Jewish Inspiration Podcast · Rabbi Aryeh Wolbe

00:01 - Intro (Announcement)
You're listening to Rabbi Aryeh Wolbe, director of TORCH, The Torah Outreach Resource Center of Houston. This is the Jewish Inspiration Podcast.

00:11 - Rabbi Aryeh Wolbe (Host)
Good evening everybody. Welcome back to the Jewish Inspiration Podcast we are going to be learning tonight, if this is going to be the first in a series of two in the complete book of Esther Crash Course. Inspiration is just about two weeks away and it's very, very exciting, really exciting, because there's so many amazing lessons to learn, so much to be inspired from, in the book of Esther that it's worthwhile taking the time to look into the book of Esther, to learn as much as we can from it and hopefully be inspired to our daily lives to be better, to be growing. What is the book of Esther? The book of Esther, very interestingly, is one of the few places where we can identify open miracles. If you look at any event that happens in our lives, you can see open miracles. But here it's so concentrated in this 10 chapters of the book of Esther that you're able to see like, oh my goodness, how the cards unfold one after another in order. You suddenly like whoa? This is incredible how everything comes into play just at the right time. And that is, I think, the most important part of the book of Esther is realizing that if we look backward at our lives, we'll see that there always is what looks to be coincidence, but one after another, after another, to the point where it's like you can't use the word coincidence. In Judaism, it's only the hand of Hashem that lends itself to these events unfolding the way they do. And that is, I believe, the underlying purpose of the book of Esther is that we realize that everything is the hand of Hashem that comes about at the exact moment it needs to come about. There's a perfect moment for everything, and that perfect moment comes to life exactly when it's supposed to, at its predestined time by the Almighty. We have divine intervention in everything that happens. So what are we talking about here? When we talk about the book of Esther? We're talking about between the first and second temples.

02:52
The Jewish people are in exile. The Jewish people left Israel and went to Babylon, and then they extended over into Persia, which is Iraq, and Iran, or Iran, depending where you're from. But the Jewish people are in a place of relative comfort and the forces of evil are trying to get the Jewish people to sin. The forces of evil are saying okay, how do we bring about that the Jewish people will actually sin, because the only way to get rid of the Jews and this they realized the only way to get rid of the Jews is when they sin. When the Jewish people are following the Torah, they're unstoppable, they're unbeatable. But when the Jewish people sin and they fall to the hands of the Satan, you can do whatever you want, and that was the ploy, that was the goal.

03:58
So how does the story of the Megillah begin? And it was in the times of King Achashverosh. And he makes this big party. What is this big party for? What's the objective? What's the goal of this party? To get the Jews to sin. How do we get them to sin? Let's make a party that's not one day.

04:21
Imagine how many times did you hear oh, there was a party at the White House. I didn't know about it, guess what, because you weren't invited. But imagine there was a party for 180 days that any citizen can come and participate. Oh, now we're talking six months of a party and everybody is welcome. Let me ask, by show of hands, who wouldn't go to an opportunity to be in the White House for a party? Eat all you can eat kosher food. Drink all you can kosher wine. Anybody here that would say no, of course we would. Doesn't make any of it. Zeus, president, of course we would go. Who wouldn't go to such a party? I would get on a plane and fly to Washington DC and go to such a party.

05:08
But the objective was how do we get the Jewish people to come to this event? And we see, at this event it wasn't just a party. It was a party with a lot of inappropriateness, a lot of lewd behavior, a lot of over drinking, a lot of immorality, and this was a way to entice the Jewish people. The objective, the objective was to get the Jewish people to come to this party, participate. And then what do we have? We have the Jews in our hands. We have the Jews. We can make them sin. Once they sin, we can get rid of them once and for all. Because they understood, the father-in-law of Achashverosh fell to the Jews and his father fell to the Jews. And we're talking about multi-generational attempts to get the Jews to fall, and the God of Israel protects and defends them time and again.

06:15
Achashverosh is afraid of this. So he puts together this lavish six-month celebration, and it marks the third year of his reign as king of Persia. Queen Vashti is invited because there was this argument going on over there between the Persians and the Medes, whether or not he was more gifted with looks. Who's prettier? King says between the Medes and the Babylonians, perhaps I don't remember which two nations? And King Achashverosh says it's neither you and neither you. It's my wife. It's the Persians who are the prettiest. And he says bring my wife, she should come with her royal garb. Now our sages tell us that this was not referring to her coming in her royalty garments, but rather to come, in a way of inappropriateness, to allure everyone and to call attention. And, as we know, the king was drunk, so were his the people who were arguing. Everyone is in this heated argument of who's prettier and who's better looking.

07:36
What's going on in the queen's quarters? In her quarters, she is in middle of abusing the Jewish maidservants. She had Jewish maidservants and the way they arranged it is that they had maidservants for each day. They knew which. That way, they were able to remember what they was. Shabbos, because these maidservants were committed Jews and they would have to know what would happen on Shabbos. On Shabbos, they had quote forget to water the plants. They'd forget to tend to the garden. They'd forget, because you can't do that on Shabbos, and she would beat them and she would hurt them and she would humiliate them, just like thousands of other Jewish people were humiliated. You know that there are Jews who lived in New York in the early 1900s. They were called 52 week a year job seekers because they'd get a job every Sunday morning and they'd lose their job every Sunday morning because they didn't show up for work on Shabbos. In fact, someone told me that their grandfather was one of those Jews and in his soka every year he would hang as decorations the pink slips that he would get when he was fired 52 pink slips a year.

08:52
It wasn't always easy for Jews to be Jews. Imagine the luxury we have today to take off Shabbos, and not only that. Forget about. If you own your own business Today, you can sue your company if they don't give you your religious rights, your religious freedoms. It's an accepted thing. Today. Muslims have Ramadan. Now their companies need to acknowledge and respect that and give them in accordance with their religious beliefs. Give them the time off. Jews as well, most companies will give. You need to go home for Shabbos early. You need to leave work early on Friday, no problem, work will end for you an hour or two earlier so you can be home on time for Shabbos.

09:39
This is commonplace today, but that wasn't the case back then and Queen Vashti was going all out in hurting and embarrassing, humiliating these young Jewish girls. So now she's called out to perform, so to speak, in front of all of these drunken men having this argument about who's prettier, and she comes, takes one last look in the mirror to see that she has boils that grew, or say to say that she grew a tail, and she says in such a case, I'm not going out on display in front of anybody. What's going on here? And this was a direct punishment for her mistreating the Jewish girls, making them feel inhumane. She was now humiliated to feel inhumane and she disobeyed in front. Imagine all of that.

10:42
The king says bring her out. It would be such a great honor to her, such a great honor to the king. Instead, it's a humiliation to her and a humiliation to the king. Something kings don't like is being humiliated. So now the king has a big, big dilemma what do I do? He calls in all of his advisors and says what do I do for Vashti that she has disobeyed my orders? So interestingly, his top advisor, memuchan, who's later called Haman. He had many names, but Memuchan was one of his names, and he's advices the king. You know. If this is the way she's going to treat you, you're the king, she's the queen. If this is the way a woman is going to treat her husband, this is the way every woman is going to learn how to disrespect her husband. And therefore me, haman, you, achashverosh, self-centered, chauvinist males we don't like when we're not being appreciated and therefore we need to kill Vashti, the queen, so that you find an obedient woman. Okay, that's the way the world sees equal rights of men and women. And, sure enough, they kill Vashti and they are now looking for a new queen. Okay, that's the end of the first chapter. The second chapter they begin a search.

12:19
Now I want to point out something and I want you to understand this. We're going to talk about this more next week when we talk about part two, but I want you to just, I heard this idea this week and that's why I want to share it, because it's fresh. It's something I never heard before. So, haman, you know what numerology is right? So, numerology is that you take the numbers of the value of each letter, but there is something called missparkatan, which is, you take away the zeros. You take away the zeros and then you have the numbers that are remaining. It's called missparkatan. Okay, the small numbers, the smaller numbers. You remove the digits, okay.

13:01
So if you take the name Haman, which is a hey, which is five. Mem, which is 40, but you take away the zeros, that's a four, and noon, which is five, you have the number 14. Very good, you take his wife's name. His wife was Zeresh. Zion is seven, rage is 200, we take away the zeros, so it's two, and Shin, which is 300, you take away the zeros, it's three, so it's three. Two and seven is 13. Sorry, 12. Apologies, 12, right, it's testing you. Very good, so it's 12. I have it written right in front of me, it's not like I didn't do this earlier. Right, it's 12. What's 12 and 14? 26. What is the number? 26 equal to the name of Hashem. So Haman and his wife, their names, equal the name of Hashem, 26.

13:52
Now let me ask you a question here. We see, when Mordechai disobeys the decree that everyone needs to bow down to Haman, what does the verse say? The Cholze, innenu shoveli. And all of this is not worth it to me. All of this is not. That's what Haman says, the Cholze. It's chapter five, verse 13,. And all of this is not valuable to me. Seeing this Mordechai disobey everything, all the honor I get from everybody else is meaningless. Why isn't Mordechai bowing to me? If you take the last letters of these four words, ze innenu shoveli is the name of Hashem, the yud, the hei and the vav and the hei, but in the reverse it's backwards, meaning that name of God that they equal is only whatever it does for me. It's not me serving Hashem, but Hashem to serve me. They put Hashem in reverse.

15:02
We're going to look further. We'll see that Mordechai and Esther is also the name of Hashem. Let's do this Mem is 40, take away the zero. Four, racial is 200, that's two. Dollard is four. Chaf is 20, minus the zero is two and yud is 10, take away the zero, you have one. So it's one, two, four, two and four. Total of 13. What is Esther? Aleph, which is one, samach, which is 60. D tough, which is 40. Again, you take away the zero and the zero, you have a six and a four, which is 10. Aleph is one and you have Reish, which is 200. Take away the zeroes is two. What is Esther? Total of 13. So you have. Mordechai is 13. Esther is 13. Total of 26.

15:57
What's the difference between Haman and Zeresh? Haman was a 14 and he looked down on his wife who was 12. He says look how much greater I am than you. I am a higher number than you. I am 14, you're only 12. What was Mordechai and Esther? They're even. They're even 13. They both equal the name of Hashem.

16:18
But one gives us an example of the proper way a husband and wife should look at each other. They're equal partners in marriage. Mordechai and Esther were an uncle and niece, but they were equal in each other's eyes. Mordechai didn't look up from above at down at Esther. No, they're equal.

16:42
Then you have the word Yavoh Hamelech and Haman Hayom. When Esther invited the king Achashverosh and Haman to the feast, the first letters of those of that word is Yud Hay and Vav and Hay. What's that? That's the proper way of reading the name of Hashem, the proper name of reading Hashem. So what we see is that Mordechai and Esther were godly people, godly devoted to the Almighty, and Hashem was in the proper way. They're equal in the eyes of Hashem.

17:22
All human beings are equal in the eyes of Hashem. No one is elevated, no one is above others. That's not the way the wicked hymn sought. He saw it as an opportunity to be self-serving. His wife is there for him. She's smaller than him. She is lower than him. She's only a 12. He's a 14. More to Cha'in Esther. They're both 13. They have the same total at the end. They both equal the name of Hashem, but they get there in a different way. Here, at the end of chapter 1, when Haman gives his suggestion, what does he say? He says every man should be a ruler in his home, meaning he reaffirmed his position. I number 14, needs to be elevated over the 12.

18:22
This is numerology. Numerology is a different way of learning Torah. You can eat the Balaturim. One of the great, great commentators on the Torah, in one night wrote a commentary on the entire Torah, putting together all the numerology and different hints and secrets that are in the numerical value of the words of the Torah. People use it as an omen.

18:45
It's a very powerful, special number. I remember seeing my grandfather, my mother's father. There was once this big lottery and he was selecting the numbers. He was like okay, so I'm going to pick 26 because that's Hashem's name. I'm going to pick 10 because that's the 10 commandments. He never won a thing, but he was a righteous holy man.

19:11
The power of numbers is very superstitious in Jewish, indian. Now, more than just superstitious, it has great power in Judaism. Number seven is a very, very powerful number. Number eight is even more powerful. Seven is nature. Eight is above nature. We see that there's many, many significant lessons to learn from numbers. In fact, there are many books written about the power of numbers in Judaism. It's not just random numbers. You don't see the same number ever mentioned if it doesn't link one to the other in a significantly fundamental way. It's very, very powerful.

19:47
Okay, chapter two. Chapter two is we are now. Ahashverosh is without a queen. He's a king without a queen. Don't forget, by the way, that she brought him into the kingdom. She was the daughter of the king Nivuhad-Netzar. She was the one who had royalty. He didn't Now.

20:13
So they now look for the prettiest woman to be the queen and across the Persian empire, officials are appointed to identify the most beautiful candidates to succeed Vashti as queen. A Jewish girl her name is Esther is the niece of Mordechai is identified as a very, very beautiful woman. In fact, the Talmud says that she is among the four most beautiful women to ever live and she's brought to the capital of Persia as one of the candidates. Mordechai, before she leaves, mordechai tells her you got to keep silent. Nobody needs to know that you're Jewish. You don't have to wear a yarmulke. You don't have to wear a tzitzis and filan. You're a female. Don't reveal your identity. Nobody needs to know. So nobody knew, except those who needed to know. And Esther is obviously chosen as queen, otherwise we wouldn't have the Book of Esther. That's why we have this book, because this tells us a story of the incredible hand of Hashem that guides our lives every single day.

21:27
Mordechai learns of the plot to overthrow the king. Where does he hear it? How does Mordechai know about this plot? Mordechai was a member of the Sanhedrin of the High Court of the Jewish people. In order to be a member of the Sanhedrin, you need to speak all 70 languages. Because what if someone comes and gives testimony in a language you don't speak? Then what's going to happen? The testimony is going to be in vain because nobody can understand what they're saying and you can't trust an interpreter. So the members of the Sanhedrin needed to speak all 70 languages.

22:03
Mordechai is standing by the king's gates of his palace because he wants to inquire about how Esther is doing, and he overhears the guards talking about how they're planning to poison the king. He immediately alarms the authorities of this plan, which is foiled, and it's journaled in the book of Chronicles that now Mordechai saved the king's life by identifying these two guards, bixon and Sarish, their hung. It's a great quote. Coincidence, because what else happens? It's written in the Chronicles, right, but Mordechai is not rewarded for it. He was asked whether or not he wants to be rewarded for it and he said no, I don't want to be rewarded for it, it's just my loyalty to the king.

23:00
Okay, chapter 3. Now comes the rise of Haman. And, generally speaking, when we, as children, we were very, very excited for chapter 3 of the Megillah, because that's when Haman's name is mentioned out loud For the first time. It's revealed it's no longer Memuchan, now, it's Haman. I think the reason why, while our sages who wrote this knew that this would become a custom, that Haman, whenever you announce his name, you erase the name, so it would make a lot of noise in synagogue, in my synagogue, you come with earplugs or your toast. You're not going to have to hear for a week. You're going to hear very, very loud people Excuse me not only stamping their feet, but people bring all of these creative ways of making a lot of noise as a sign of erasing the name of Haman.

23:53
Achashverosh appoints Haman to be his prime minister and everybody must bow in homage to Haman. Haman is the leader. Whenever he walks down the street, everybody's got to bow. Mordechai consistently refuses to bow to Haman and Haman is enraged, like we mentioned previously, the Cholza in Ineshovoli. He comes back home and he tells his wife all of this is not worth it to me, because Mordechai is just poking me in the eyes, not bowing down to me like the king ordered, and I'm going to get back at him.

24:32
Haman vows to kill all the Jews in Persia and he wins over the heart of Achashverosh that indeed a decree should be made to annihilate all the Jews. Now, if you look, haman offers an enormous sum of money. Haman offers 10,000 talents of silver, 10,000 talents of silver. And instead King Achashverosh says it's fine, you keep the money, I don't need the taxes from the Jews, just get rid of them. And what does he do? This is a very important lesson to learn from Haman. When you have a moment of inspiration or a moment of clarity, act on it. We see that. What did he do when he had that moment of Achashverosh saying, yeah, kill all those thousands, tens of thousands of Jews, no problem, kill them. He gets it signed and sent immediately to all the provinces, to all the villages.

25:39
Everybody should know that on the 13th day of the month of Adar, the Jews are to be killed. Now, how did this come about? The Midrash tells us that Haman drew a lot. That's what Purim is called. Purim is a dice, a roll of the dice, a lottery. There was a lottery. There were 12 triangles in the Wheel of Fortune. Which month are we going to destroy the Jews in?

26:22
And they go through each month of the Jewish calendar, and every month has another merit to defend the Jews Nisan is Pesach. Each month was a meritorious month for the Jewish people, except for the month of Adar. And in the month of Adar, what happened, which is this month? First, is it's sign, it's Zodiac sign, is fish. So big fish eats little fish, bigger fish eats bigger fish. Right, it eats big fish, it's you can write. So Haman says I'm a big fish, I'll eat the little fish, the Jew. It's a perfect sign for me Plus, who died in the month of Adar, moses. Moses died in the month of Adar and therefore it's a terrible sign for the Jewish people. Just like Moses, their leader, died in this month, they will also die in this month. So Adar was chosen as the month Additionally and it was an oversight because he didn't realize that just like Moses passed away in the month of Adar, he was also born in the month of Adar. So the same power you have to destroy, god has to protect. Don't forget that Moshe did an unbelievable amount of protection for the Jewish people. Right? How many miracles.

27:39
Yes, there's a whole Talmud discussing why it's Adar. Why isn't there two Nisans? Because the Talmud says that Rosh Hashanah is always going to be in the seventh month of the year. So you have Nisan, yer Sivan Talmuds of Elul Tishrei, the seventh month. So you can't have two Nisans, because then it would be the eighth month, so it's for sure not before Rosh Hashanah. Then in the Torah it says about Tevesh being the tenth month. So if you have Tevis, tevis and Shvaat being the 10th and 11th month, so the only month you have that's not identified as a singular month is Adar. That's why the leap year is in the month of Adar. It's Adar.

28:33
The question is, is the extra month the second month or the extra month the first month? We observe the Purim in the second month? Why we know that Purim is always 30 days before Pesach. Okay, and if you do it in the first, it would be 60 days before Pesach. Everyone would lose their calculations. So therefore, you always okay. So there's reasons.

28:56
It's not just oh, pick it out of a hat, which one should we do? Whatever one wins, that's what we get. No, that's not the way it works. Now, sahem, in the sides that, he picks the days. Which day? Boom 13th, that's it locked in.

29:10
What he doesn't understand is that the protection for the Jewish people is always strongest in the middle of the month. You realize that the holiday of Sukkot is on the 14th day, which is the brightest day of the moon. The Jewish people are compared to the moon. God is the sun, so to speak. The Jewish people of the moon, we reflect God. So the Jewish people have the holiday of Sukkot on the 14th day of Tishrei and Pesach on the 14th day of Nisan. All the big holidays are in the middle of the month because that's when we shine the most and he's picking this day to destroy the Jews is that he picks all the wrong months and all the wrong dates. He picks everything wrong. And we also know that fish are very fruitful and they multiply in great numbers, which is a great blessing for the Jewish people, that the Jewish people will be fruitful and they will multiply.

30:12
So now, to destroy the Jews in that mazel, in that zodiac, is not going to happen so easily. It's not going to be so easy. So what happens now? Haman prevails upon Achashverosh to destroy the Jews and the royal edict is disseminated throughout Persia. So we said he moved fast, he got those horse runners, he got those messages out and that was it. Quickly get the word out. Interestingly, it's to the governors of each province and province, to the officials in each and every nation, in every province in their own script and each people in their language.

31:02
He made sure there was no misunderstandings here of what the agenda was. It was to kill these Jews, get rid of them once and for all. Lahashmid, laharog, lahabit, to destroy, to slay, to exterminate all of the Jews, minar, wadzuk, and from young to old, taf and nashim, children and women, biyomachad. In one day, everyone, free reign, everyone can just go slaughter the Jews and that's the end of the third chapter. Okay, tragic fall of events for the Jewish people.

31:38
Now, how did Haman have the power to do this? Remember what we said at the beginning the only power the evil forces have on the Jewish people is when the Jewish people sin. And Haman witnessed how the Jewish people slowly were chiseled away from their commitment to God. Because what would happen? A Jew would come into the party of Ahashverosh, a 180-day party. Don't forget. You'd all fly out. We'd all fly out to Washington DC and go to the king's palace.

32:08
And what type of wine do you want? You have the really, really expensive wine, the one from Napa Valley. I want the. You know they're like sure, of course we have that, but why don't you try this one as well? And they're like you know what? Such a great wine. And after you drink you're a little bit looser. So you try the non-Kosher wine. Once you try the non-Kosher wine, you're drinking with the non-Jewish people and he's like you're a nice guy, why don't you go out with my daughter? You know it's like one thing after the other after the other. So they knew they had the Jewish people in a deadlock. Now who's on the other side of this? We know that whenever you have evil, you have good. Who's on the side of good, mordechai?

32:47
What was Mordechai telling? The people Do not participate on any level. What do you mean? We have to kiss up to the politicians because otherwise, if we don't have APEC, what's going to happen? Right, the world cannot. The Jewish people have been nowhere till APEC. Right, dantat? Apec is not a good organization. I think it's a great organization, but I don't like when people put all their faith in that basket of APEC Of like, that is the salvation of the Jewish people is all APEC, come on. So again, it's a great political action committee, but it is still the hand of Hashem that protects us. It's the hand of Hashem that protects us.

33:29
So Mordechai was telling them not only don't eat from that food, don't even go, because you're going to go, you're going to be enticed. It's such a beautiful, such a luxurious party. Not only that, they went all out. They went out, they brought all of the purple wool and they brought the blue wool, and they brought the crimson wool, and they were all the gold and the silver and the. Even. It says Kalaim, mikhalim shonim. Vessels from vessels diversely formed Say. Just tell us that he brought out some of the vessels from the temple, from our destroyed temple. He brought those vessels to try to entice them. Come look at your menorah, come look at your laver from your temple. We're going to have it all on display. It's a real tremendous celebration. It was all allure to get the Jewish people to come.

34:30
Mordechai knew this. And Mordechai says guys, it's all temptation trying to get you to sin. You got to stay away. So Mordechai knew this and he tore his clothes. Why would he tear his clothes? Not only because he's in mourning. There's another reason for him to tear his clothes. Get people's attention. If everything is normal, but you're just sitting on the floor, alright, he's comfortable on the floor. Some people just like to sit on the floor. But that's not why he did it. He did it to wake them up. Wake them up. What is going on here? People should start asking. He's wearing torn clothes Must be really serious.

35:13
We know that the Talmud tells us that a scholar who goes with destroyed garments is liable for his life. You're not allowed to. You're not allowed to be in a disrespectful fashion, especially someone who's prominent, someone who's a rabbi, someone who's a scholar. That's unacceptable. Therefore, mordechai walking around in such garbs needed to be a very serious reason behind it, and the reason our sages tell us was because he needed every Jew to realize this is not a joke. This is already serious.

35:55
Okay, so chapter four begins with Esther's clear mission of what she needs to accomplish. Mordechai sends a message to Esther stating you need to go and talk to the king. It's not random that you became the queen. We all know this. What's the overlying perspective that we're looking at at this entire book of Esther? Everything is the hand of Hashem. Hashem puts you in that position for a reason. If you don't utilize that reason properly, the salvation of the Jewish people is going to come from another place. It means, if you want, you can jump on that train and be the reason why they got saved. But if you don't, it's fine. They're going to be saved anyway, but you're going to lose that opportunity. It's what I say about fundraising, by the way. I say that torch is going to succeed and raise enough money and I thank you all for your participation, but we're going to succeed anyway.

37:00
The question is, who's going to jump on that train and say, oh, I want to be a partner. I believe that it's an important cause that the Almighty wants to sustain, but Hashem is giving each and every one of us the opportunity to be partners in that and I firmly believe it. I've told people I don't need your money. I know that Hashem will bring it to us. I don't want you to feel pressured. I just want to give you the opportunity to be a partner because I know this is something that you value.

37:35
So this is where the difficulty and we learned so much from this look at the words that Mordechai says to Esther. So first is, he tells Esther about the situation. She's in the palace. Who knows if she even knows what's going on? She's in this little bubble. So Esther returns the message saying Mordechai can't walk around like that. Get him normal clothes, let's work with this in a grown-up way. Let's deal with this like adults. And he disregards that. Mordechai sends a copy of the decree to Esther and asks her to intercede with the king. The replies that to approach the king without being summoned is to risk death, which is always the case. You know, I can't pull my money out because it's in the stock market. There's always something. There's always a reason why a person can't.

38:34
Yetzahara is replete with reasons why we can't do things. You have perfectly good causes. He will give you thousands of reasons not to do it. I've had the funniest. My wife and I wanted to write a book. We have here.

38:47
This is the chief rabbi in Rebetson from Seattle, washington. How many interesting excuses did you hear why people can't come join you for Shabbos or can't come to a program? My dog is sick, my neighbor's dog is sick, my baby's sitting a dog, every reason in the world. Or next week I'm traveling and I need a pack tonight. Or there's just unbelievable reasons. It's Esther's reason why she can't. Why she can't? Because I have to wait for the king. The king has to be the one to call me. I can't go uninvited.

39:27
Esther tells Mordechai to ask the Jews to fast and pray for three days before she will approach the king. Okay, this is after. Mordechai tells her. You have no choice. This is the reason you were put into this position. Now I want to read these words Chapter 4, verse 13. What's the news? Va'yomer Mordechai instructed lohoshival Esther respond. Reply to Esther.

39:57
Al tidami b'nafsheik, do not imagine to yourself for a second lehimo leit to escape your responsibility. Be'isamelch mikol yudim that now you're in the palace, that you're going to neglect this duty that you have to the Jewish people, kiem hacharei shtachari shi. For if you are silent and you persist in your silence and you don't stand up for the Jewish people, ba'esa Zos, at this moment, this crucial moment when they need you, revach ve'a tzola. Yamut la Yehudi mimokom acher. Relief and deliverance will come to the Jewish people from another place. This is your chance.

40:39
What's going to happen if you don't stand up and take this opportunity and be that Esther, which is why the book is named after? It could have been named the Book of Mordechai. No, it's Book of Esther, because she stood up when she needed to stand up. She saw that responsibility that she had and she says I'm not going to bow out. I have all the excuses in the world. Oh, what's going to be? I'm not invited, I haven't been summoned to the King. Come on. Why are you there? There is always going to be a counter to your desire to do something good. Revach ve'a tzola. Relief and deliverance will come to the Jewish people from another place. Ve'at. And what's going to be the result if you don't do it? Ve'at, u'bei s'ovir toveidu.

41:27
You and your father's home will perish, umio, deim le'es, kazos, higat lamachos and who knows, if only for this meeting alone, you were placed in this position. How many times are we that, esther? How many times are we the ones who are placed in a position of power or responsibility that we can help someone who like? Well, I don't want anyone to make judgment and think that I'm using this for my own personal benefit. I can't help you. And it's a brother or a sister or a relative that need that help. They need assistance.

42:07
This happens many times, people, this happens with politicians. The Mishnah tells us Mishnah. And ethics of our fathers tells us that politicians never trust them because when they're running for office, they'll promise you the world. When they go into office, they don't even know your name. And this is the reality of life. And here Esther is in that crucial moment where she's going to decide is she a politician or she really a God fearing Jewish who's going to stand up and fight for her people? Yeah, you're right, it doesn't fit the schedule of the king, but this is why you were placed here.

42:49
And finally we get to chapter five. Chapter five is again after this. This chapter concludes that she asks that they fast for three days and then, and she says, if I perish, I perish, I don't care, I'm going to do this for the Jewish people, of course, I'm going to do this for you. This is why I'm here, and more to hide the Yaskah All of us saw a lot of Esther and more to hide did exactly according to what Esther asked of him, that what they all fasted three days, the entire Jewish community, everybody fasted, young, old, everybody.

43:29
Okay, chapter five by Heba Yomash Lishi Vatilbash, esther Malchus. Esther gets dressed up in her royalty and remember that the royalty of Vashti is just five chapters earlier where she has to come. And there's a contrast here where you see the difference, the dignity that one needs to carry themselves, what it means to really be royalty. She comes to the king's palace and again King Achashverosh is not expecting her, but yet he receives Esther and grants her anything she wishes. Till half the kingdom, whatever you want. Till half the kingdom, any request you have, esther's request. I want to make a special dinner for you and your buddy Haman, after the banquet. So the banquet happens and Haman is infuriated by Mordechai. Mordechai again refuses to bow and he says when Zeresh, haman's wife, suggests that Mordechai be hung, the gallows are prepared.

44:43
So if you see over here, we brought this verse here earlier in chapter 5, verse 20, verse 13. Says over here Bechol Zet enenashovoli. Yet all of this, I have all of the honor, the king gave me his ring, I have all the money, he's got power like you can't imagine. He says, yet all of this is not worth anything to me. Bechol Eissa Shaniroes, mordechai Ha Yehudi Yoseb B'shar Melch. At every moment when I see Mordechai the Jew sitting at the gate of the king and not bowing down to me, it's not worth anything.

45:23
Remember the last four, the last letter of each of those four words Zer enenashovoli is the name of Hashem, yud and Hei and Vov and Hei, but it's written backwards. Also interestingly is the word ز is the number 12. Remember who equaled the number 12? His wife. His wife, all right, you aren't worth anything to me, you, the number 12. I'm so high, I'm so above everything else, I can't even give proper attention to anything. Nothing else is valuable here.

46:09
So the chapter concludes here that they made these tall gallows 50 cubits high and Vayit Vahdor V'lifne Haman Vajasa 8. He found favor in this idea, this plan, and they indeed built these tall gallows ready for Mordechai, the second half of the Megillah, is where everything crumbles. Till now, everything is a buildup. We still don't know the answers. But then one piece starts falling and then everything starts crumbling down and we see the revealed hand of Hashem.

46:50
Like almost no other story in the history of the world. We do see this, a similar instance with Joseph, where Joseph is sold down to Egypt only to be the savior of the Jewish people. Here, esther is being sold to the kingdom only to be the savior for the Jewish people. So this is a when we look at the story of Purim, you know there's this custom that I'm sure everyone is familiar with. Purim isn't only the redemption of the Jewish people, purim is even higher a say.

47:27
Just tell us that any other holiday, even though it's rabbinic in nature, it's not a biblical holiday. It's a rabbinic in nature. Why is it so special? Because the Jewish people accepted on this holiday the Torah again out of love. See, at Mount Sinai.

47:44
There are two parts of Torah. There's the written Torah and the oral Torah. The written Torah is the what to do. The oral Torah is the how to do. Now we know, studying the written Torah scholars, that you are the written Torah and the oral Torah, that they go hand in hand, because the Torah commands us to place a mizuzah on our door, but it doesn't tell us what a mizuzah is. The Torah tells us to slaughter an animal before we eat it, but it doesn't tell us how to slaughter an animal, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera that you need the oral Torah for. But God says listen, you can't accept one without the other. And it's got it. It's buy one, get one, and you're going to have to take this one and observe it.

48:23
They were forced into it, but now, purim time, the Jewish people accepted it out of love. Kimu mashakib lukvah. They now, out of their own love for Hashem and for his great miracles and his mastery over the world, they said now, we accepted out of love, we want this. Now there's a custom that we get dressed up on Purim. Why do we get dressed up on Purim? Not because it's the Jewish Halloween. Heaven forbid, all right, it's. Halloween is a pagan holiday. No one should have. No Jew should ever lower themselves to celebrate a holiday that isn't ours. The reason we hide behind a mask is because we need to recognize that Hashem hides behind a mask. It's not always revealed and out in the open. You have to look beyond the surface to know who it is Someone who's really in a great costume, like who is?

49:31
this. I have no idea who this is. I remember it being a child and we were at some massive piarches, the children's program. They had a big program, purim evening, and there's a men's section and a women's section. There's this big micheetza, a big separation between the men and women's sides, and there was a woman on the men's side and obviously it was dressed up, but he looked so real that people were like you're the wrong side of the micheetza, you should be on the other side. Well, obviously, but you have to look beyond to see one second.

50:10
What's the real message here? What's the real power behind this? And that is the secret of Purim when people get drunk, the only time there's a mitzvah to get drunk is on Purim. Not to go crazy, my grandfather says about his rabbi that he was so drunk on the floor but the only things that came out of his mouth were words of Torah, because the Talmud tells us that when wine goes in, secrets come out. Nichnas ya'in yatsasod.

50:46
You want to know what's really inside a person. Get them drunk, you'll see everything. A person who's filled with anger you see them angry. A person who's filled with love you see them full of love. A person who's all spiritual. You'll see them spiritual. There's secrets, because you're revealing what's behind the surface. What it's really telling us is that we, every day of the year, wear a mask. We can fake it. We can show the world, yeah, how things are going. Things are going great, are they really? Purim is the time where we are able to reveal the hidden. So it's not just random that we get dressed up. It's symbolic of that. We need to look beyond the surface in the ways of Hashem. We need to look beyond the surface in our own selves. Who am I really? What's underneath the surface? You can fool everybody. There are two that you can't fool. You can't fool the Almighty and you can't fool yourself, and that's the objective of Purim. Purim is a time for us to be real. Purim is a time for us to own up to our potential and to see the hand of Hashem in everything that goes on around us.

52:06
My dear friends, I look forward next week to part two of the complete book of Esther Crash Course. God willing, we'll continue with chapter six. I'll tell you something. There is a video that was going viral. After Rebekheim Kanyevsky, we talked about a great sage in Israel After he passed away. There was a video that when we were one couple after another couple after another couple came to him asking for a blessing to have children, where they've been married for many years and they didn't have any children. Sir Rebekheim Kanyevsky asked them what do you recite Havdala on? So they said, one after another, they said Grape juice. He said why grape juice?

52:56
The Talmud promises that when you recite Havdala on wine, you're guaranteed to have children who are righteous Torah scholars. He says in that promise is that you're going to have children. He says, if you recite the Havdala on wine, you'll be promised not only children, but children who are righteous Torah scholars. And one after another after another, people were having children that weren't able to have children previously. So I have a very dear friend of mine who lives here in Houston and him and his wife have been struggling for many years with pregnancy and having children and they've been getting all these treatments and everything. So I said to him, I told him the story and he said to me I have a problem, though I'm a recovering alcoholic, so I'm going to share with you my mistake.

53:50
I said to him what's the big deal? Just take a little sip of the wine. But like this you fulfilled the mitzvah? He says yeah, but the halacha says you have to drink the majority of the cup. I said yeah, but you could probably overlook it. It's, you know.

54:03
Either way, I asked the rabbi, asked my rabbi, and he says he's 100% right. You're wrong. And indeed, what he does every single week is that him and his wife come to my house and join us for Havdala every single week. This is already at least a year that they've been coming. Every single Saturday night they have Havdala at my house and I fulfill them in that mitzvah. I, I, I, I, I. I drink the wine, but the idea is I have them in mind. Every week, I'm fulfilling their mitzvah of Havdala for them and like that it's. It's without them needing to drink. And when I'm not in town if my wife and I are out of town for Shabbos, I always try to remind them in advance. I'm not going to be in town this weekend. Make sure you find someone else who's going to make Havdala on wine for you. It's not enough that they make Havdala for you, they have to make Havdala on wine specifically, and it's. It's very, it's very powerful. The question that you asked, because you know what Not everyone is capable of doing everything, but you can have someone else get drunk for you. That's right, and and and.

55:03
Our prayer every single day is that this month be a month of tremendous, tremendous blessing for the Jewish people, that all of our hostages be released speedily. In our days, it should be this month the last time any Jews ever held hostage again, right? That would be an unbelievable porm if they were all released. No, on the contrary, it's even more, it's more, it's more than just Baruch Hashem. Not that Hashem is blessed because I believe, because I know, because it's we remove the boundaries, we remove all the barriers. Hashem is so blessed it's unreal. The greatest, greatest joy in the world is the joy of feeling of closeness to Hashem, and when we and when we are without those barriers, we have absolute, greatest feeling of closeness with Hashem.

55:57 - Intro (Announcement)
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