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Purim: A New Era · A Thought for the Week

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  Speaker 1: This podcast was recorded this past Thursday. We pray that
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  Speaker 1: God protect the heroic soldiers of Israel, the Jewish people,
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  Speaker 1: and all peoples from the modern day Hamans, and may
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  Speaker 1: be blessed with Ara Simcha Sassoon the car. Welcome to
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  Speaker 1: a thought for the week, a Torah in Motion podcast.
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  Speaker 1: I'm Jake Helman, founding director of Torah in Motion, and
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  Speaker 1: it's a pleasure to have you here with us.
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  Speaker 2: This touring podcast is sponsored in memory of Eva Levy
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  Speaker 2: Esther these all on her eighth York site by your
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  Speaker 2: children Daniel and Miriam, Michael and Naomi and Joshua and Brnya.
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  Speaker 2: May we be blessed with good health and long life.
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  Speaker 2: Thank you. One of the strange things about porn, and
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  Speaker 2: there are many strange things about porn, is the fact
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  Speaker 2: that we do not recite Hello, that we don't sing
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  Speaker 2: the songs of praise that we sing on all the
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  Speaker 2: other holidays to thank God Hello for the miracles that happened.
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  Speaker 2: And as the Talmud says, there should be a caba
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  Speaker 2: homme era. The tumb Would says, may abdul le frut
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  Speaker 2: ben shira, when you go from slavery to freedom, like
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  Speaker 2: we did on Pessaf, we sing songs and say hello,
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  Speaker 2: Mimita l Kraim from the threat of death. Hama wanted
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  Speaker 2: to kill us. Part wasn't killing us? Look, Cole Shakin,
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  Speaker 2: how much more so should we say hello?
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  Speaker 1: So?
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  Speaker 2: Thegmar gives three answers. I think one of them is
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  Speaker 2: more famous than the other two. The first answer that
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  Speaker 2: Temud says, well, the miracle happened outside of Israel. We
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  Speaker 2: don't say hello on miracles outside of Israel. We're going
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  Speaker 2: to leave that answer for another time. Why that would be?
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  Speaker 2: I want to folks on the other two answers. The
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  Speaker 2: second answer to Tumble says is kreata Zuhalila. Ravnachmann says
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  Speaker 2: that reading the mcgilla that we we do say hello.
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  Speaker 2: We do say hello. We have a special hello called
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  Speaker 2: Mikuila Esther and his student Rava says, no, I'll tell
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  Speaker 2: you why we don't say hello. Akat d akash very
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  Speaker 2: Rushnin who we were still slaves to a hush ver
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  Speaker 2: nothing happened when eat the story of Pessaf. We left
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  Speaker 2: Egypt on Shibus. We've got Artur whatever a Khanika, we
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  Speaker 2: got sovereignty back Purim. This last verses in the mcgilla
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  Speaker 2: talk about akash Frei Rush put new taxes on the
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  Speaker 2: Jewish people. He's still the king. Nothing happened to Warren
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  Speaker 2: saying hello? What's fascinating about these two answers is they
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  Speaker 2: are complete opposites. Is Purim so special that it gets
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  Speaker 2: a really its own unique, life, long, beautiful fun hello,
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  Speaker 2: how we say both at night and in the day?
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  Speaker 2: Or is for him no big deal? Nothing happened on
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  Speaker 2: for him? It's that fact we don't even know why
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  Speaker 2: it should be a holiday. We're still tax paying slaves,
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  Speaker 2: So why bother to say hello? I find this idea
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  Speaker 2: of fascinating. Two amorim too? Tell me to Grabbis Living
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  Speaker 2: in Babel, Rob Nafman and his student Rava are arguing
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  Speaker 2: whether Purim is, in a sense the most important holiday
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  Speaker 2: or the least important holiday. Do we have a special
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  Speaker 2: hello or no hello at all? On the surface? Rev not?
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  Speaker 2: When is correct? There's no reason to say hello? What's
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  Speaker 2: there to celebrate that Haman wanted to kill us, we
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  Speaker 2: faced annihilation and didn't happen. Is that something to celebrate
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  Speaker 2: that a massacre doesn't happen? Is that what we're doing? When?
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  Speaker 2: When we're not killed. That's a celebration there was. If
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  Speaker 2: we're going to celebrate every time some anti Semite wants
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  Speaker 2: to kill us didn't succeed, it'd be nice, but we
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  Speaker 2: wouldn't have too many days left in the year. There
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  Speaker 2: is no temple. No, there's no mention of God, no
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  Speaker 2: return to Israel, and nothing happened, like went back to normal,
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  Speaker 2: i e. Paying taxes to a hash favors. You know,
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  Speaker 2: those parties are pretty expensive. Somebody's got to pay for them,
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  Speaker 2: and many people, probably living in Trushan, didn't even realize
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  Speaker 2: anything special had happened. We don't notice it so much
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  Speaker 2: because we read the mcgilla in half an hour. But
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  Speaker 2: the story takes place over nine years. No so political intrigued.
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  Speaker 2: This guy's appointed, he's the king's advisor, and she a
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  Speaker 2: new queen and nobody You don't connect the dots. It's
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  Speaker 2: only you know when they put it together, edited to
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  Speaker 2: edit the nine years to connect all the dots. So
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  Speaker 2: nothing really happened. Mordechai wasn't even very popular the last verson.
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  Speaker 2: Mcguilla says Mordecai was beloved right so le Robaka. He
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  Speaker 2: had a majority fifty five percent. I don't know the
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  Speaker 2: exact number, whatever, sixty eight percent that people like Mortefai
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  Speaker 2: but not everybody. It is okay, crazy politician doing all
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  Speaker 2: this natty stuff gets us. Why does an he bowed down?
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  Speaker 2: He gets us into danger. The rabbis say that many
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  Speaker 2: members of the Sun heading the sages, they separated themselves
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  Speaker 2: from Mordecai. This was not the path, forums not for us,
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  Speaker 2: and the rabbis did not want to make for him
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  Speaker 2: into a holiday. Was a whole back and forth to make.
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  Speaker 2: And that's in a sense what chapter nine is about.
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  Speaker 2: But the Tuma develops the idea we already have a
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  Speaker 2: mu leg, we got other stories. That's what the rabbis say.
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  Speaker 2: We can't have a holiday every time we defeat an enemy,
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  Speaker 2: and really defeated isn't a positive, It means not a negative.
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  Speaker 2: So peers, there's no reason to say hello. Yet we
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  Speaker 2: all know even if we don't say hello, we make
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  Speaker 2: a big deal about for him. Maybe we assume that
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  Speaker 2: Creatamakila is our fancy hello. The me Eerie actually rules
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  Speaker 2: that if you're in a desert island somewhere and before
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  Speaker 2: communication then you have no mcgilla with you, you should
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  Speaker 2: actually say hello. That's a fascinating ruling because the McGill
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  Speaker 2: is hello, okay, but that's migill if you don't really
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  Speaker 2: have to say hello. So we do make a big
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  Speaker 2: deal of porim. Nothing changed, but everything changed in retrospect.
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  Speaker 2: As time marched on, it was recognized that there was
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  Speaker 2: something about special. You know, historians won't study what happened
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  Speaker 2: ten years ago. It's too close, We don't. We need perspective.
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  Speaker 2: You need historical perspective. And that's exactly what happened with Poorim.
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  Speaker 2: It's when that happened. Nothing happened. There's no ways say hello.
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  Speaker 2: As time marched on, Oh this is something very special,
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  Speaker 2: so special that our rabbis say in greater than young
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  Speaker 2: kipper and then this really amazing uh play on words.
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  Speaker 2: The rabbis say yum kipur riem, which is what it's called.
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  Speaker 2: It's not called yum kipper, called young kipperim the because
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  Speaker 2: there are many forms of atonement in many wasyts to
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  Speaker 2: atonement different meanings with whites in the plural. But our
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  Speaker 2: rabbis read it as yom kid purim, a day liked puring.
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  Speaker 2: Now if youm kipper is a day like boring and
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  Speaker 2: they're no more to opposite days than Young Kipper and Porim.
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  Speaker 2: That's what'll have to deal with another time. It means
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  Speaker 2: Pooring is the greater holiday because Young Kipper is like pouring.
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  Speaker 2: Pouring is the ultimate, and Young Kipper is a day
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  Speaker 2: like pouring. The Rabbi saw it and as a day
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  Speaker 2: where Jewish people accepted the Torah willingly that initially, at
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  Speaker 2: least according to the other opinion in the Tumut not
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  Speaker 2: nots of an Ishma opinion that God had to hold
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  Speaker 2: the mountain over our head and forced us to accept
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  Speaker 2: the tour, and it was only on pouring that we
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  Speaker 2: accepted it. And everybody loves poring. You know, it's lots
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  Speaker 2: of fun, it's a great holiday. What happened? How did
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  Speaker 2: everything change? What are we celebrating? So my initial idea
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  Speaker 2: that yeah, we're not going to celebrate every massacre attempted massacre,
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  Speaker 2: that I think is true. At the same time, the
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  Speaker 2: fact that the Jewish people are still around three thousand
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  Speaker 2: years later, okay, since born twenty six hundred years later,
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  Speaker 2: but we're around for thirty five hundred years later is
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  Speaker 2: definitely we're celebrating. This is an amazing miracle. That the
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  Speaker 2: people exoughed from the land, even not exit from the land,
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  Speaker 2: that we could survive, be the same, speak the same language,
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  Speaker 2: the same laws, more or less the same rules of regulation.
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  Speaker 2: This is really worth we're celebrating. It is a historical
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  Speaker 2: miracle that we are here today to talk about the
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  Speaker 2: Jewish people and to celebrate our victory over Persia twenty
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  Speaker 2: six hundred years ago. For the same reason, I often
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  Speaker 2: mentioned that, you know, there are very few Jews in
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  Speaker 2: the world. So yes, we were killed and tragically, you know,
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  Speaker 2: persecution and culminating in the Holocaust, but you know other
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  Speaker 2: people were killed too, Christians and Muslims for killing each other.
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  Speaker 2: Also the fact most Jews assimilated over time. It's not
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  Speaker 2: a it's not a modern problem in assimilations. It's happened
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  Speaker 2: throughout history. And most people who are Jewish, their grandchildren,
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  Speaker 2: great grandchildren weren't Jewish. They are only fourteen million of
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  Speaker 2: us in the world. Any Jew who is proud, who
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  Speaker 2: identifies as Jew, Wow, that's beautiful, amazing after everything we've
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  Speaker 2: gone through, and we have to treat them like that,
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  Speaker 2: we have to love them like that. That it's amazing
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  Speaker 2: that this is a miracle that there are Jews around
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  Speaker 2: in the world, the Jews in the world to celebrate.
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  Speaker 2: That is something special that's on, perhaps on a physical level,
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  Speaker 2: on a spiritual level. Poorim marked a transition that reshaped
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  Speaker 2: all of Jewish history. Purim is the holiday where man
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  Speaker 2: takes control. God is nowhere in the picture, at least
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  Speaker 2: not overtly. His name isn't even mentioned in the mcgilla.
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  Speaker 2: We no longer have any prophets to listen to you
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  Speaker 2: for the first thousand years more of our history. So
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  Speaker 2: all we had to do not that it was easy.
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  Speaker 2: We got to listen. This is motion told us, Yosh
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  Speaker 2: told Yah. Yeah, we didn't listen so well. But what
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  Speaker 2: we had to do was laid out for us, and
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  Speaker 2: our job was to listen. Pouring marks that it's not
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  Speaker 2: laid out for us. We have to figure out what
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  Speaker 2: to do. That's much harder, but much more special and
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  Speaker 2: much more meaningful. We don't have God or the prophets
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  Speaker 2: to rely on. And the truth of the matter is Mortefai.
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  Speaker 2: And as they disagreed, people argue what we should do.
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  Speaker 2: But that's a totally new stage of Jewished something to
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  Speaker 2: celebrate now, you know, we often look at the lack
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  Speaker 2: of prophecy as a punishment, but in many ways it's
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  Speaker 2: something very positive about that. Like a parent raises a
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  Speaker 2: child to become independent, it takes time. The Jewish people
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  Speaker 2: at a certain time have to be independent. And that's
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  Speaker 2: when the time of pouring. It's after a thousand years
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  Speaker 2: of hands holding us, God had to let go and
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  Speaker 2: the Jewish people had to chart their own course to
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  Speaker 2: their own history. And this, of course is the time
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  Speaker 2: period that marks a transition from the written Torah to
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  Speaker 2: the or Loot. It's the end of the period es
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  Speaker 2: there in many ways perhaps is the last book of historically.
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  Speaker 2: And of course the basic difference between the written law
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  Speaker 2: and the or law is the written law is given
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  Speaker 2: at Sinai divine document, where the oor law is developed
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  Speaker 2: by man. Man interprets the or law and he develops it,
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  Speaker 2: interprets it even if God disagrees the famous Talmudic story
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  Speaker 2: that God ruled a certain way and the rabbi is overruled,
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  Speaker 2: and God, it's not for you to get involved. Tor
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  Speaker 2: Lobuschmai tours not in heaven as our sage. You say,
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  Speaker 2: be a sage is greater than a prophet. So yes,
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  Speaker 2: this is what There was a new acceptance of the tour.
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  Speaker 2: The Torah underwent the fundamental change where the people are
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  Speaker 2: now in charge, and that is something we're celebrating. Pessa
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  Speaker 2: may celebrate does celebrate the founding of our nation, but
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  Speaker 2: it is pouring that celebrates the survival of our people
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  Speaker 2: and the great responsibility of man to continue that journey
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  Speaker 2: of Jewish people and to see the hand of God
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  Speaker 2: and to see that we're on the vine mission, even
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  Speaker 2: if He no longer speaks to us pouring somewhere. We
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  Speaker 2: forward to learning with you next week.