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In the first six verses of this week’s parshah, two things seem out of the ordinary. Firstly, when God tells Moshe to relay the upcoming laws to Aaron and his sons (the priests in the Temple) the verse says: “Command Aaron and his sons, saying: This is the law…” [Leviticus: 6: 2] Up until now, God tells Moshe to merely “speak” or “say” to Aaron and his sons concerning certain laws. What is it about this particular law that warrants a harsher term of “command”?

As mentioned, there are two things that stick out. The second part of the paragraph that seems strange may answer our question.
It is well known that the Torah will keep away from repetition; if a law is to be spoken of it should only be mentioned once. However, in the six opening verses of our parshah, it says three times that a fire should be constantly kept burning upon the altar in the Temple, and that it may never be extinguished (see Leviticus: 6: 2, 5, and 6). So it seems that the expression of “command” is needed to ensure the establishment of this special law, that a fire be kept aflame upon the alter permanently.
But now we may ask, what is it about this constant flame that the Torah felt the need to repeat it three times and that it be told over as a “command”!?

In the book of proverbs it says “It is the honour of God to conceal a matter…” [25: 2] The idea behind this verse is the following: It is true that everything on earth exists under divine supervision. Every passing cloud, every grain of sand is only in this world because God wills it to be. However, if everybody was able to see the hand of God in every particle of existence, there would be no realm of choice; we would have no alternative but to accept His Kingship. Instead of believing that there’s a God, we would merely be knowing that there’s a God.
To serve God when He’s right in front of us requires no effort and our commitment to Him would lack meaning. It is only through our Emunah (“faith”) that we gain regard in our divine service. Therefore, God so to speak conceals Himself in this world, and through this His honour can truly be brought forth.

The Talmud (a record of rabbinic discussions pertaining to Jewish law, ethics, customs and history) states that if no fire were to be upon the Temple altar, a fire would descend from the heavens and re-ignite the flames. The Talmud says further that even though a fire comes down from the skies anyways, we nevertheless are obliged to “save” God some fuel and light it on our own [Tractate Yoma, 21b]. The reason for this obligation relates to what we have just explained. In order to bring honour to God, His miraculous ways should be covered up. This concept is so important that the Torah chooses to relate it as a “command” and repeat it three times. So we light the fire ourselves and hide the miracle, signifying that our service to God relies not upon us waiting for God to “show His Face“, but upon us taking a leap of faith and showing Him that we truly believe in Him.

However, there are certain instances where God feels the need to break the rule and reveal the “Fire from heaven”. One example is in next week’s parshah: There was a special celebration on the 8th and final day of the Temple’s inauguration. It was an intensely spiritual experience, so much that God revealed Himself and even instructed that the Temple altar be lit not by man, but by the heavenly fire. The Torah relates that two of Aaron’s (the high priest) sons were consumed by a heavenly fire because they “…brought before God an alien fire that He had not commanded them” [Leviticus: 10: 1]
The Sefer Hachinuch (literally “book of training“, written by Rabbi Shlomo ben Aderet in the 13th century) explains that their sin was that, through good intention, they wanted to preserve the “honour of God” by “concealing the matter” and lighting the Altar themselves. Their mistake was that there are certain times where God’s glory is necessary to remain out in the open.

Purim is the holiday of hiddennes and ambiguity, where we read a megillah lacking the name of God and with no over miracles. It is a holiday for us to strrengthen our Emunah (faith) in God although we can not detect his presence. In a month from now, Pesach (Passover) is coming up. If one were to read the story of the Exodus from Egypt it is hard to miss the great miracles displayed before us by God. Between the 10 plagues, the splitting of the sea, and the revelation at Sinai (which, although belongs to the upcoming holiday of Shavuot, marks the completion of the Exodus), it is clear that God was laying His cards out on the table for all to see.
One can even say that the holidays of Purim and Pesach are juxtaposed just for this reason. Purim, the holiday of masks, signifies God concealing himself in nature; Pesach, where all these miracles took place, represents God taking off His “mask” and exposing Himself before us.

Good Shabbos,
Happy Purim
NZL

I just saw a heart-warming article from Arutz 7, about an incredible initiative for Megilla reading on Purim. In the midst of a difficult national, communal, and personal period, it is so uplifting to read about initiatives like these.

The idea of this wonderful organization called Lev Yehudi is that so many ’secular’ Jews in Israel feel uncomfortable with going into a shul to hear the Megilla being read. So, they are organizing lots of Megilla readings in more neutral or relaxed environments, such as parks, private homes, and offices. There is a lot of interest for these events, which is so inspiring to hear. The people behind Lev/Rosh Yehudi understand that there are so many people who want to hear the Megilla, to connect to the deep spiritual aspects of Purim and Jewish life in general, but who are scared of entering shuls because of media- or culturally-spread prejudice, bad experiences in the past, or a feeling of discomfort with the strict and seemingly uncompromising ritual and its proponents, the ‘religious’ Jews. So, instead of bringing the people to the Megilla, Rosh Yehudi brings the Megilla to the people! What a wonderful idea, and what awesome love for one’s fellow Jew.

We often are led to believe that Israeli society is so polarized, but here is proof, or a reminder, that things are so often not what they seem… just like Purim.

For more details, please read the article over here.

On Purim we are meant to reach a state of consciousness where it is impossible to discern between “Blessed is Mordechai” and “Cursed is Haman”. This concept appears to be completely absurd. Mordechai is pure goodness; a representative of God on this earth; a symbol of courage, faith and wisdom. Haman, on the other hand, is the antithesis of these ideas. Haman is Amalek – an arrogant coward committed to the annihilation of any Godliness or goodness in the world. As a people who tend to erect concrete walls between good and evil, this blurring of lines begs further investigation.

Perhaps we should first examine the nature of opposites as seen through Torah eyes. Afterall, Purim is all about opposites – “Nahafokh hu!” Everything in the Purim story turned out the exact opposite way of how it seemed it would at the beginning. We know that in the physical world, every action has an equal and opposite reaction. For example, how far back we pull the slingshot determines how far forward the pebble will fly. We also know that everything that exists in this physical world is merely a physical manifestation of a deeper truth in the spiritual world. By observing the physical world around us we are able to understand not only scientific concepts, but also mystical realities.

This concept can be applied to all energies in the world, not only those that we are able to experience on a physical level. For example, there is a general rule in Judaism that in any situation where there is a potential for holiness, there is an identically powerful potential for impurity. All things that make the world go round – sex, power, money – can be used to either create, build and elevate our beautiful world, or absolutely corrupt and destroy it. There is also an idea that as we grow, so does our yetzer harah. As we strengthen our connection to Hashem and are lead more and more by our souls than our bodies, our evil desires kick it into overdrive, putting us into even more tempting situations than we’ve previously endured. It is almost like a spiritual thermostat, except with the opposite purpose of ensuring that we never get too comfortable!

All of these complicated ideas appear in my brain visually on an xy-axis. Picture a grid where for each point on the positive side, there is a mirror image of an equal and opposite point on the negative side, leaving us with a perfectly symmetrical graph of opposites. Well hold on a second – if points War, Hate and Disease can be obliterated by simply erasing Peace, Love and Health, is that perhaps a theoretical option to consider? Can we annihilate Evil by giving up Good?

When we erase all the points from the grid we are not left with nothing – we are left with an empty axis. The axis is the structure of the universe, the paradigm through which the world exists. Removing the points leaves us with a tremendous void. Happiness is not merely the absence of sadness. A cease-fire is not true peace. These energies are real – they all have tangible identities, powers far greater than we can begin to understand, and without them life would simply not be world living.

An empty axis is a world of unfulfilled potential. On one end, we have Hashem - hidden behind this checkered screen, dying to communicate with us, to send us messages, to teach us about the workings of the world, to actualize the purpose of creation. And on the other side you have us – begging to communicate with our creator, to understand the hidden mysteries of life here on earth, to see the world develop in the way in which we wish it would. But then there is a breakdown. Without the points, God has no way of speaking to us, and we have no data to interpret.

This understanding, however, only brings up more problems. It suggests that points Cancer, Global Warming, Depression and Poverty are all drawn by our Benevolent Artist. To explain this anomaly, we must return to our discussion of how our evil inclination grows along with our goodness. Previously, I wrote that because our yetzer harah and yetzer tov are of equal force, whenever our yetzer tov ‘wins’, our yester harah needs to become stronger as well. But if they are truly equal, how can our yetzer tov ever be triumphant in the first place? How can we ever graduate to a higher level of goodness if we are always pitted up against a twin evil? Wouldn’t we be trapped in a perpetual scrappling match? A spiritual stale-mate? By recognizing that the evil isn’t really Evil, and instead using it for Good, we take from the Evil in order to feed the Good. We need to learn to stare the evil of the world straight in the eyes and say, “You do not exist. Ein od mivaldo – there is nothing in this world except for God”. When we are able to see our hardships and pain as challenges sent to us by our loving Father in heaven to help us actualize our potential, we will learn to bless the Evil, thus making it Good.

When we observe our situation in the world right now, covered with Points of Pain, it is difficult to say that all of the trials and tribulations in our personal and national lives are worthy of blessing, but Mordechai wasn’t exactly living in Gan Eden, either! At a time when the Jews were condemned to total annihilation and the world was being ruled by Evil and Corruption, Mordechai was able to see the real King and thus, he changed fate.

If you believe that you live in a chaotic world run by Chance and Evil, then you will. But if you believe that all of the perceived chaos, chance and evil are really just gifts from God to help us grow into better people and stronger Jews, then so it will be -“Nahafokh hu!”. You have the power to live in a world where the beauty and mastery of an entirely good and loving God runs the show. By seizing the evil and manipulating it for God’s will, we elevate it to a point where it forces our yetzer tov to strive to a higher level, thus evil actually creates good and darkness gives way to light. So “Cursed is Mordechai” – down with the goodness that tricks us into thinking we have reached our potential, and “Blessed is Haman” – may we rise to the challenges of the day!

Wishing all of Am Yisrael a truly happy Purim, where we can look back on our lives and say, Ein Od Mivaldo!

Guest Post by Jonathan

The custom to read parshat zachor the shabbos before purim is something we are all accustomed to. There even seems to be a pretty clear connection between amalek who we read about in parshat zachor and haman from the story of purim.
Yet if we examine the content of parshat amalek and contrast to the theme of purim they actually seem to be exact opposites.

One of the main activities which we engage in during the purim seudah is that of drinking. The shulchan aruch even instructs us that we should drink until the point that we don’t know the difference between haman and mordechai.

There are two mitzvas in parshat amalek. The mitzvah of zachor et asher asah lecha amalek…(to remember) and at the end of the parsha the torah says Lo Ti’shkach (not to forget).

I couldn’t tell you from first hand experience, but from what I have heard if someone drinks to the point that they can’t remember the difference between haman and mordechai chances are they won’t be able to remember much else. Why then are we supposed to be doing these two seemingly contradictory acts?
Secondly, what’s the distinction between remembering and not forgetting? Why does the torah need to command us to do both, after all aren’t they one and the same?

There is a story told about the son in law of the Rizner zt”l. He was sitting with one of his friends who was the son in law of another great Rebbe, at which point he turned to him and said; ”do you know why my father in law is such a great Rebbe? Because he always remembers he is a Jew. The son in law of the Rizner then said that the Rizner is such a great Rebbe because he never forgets he is a Jew!

Rav Elon explains the difference between the two Rebbe’s in the following manner. He says that to remember is a maylah in its own right, but in order to remember something one has to continuously be reminding one self of whatever it is he needs to remember. On shabbous we say kidish in order to fulfill the mitzvah of zachor (to remember), seemingly without some sort of active reminder we wouldn’t be able to fully remember the Sabbath.

Whereas when someone doesn’t forget something it’s because it’s so much a part of his core, it is so essential in who he is that he cant forget it. He doesn’t need continuous reminders to make sure he doesn’t forget.

When a person is under the influence of alcohol they are exempt from performing mitzvot. This is because they are incapable of standing before a king. Throughout the entire year we have 613 reminders that we are Jews and that we are a part of the Jewish people. Yet throughout the entire year we are incapable of fulfilling the mtzvah of Lo Tishkach. Purim is this unique time where we drink and drink and drink until the point that we can’t tell the difference between haman and mordechai. We need to do this so that we can completely loose or sense of reality, but through this we are able to tap into our true inner selves. Our sages teach us that ”nichnas yayin yatzah sod”(when we drink wine the truth comes out).

This was the level of the holy Rizner. He was so connected to hashem and to Am Yisrael that he would never be able to forget that he is a Jew. It means to be on the level of Shivit Lashem Lenegdi Tamid.

We should all be zocheh this purim to getting in touch with the penimiut which rests inside each and everyone of us that has the potential of bringing the mashaich speedily in our times.