ENGLISH – TETZAVEH 2013
HEY – YOU NEVER KNOW…
A few years back, my son asked me the most obvious question about Purim. It is so obvious that no one even asks it. Why is the holiday Purim called Purim and not Goral? The word Pur means goral or lottery . And the word goral is the more commonly used word (used in the Torah) for a lottery than the word Pur .The Meggilah, itself, defines the word Pur by saying הפיל פור הוא הגורל threw the Pur, which is the lottery . (Esther 3/7 ) So why don’t we just call the day Goral?
The answer is brilliant. The Torah uses the term goral as a lottery used by the Kohen Gadol on Yom Kippur. The High Priest would have two goats, one standing on his right, and the other on his left. He would put his hands into the wooden box next to him, in which there were two slabs of wood. On one was written the word לשם to G-d , and on the other, עזאזל – to be pushed off the steep, rocky Azazel mountain. These slabs of wood decided the fate of each of the two goats. This was the regular goral. The goral that Haman used on Purim was a Pur, somewhat like dice, with signs on each of the six sides. Something that would indicate to Haman which day of which month to kill the Jews was inscribed on each side of the pur. Now, what is the meaning behind the dice?
The whole Purim story has a common thread going through it. Those who were on the very top plummeted suddenly to the bottom, and the ones who were at the very bottom suddenly rose to the top. Like rolling dice, what is on the top or bottom turns and turns: each of the six sides changing places with the others. Haman rose from being just a barber to being the most powerful man in the world. He then fell from the height of power to the depths of shame and then death, in one day. Mordechai went from a state of mourning, sackcloth and ashes, to holding the highest position in Shushan under the King himself, also, in just one day. The Jews went from being under a dreaded decree of annihilation to being the most prestigious nation on Earth. Esther, an orphan girl, rose to power when she was taken to be King Achashverosh’s new Queen. Achashverosh went from being just a rich man, to becoming the most powerful king in the world. The message of the dice is what goes around comes around. This message could not be relayed through a Goral. Only through dice.
Things in life are constantly changing. According to the Messilat Yesharim, recognition of this constant change helps bring about humility in a person. When one gets into the true perspective of the world, he realizes that just as his riches, honor, power, fame etc., came to him through G-d, they can just as easily be taken from him by G-d. One is never really “settled” in life, until he has a foot in the grave. What a humbling thought. Everything we have is given to us by G-d. If we take a deeper look into the word מקרה happenstance, (and a deeper look into life), even here, we see the words רק מה’ only from G-d. And, as much as this concept may be humbling to the rich and famous, it is a source of comfort to the destitute and depressed. You never know when and how things can get better, but they will. Ben Azai in the Mishna in Avot (chapter 4) teaches us אל תהי בז לכל אדם … שאין לך אדם שאין לו שעה Do not belittle any person…because there is no person that does not have his hour of greatness and success… So “chin up”, because you may be next up in line, at any moment.
G-d has His ways of spinning things around and making the most unexpected things happen. And it just may be those things that haunt us in our lives that will bring about our salvation. This is another lesson from the Megillah. We are taught that Achashverosh hated the Jews no less than Haman.(The Midrash says that when Esther was asked by Achashverosh who was the enemy of her People, she stretched out her hand to point to Achashverosh, but an angel came and pushed it to point to Haman.) If Achashverosh hated the Jews as much as Haman did , what happened to make him forget about all his hatred of the Jewish People, once he found out that his wife was a Jewess?
R’ Yehonatan Eibshitz answers this brilliantly. The Midrash tells us that when Achashverosh first rose to power, he heard from the astrologers and sorcerers that the one who would take the royal throne from him would be a Jew. Achashverosh was very nervous about this, and he assumed that if he would get rid of the Jews, he would not be overthrown. This is actually why he hated the Jews. But when Esther told him that she was Jewish, it meant that her son from Achashverosh would be Jewish, as well. (And, their Jewish son Daryavesh , actually did take the throne after Achashverosh.) Once Achashverosh realized that he had no need to worry, he stopped hating the Jews.
Sometimes, the things that we are worrying about, the things that look as if they are going wrong are the very things that pave the way for the best possible things to happen for us. Even Haman, referred to as Memuchan at the beginning of the Megillah, tried to get Achashverosh to marry his daughter by advising him to get rid of Queen Vashti. This scheme as it turns out , was instrumental in having Esther become Queen. The reason that Haman was called Memuchan, literally, prepared, was because he was prepared and preparing to cause any problem he could. But now, we can understand that this word is also telling us that G-d was preparing the cure before the blow. And He always does…
HEARTBEAT OF THE JEWISH NATION
It is hard to keep your head up high when your hand is stretched out. I can attest to this. I once tried collecting money for a Yeshiva of the highest caliber in Israel, when I was visiting America a few years back. I did this voluntarily, just to lend a hand, literally. I did raise a small sum, a very small sum. But I got this feeling that I did not want to do that ever again. I love learning. I love Torah. But to collect for it, in order to keep others in the Beit Midrash, was something that was just too difficult for me.
One day, on the bus ride home in Jerusalem, I relayed this feeling to a friend. The fellow sitting in front of us turned around and asked me if he could interrupt; “If you believed that you had the cure for cancer, but you needed 60 million dollars to make it happen, to get the cure up and running, would you feel bad walking up to Bill Gates and asking him for a donation? And let’s say you do ask him, and he slams the door in your face shouting; “Get out of here and leave me alone!” (I don’t think he would do that), would you feel ashamed? Would you feel defeated and resolve never to approach anyone else to aid you in your cause again? Would you conclude that it is not worth the bother, because it is not worth it to Bill? Would you stop your mission to save the world?! Of course not! You would feel that Bill lost out on the opportunity of his life.”
“My friend, you gotta believe that Torah is going to save the world. That is the outlook you need in order to learn Torah the right way. That is the outlook you need if you expect to convince other people to donate toward its cause. That very outlook is why they will give their hard earned money for this purpose. However, if you don’t believe in the power of Torah, neither will they!”
The only thing in the world that the Chafetz Chaim (Biur Halacha S. 231) says is worth staying supported for is learning and teaching Torah. “One’s reason for leaving Torah study to go to work should not be to avoid needing to accept charity. And even the Rambam, who believed in going to work and being self supported along with learning, will agree that in our generation, where it is nearly impossible to work ,learn and teach all at the same time, scholars should take money for staying in the Beit Midrash…” Torah is the only thing that one should stay supported for, because Torah supports those who support it. אם לא בריתי יומם ולילה חוקות שמים וארץ לא שמתי If not for the study of Torah day and night, the world would collapse. Torah holds up the world.
We learn this concept from the Aron Hakodesh, as well. One time, when King David was transporting the Aron on a wagon, it slipped off. As it was falling, Uzah, dived in to catch and save the Aron from falling to the ground. He died immediately after touching the Aron. What did he do wrong? He only followed his instincts? The answer is because Uzah must have thought that the Aron needed to be supported, and if not, it would fall. This was a grave mistake, a Chillul Hashem and desecration of the holiness of the Aron. The Levites who held the Aron would fly in the air while carrying it, for it was נושא את נושאיו- would carry those who carried it (Sotah 35a). So, too, is the power of Torah study. The Shulchan Aruch and Rambam both refer to the Sefer Torah this way as well, in addition to the Aron; “הרואה ספר תורה מהלך… One who sees a Sefer Torah walking”. This is how we refer to a Sefer Torah in transit. It is not transported. It walks. The Torah supports its donors, the Torah holds itself up. Those who donate to the study of Torah should not think that if they lose their money, the Yeshivot will close down. It is the opportunities to merit participating in the learning of the Torah, which keep us afloat.
There are thousands of families, large families, in which the father sits and learns Torah. These families live on a monthly paycheck of peanuts. There is no logical explanation as to how they manage, and yet somehow, they do. The Torah holds itself up. Somehow. Just like the Aron.
Torah is the pulse of the Jewish Nation. The innermost pulse of all the spirituality of our nation was there, in the Holy of Holies. When learning Torah one on one, with a partner is like the two Cherubim that were facing each other on top of the Aron (see Baal Haturim on the Cherubim). I remember R. P. Sheinberg zt”l saying to us, when we first came to Israel to learn Torah, that there is more holiness behind the shtender in the study hall then there is at the Western Wall! Even someone who cannot make it to the study hall – his spirituality, like that of the Aron, is what keeps him physically and mentally alive; it holds him up. It keeps him going.
In the Midrash Esther, we find that Haman entered the yeshiva of Mordechai to ask him to don the royal clothes and parade with the royal horse down the streets of Shushan. He saw that Mordechai was teaching the students in the Yeshiva how to bring the Minchat Haomer, how to do the kemitza. This was the day of ט”ז ניסן , the second day of Passover, the day that in Temple times, Jews would bring the Omer sacrifice. Haman asked Mordechai what this Omer consisted of – gold, silver or maybe wheat flour ? Mordechai answered that it was barley flour. Haman groaned and said, “Your kemitza (fistful) of barley flour outweighes the 10,000 bars of silver that I paid Achashverosh to annihilate the Jews.” How do we understand the connection between the kemitza and the decree against the Jews?
During the time of Mordechai and Haman, when all of the newspapers were reporting the end of the Jewish Nation, Haman was expecting to see Mordechai and his students learning about the merit of martyrdom and how to die for Kiddush Hashem. The laws of the cardinal sins that a Jew must give up his life for. Didn’t Mordechai read the papers, the latest news? Didn’t he know that there would be no Beit Hamikdash next year, no Omer? No. Mordechai was learning the Halacha of the day, as usual. Why? Because Torah is eternal. Torah does not care what the news has to say. Torah writes history. When Haman saw the power of the Jewish Nation, their ability to stay steadfast in their Torah learning, despite whatever decrees they faced, he knew that such a nation could not be destroyed. They are eternal. And despite Haman’s best efforts and impeccable planning and scheming, the Jews cannot be destroyed. As long as they are studying Torah.
Torah keeps the world alive. It keeps the Jews alive . Even if there is just a handful of students being “supported” (by the Torah of course) in the study hall.
