosh comes together as God was always setting it up, and being misavevcivuvim and in gullus, in the darkness, in the pain, in the anxiety and in the fear, especially when the threats of humann, the threats of Hamas, and the comparative features that they all share from their great grandfather Amulik, that they just want the destruction of the Israelites. Is there any greater lesson than the Purim story, which teaches us that, no matter what, it all ends the same way, that the Jews are on top, that we are unbeatable, we are unstoppable as we march forward to fulfill our destiny of lamandas kol ameha ar etkiashem huelekim the ain oidmobaddo? We don't have much armor. The Jewish people are but a couple million inside of a world of more than eight billion, less than one percent of the world, while all the other nations may have serious weaponry, serious Yodai Midayasov, but our answer is always the same. Our armor is always our cold Koliakov that when we give a serious appraisal of our actions and return to Hashem immediately, like the snapping of one's fingers and the blinking of the eye is the Yeshua Hashem.

Speaker 1:
14:53

And I'm not sure what will excite you about the upcoming holiday of Purim. Maybe you're from the brisker line of thinking and that brilliant methodology, the holy thinking of that svedinim, that there are certain underlying underpinnings of each and every mitzvah, and that may be the idea that the brisker of tells us that well, just a little wine will suffice. On other holidays it's just a hecha timsa, it's just kind of the bridge, the path to be able to have a tainuk of yantif. But the wine isn't actually the main part of yantif, it's to get to the full happiness. But here, on the holiday of Purim, when our lives were on the line, when our physical bodies were to be wrecked, for genocide to happen and Hashem saved us, the yayan becomes a mitzvah of bifnei atzmoy. That wine is supposed to be that great equalizer Of that. They're all the same.

Speaker 1:
16:04

Aror, haman, baruch, mordechay. That that great law of cause and effect, causation one thing leads to the next is well true, you can't argue with that. But it's governed entirely by Akhadash baruch. God runs the causation effect. That God can choose the cause and effect to be now unprecedented, for it to change, for it to ebb and flow. And when we reach that spot of ad-deloyyodah and we no longer are yodah, but rather we're putting our hands over our eyes like a shema'i Yisrael, it all becomes the same. Hashem and Elokeinu are Hashem echad, and that's a place of peace, a place where Gullis turns into olimhabah paradise.

Speaker 1:
17:13

If you're not from that line of thinking and you're more of the searching for inspiration type, just get me a good vart. Well, shouldn't it come to mind? Why is it, after all, that the Megillah is actually called Megillah Cester? We should start like that. We should say it's a Megillah's mordechay. We are of an egalitarian society. We like males, we like females, everyone that has a place at the table. We don't discriminate, we don't segregate in Judaism.

Speaker 1:
17:46

So Megillah's Esther name after a female, maybe name it Megillah's mordechay, who actually played more of a crucial role. There are arguments for both. But why Megillah's Esther? Well, we don't have to answer it. The Gamara tells us, because Esther was Moisir Nefesh. She gave up of herself, she put her life on the line and therefore the Megillah is Nikraal Shema. She was clean. She acquired the entire Megillah story because of her selflessness, laying it all out there, playing it, playing like it was her final game. Because of that it becomes Megillah's Esther. She walked into Achashverosh because that's what needed to be done, fasting and pleading with Hashem and asking the same from the Jewish nation.

Speaker 1:
18:48

Find this by Moisir Rabbeinu, I believe the Medrish actually refers to, or maybe it's even a Pasek, I can't recall, but it's recall the Tawirah's Moisir. The entire Torah is called after Moisir Rabbeinu. Why? For he sacrificed himself. He was Moisir Nefesh for it, so it becomes Nikraal Shema becomes his Clodly.

Speaker 1:
19:13

You say, oh, can become yours when you're Moisir Nefesh for it, when you give up for it, give up of your soul for a worthy cause. Maybe that's the lesson of Purim, that real hard work, dedication and grit, as they say, blood, sweat and tears for something real. That brings real satisfaction and it lets you put your name on top of it, like McGillass, esther, I think if you're more of a muster-nic, you enjoy the muster lessons, self-perfection, ideas and ideals. The constant power struggle and the inner turmoil that we witness in the mind and heart of Haman has got to be educational. Vechol ze enenu sho'i veli. Now, mind you that Haman's got it all. He's second to the king, he's a viceroy, but what but morichai? One person ain't bowing to him and the entire thing isn't worth it. How do you make sense of that? Does it really make any sense that one should build a skyscraper a hundred stories high but if someone next to him, his neighbor, builds it a hundred and one stories? Vechol ze enenu sho'i veli.

Speaker 1:
20:46

Second story is actually a bit relatable. The Midoz struggle, as the great Rev Elephant, kali's Shroels, mashiach, teaches us that Midoz are that great intermediary, that great pathway between ourselves and mitzvos. Help Johnny get to the estrug and help Mashi get to Talmatera. And Midoz are in the way, all of the different Midoz ideas inside of the Megillah that should propel this day to become maybe the most important why not? But the idea that Haman's heart spoke to him, that Haman was Yoimar Belibu. The Medjers tells us that he was the classic Russia, without any control over his own Midoz, whatever it is that he coveted and wanted, he allowed himself the opposite mentality of a self-respecting Israelite.

Speaker 1:
21:48

But as we buckle down, maybe get a bit litvakish. Think about why we are celebrating, why it is the most important day of the year, why it is that the avaida is that we increase our happiness, our jubilation, we uncap our partying to even excess at times on the holiday of Purim, because we are Marbeb-e-simcha ay'in shalom-de-gimara in Tainas, built off of something that happens in Av, but kashem that we lessen our happiness, our merriment in Av, so too we increase our happiness in Adar. And surely you are aware that, as sif seikhachamim on this comment of Rashi by the Briss or the coming of age of Romavino's son, a big party, mishte gadol gadol, says Rashi, there were great individuals that showed up. The sif seikhachamim tells us, great individuals headed Rashi. Know that, says the sif seikhachamim, because any time we see the word great it's never in number. Judaism doesn't care for the number, we're very small in nature but it's great in stature. It's gadol, it's Marbe, it's increasing in its eichos.

Speaker 1:
23:22

And as the great Mashiikh, the man who mixes the khachma of Moeshe-rabenu and the maturgamun speaking skills of Aaron Akhoi and the great Rabbi Waxman Shlita, he tells us that Marbein Besimcha means increase your palette for Ruchnius, learn the good parts of life, enjoy a new understanding of Taishvahs, a new depth in Amitzvah, understand the sweetness of self-control and the ability to find inner peace. This Marbein Besimcha doesn't mean do more things, but rather deepen your taste for spiritual pleasures, for whatever it is that you crave, don't you think that if you offered it to the Chazan-ish or Rebellyashiv, that it wouldn't hardly do justice for their taivos. They want something real, something deeper. They are Marbe, besimcha, to the point where only Ruchnius, only eternity, will give them Symcha. That's what it means, marbe, and its eichos and its depth. We increase our taste for spiritual pleasures.

Speaker 1:
24:48

Rebellistically speaking, the day is a day of celebration, for it is the day of lots, purim. Arisa tells us that on the name, the defining attribute of the day, purim and its name, live so much spiritual power and that one can accomplish at the Purim Suda through spiritual enjoyment, physical enjoyment, pleasure seeking even more than one can attain and achieve through self negation and discomfort. On Yom Kippur, purim is a day that, mystically speaking, it all flipped. For us, the switch was flipped, v'nahapa hu. It had to be that way. The structure and the substance of the pain had to be flipped on its head to the absolutely diametrically opposed angle. That the original pain that was designed for the Jewish people, the gallows that were supposed to be around the neck of Mordechai the Great Sage, was now tied tightly, the noose nestled onto the neck of the adversary in a various foe. Haman himself, v'nahapa hu, actually, it's the two high. You heard him.

Speaker 1:
26:29

Hey, my, this ain't a talk about a great comeback and you got to love the difference in the celebrations. It speaks volumes about the importance of the day that we're searching for. You find that in the story the celebration amongst the Gentiles at the Suda Sacher Shverosh that was actually the nail in the coffin of our death sentence, and we took pleasure in this horrid feast. The girls that attended it were arguing over the beauty of the females, but we know that every time the Megillah says melech, it's really as the Gamorah says. It's referring to what I call the Shbaracho. See the Vilna Gown. That tells us that on the seventh day it was the Helegeshab.

Speaker 1:
27:27

Because when the Jewish people engage in celebration, celebratory events elegant black-tied dinners and beautiful gatherings of merriment and enjoyment we talk Torah, we sing Zemiros, shiroi, svitishbachos about the Abishtar, with pleasure, with snius and with refinement. That's how we celebrate the difference and that lesson. Isn't that a reason that it's such an important day or maybe you don't like any of these reasons that Purim has become and is, and always will be, one of the most important days on the Jewish calendar? But aren't you in touch with your inner self and the breath in your lungs, your beating heart and the breath that should go in and out of your lungs. While you should have a basic feeling of gratitude that I'm alive today, well, imagine being alive in Purzj at this time. It was all but lost. Everyone turned their backs on Mordechai. This was a holocaust to be. Hundreds of Jews wiped out, 6 million paperclips, if not more, to fill the train car. But it was a holocaust. That wasn't. We were all saved. Hey, what was I saying? Nam Shekol kai vechav ala yuvoshav ala yukomul anetzach. We continue to live, and the fact that you're alive today, does that not make it to have some serious grounds for celebration that it should become one of the most important days of your life, this holiday of Purim?

Speaker 1:
29:31

You're surely aware that there's a rather intense machlokas amongst the commentators Rishonah machronah malaih, as to the mitzvah of intoxication on Purim. Should you drink and then fall asleep? Should you not drink? If you'll make a khil lashem? If you should drink and then hurt someone or destroy their property, what should be the law? Should you drink to excess? Should you only drink a little bit? Because you're a judge and you need to be relied upon for halachic rulings? Maybe the law changed, since we have less fear of heaven and there's more Eurydus hadoros. Maybe we should drink more. After all, rev Charles Cilantro would become more intoxicated than even Lot when he was in the cave with his daughters, for it was a bechina on his body. Or maybe we should stay far away from that.

Speaker 1:
30:16

The Manchester rushes sheva said of course, if you're going to be Mavatul Torah or Mavatul mitzvah or mitzvah of hardly, you cannot possibly think of engaging in such fruitless practices. It's an intense mahlokas. With Paiski, with Rabbeim, with Ballymus, are all giving the opinion as to what to do. Maybe the words of the Ramah here would be fitting, and I don't think it's outlandish to suggest that if you work with real, authentic Yerishanayim and trying to make a real, authentic Kiddashashem, you'll probably find the answer to this public intoxication issue. If you're honest with yourself and know why you're doing it, you'll probably find the opinion that will bring you to how you can fulfill the halacha and the binding hot law.

Speaker 1:
31:13

It is All this is a haqdama, an introduction, because one of the most incredible lessons, that which elevates the mitzvahs of the day and happiness that is enveloped inside of the day, that raises it up to become one of the most important days on the Jewish calendar is because we find our eye, our self-identity, we find ourselves on it Because the mitzvah of T'ucha'cha and the knowledge of self is so hard to come by. It is noteworthy that Bekumim alaym reyim, tishm'ana uznay, we say in the Kapitul to Hillam, in David Psalms and Kabbalah Shabbos, that when Bekumim alaym reyim, when evil ones will come near me, tishm'ana uznay, I will listen. For B'Sur'al-Salaamter taught us that means because there is nothing more clarifying than the opinion of our haters. So if you want to find your self-definition, just listen to how Haman defined us when he said we got to annihilate these Jewish people Because there's a nation Mefuzar, mefur bein'a amin, vedosayam shaynais.

Speaker 1:
32:54

There's a nation that is all dispersed. They have been exiled From Spain, portugal. We've touched in Tunisia, we've been to Australia. We've been to the shores of the Golden Ambedina, america. We have our home country of Eritz, israel. The Jewish people have been involved in Uruguay and South Africa, germany, england, france, new name that. We've been there.

Speaker 1:
33:31

We are Mefuzar, we are Mefurad, we are aloof, we are our own people, not following in the ways of the Gentile culture, not assimilating and becoming absorbed into their societies. We are dispersed, but we are accurately depict by Haman al-Russia, as isolated, as different, aloof vaya, vossar yaakov levado, seeking to be alone. We are dosayam shonos. Their laws are different than all of the other nations because our laws don't even flow based on what the needs of the public are. Our laws are different, our laws, our dosayam, the Adelahamishpatenmar from Sinai. They create the people From the laws. We find our service.

Speaker 1:
34:41

It isn't the other way around. It isn't that there is a public, that there is a new democracy and now we built a constitution around what the will and what the public's wants are. It isn't that there are amendments that will permit and then prohibit the consumption and selling of alcohol. There isn't an ability to ask contradictions between the Magna Carta and the Bill of Rights.

Speaker 1:
35:08

But it is only the dosayam shonos, the fact that we have law binding, burning, hot, sacred dosayam shonos that create the Jewish people, that encompass our entire way of life. That Torah sashem temimah, that it gives us not a perfect Torah but, yes, of course, a perfect Torah, but it is temimah that it encompasses every single one of the nooks and crannies of our lives and that Torah teaches us how to live at home, how to live at work and how to live at the office and the base meditatorship, every single one of the rooms of our house. That is how wholesome and how all-encompassing is our Torah sashem temimah, because dosayam shonos, our laws are different Salvation and continuity and gullus. Because anything that Jewish history has taught us is that when we revert back to making these laws, shochan aruch and these noble halachos, the wills of Hashem, and we make them iron clad in our lives, we repent, we become untouchable. The Jewish people were given the makillah and all of its details, the unassuming details to prepare us, to condition us for the task of going into gullus, of staying separate, looking on armidos building against the enemy of sin with the armor of innocence, recalling the destruction of evil, of Amalek and Parshash Zohar coming together as a community of Parshash Shkolem, seeking purity like Parshash Parah, and regeneration and renewal of our commitment to Hashem and Parshash Zahaydesh. All of these lessons, that laws of cause and effect, they're all governed by Hashem and that, no matter how painful or how down we may be about our current lot, don't blink or you're going to miss the great, miraculous salvation, the day that shows the world how to properly party when we've earned our right to party, that when we party we sing Shiro's v'tish bachos. We talk Torah and Muser. We think of the Bayri Eilam. We distribute our funds to the individual's experiencing misfortune and poverty. We exchange gifts with friends to bring out reyus and friendship. We listen to the story that has the lessons therein that we must internalize and inject into our veins. That will give us strength as we work our way through this gullus to the achar as hayamen.

Speaker 1:
38:44

The day, the holiday of Purim, is the most important day of the year. If you don't prepare for it, it will pass you by. But me Shitorach, the heir of Purim, youchal be Purim. Purim will be with us after Mashiach comes, because when everything is clear and lamandas kol ame ha'arit kya'asemuele kimbe in oid milvado, when that will be old news, because everyone will see Hashem on TV, everyone will know of Maishir Abaynu and everyone will follow the psochem of Rupshmul Kaminetski and he will have Air Force One to fly on, when everyone understands that the Torah scholar is at the center of the universe and that Tfila is the most precious time of everyone's day, the only thing that will be a bit obscure is that, even when things were unclear and that we didn't see Hashem and there was something called that old, ancient, gullus thing that even then, god was there for Mordechai and Esther and the Jewish people. That's why it will remain with us when things are totally clear. But the unclear version of the Jewish people will then be different and new.

Speaker 1:
40:17

Purim is a day of simcha, of growth, of recommitment, a day of betachon, of merriment, of understanding that nothing can hurt you, nobody can harm you if not decreed by Hashem. Purim is a day packed with mitzvos, with bringing together a friend, committing a new, hating evil, watching it perish and stomping on it until it suffocates. And while things may seem harsh, war may be raging, but it is the Purim story that repeats itself every single day, that we don't realize it hidden miracles that Esther and the Torah mean ayin and that she asked her, asked her as Ponnai, that Hashem directing every single thing. While it may just seem painful, as the Megillah does begin v'aihi b'mei, it's going to be a harsh and painful lesson, but the lesson is clear.

Speaker 1:
41:37

The celebration of Purim and the most important day on the Jewish calendar is because Hashem. He guides, manages the entire world. Every detail, every jot and tittle of our lives, every sigh, every feeling of pain, every tear shed, hashem sees it. Every smile, every dance and every laugh is also noticed by Hashem. It's our job to refresh ourselves, to buy into Bittachon and to rejoice in the fact that Hashem is here with us and he tarries with us through the Gullis.

Speaker 1:
42:28

So you wish your friends happy Purim, a freilichen Purim for some. But it isn't just a greeting. It is a statement of faith, of optimism, of joy, of a coming of a better world and of a fulfillment of all the prophecies of the prophets. It is happy Purim because that is the essence. It was the most important day on the Jewish calendar. Dance and sing, for how g'shmach it is to be a Yidd, how wonderful is it to know that Hashem is with us in the Gullis and how excited we are to join together in celebration and song when we read the Megillah together in Herabey Omenu with the coming of Mashiach.