By Rav Mendel Weinbach

urim is a veritable those who are capable of doing so cornucopia of paradoxes without impairing their ability to fulfill which ignite the all of the mitzvos connected with the imagination of both festive meal, (washing hands, scholar and layman. But blessings before and after, etc.) or perhaps the greatest inciting them to improper conduct. A man is challenge of all is posed by this For most people it is sufficient to requirement to indulge in drink to drink more than is their custom and obligated to the point of losing the faculty of to achieve the level of fuzziness imbibe on discernment. How, ask the suggested by the Talmud through a commentaries throughout the drink-induced nap. Purim generations, can But our original until he we be commanded problem still remains. Why to invite that very encourage excess drinking can no longer intoxication which altogether and why set a distinguish is so roundly goal of such enigmatic reviled in both nature? between Scripture and The answers, of course, “Cursed is Talmud? And why lie in an analysis of the such a puzzling Purim story as recorded in ” standard of non- Megillas . The events and “Blessed is discernment? chronicled in this divinely Mordechai.” Just to set the inspired document cover a record straight as regards the decade of history, from the grand halacha, it is the consensus of the banquet in which Queen Vashti authorities that literal fulfillment of meets her downfall until the this requirement is limited only to miraculous turnabout of a Jewish

Produced by the Ohr Somayach Office of Information and Communication General Editor: Rabbi Moshe Newman ©1996 Ohr Somayach International - All rights reserved. Production Design: Rabbi Eliezer Shapiro This publication contains words of Torah. Please treat it with due respect. Do not let this land on a garbage heap. and Lev Seltzer If you have access to InterNet E-Mail, you can receive publications like this one minutes after they become available. Approximately once a month we will automatically send the latest publication to your E-Mail box. Just subscribe to the OS-SPECIAL list. To subscribe, send the message " sub os-special {Your Full Name} " to [email protected] nation threatened with genocide social and political analysts and seeks overcoming its enemies thanks to the the divine hand in the workings of intervention of Queen Esther. From history. the perspective of historians and Until he can no longer distinguish political analysts it is virtually between “Cursed is Haman” and impossible to see any link between “Blessed is Mordechai.” Many the events separated by so many interpretations have been offered as to years and so many political why this particular criterion has been “Only chosen for determining the desired developments. What connection can level of inebriation. On the simplest after possibly be surmised between the level it is a reference to a song of praise serious drunken domestic quarrel between we sing after the reading of the reflection Achashverosh and Vashti in the third and which we repeat in our festive year of his reign and the same king’s meals, and it is a challenge to the does he submitting to Esther’s drinker to keep the lyrics in entreaties in his twelfth order when his spirits are so realize year? Chapters, if not high. that volumes, could probably be In a deeper sense, written about how however, we may suggest the danger Haman’s meteoric rise to that there are two levels of he faced power and the geopolitical thanksgiving when a man is upheavals of a mighty saved from disaster by divine was a Persian Empire on the intervention. One is hodaah - gift from threshold of a challenge thanks - and the other is hallel - praise. The visceral Heaven...” from the ascendant Macedonians affected the reaction of the survivor is to thank Heaven. But if asked fickle monarch’s decision- whether he would have making process in first preferred to never have been sanctioning genocide and exposed to the danger, his response then rejecting it. would invariably be “Yes!” He would But historians are capable of dealing prefer to completely forget that it ever only with tangible links. The Divine existed. Only after serious reflection Author of history, however, reveals to does he realize that the danger he faced His chosen people in Megillas Esther was a gift from Heaven to wake him up that there is a powerful connection and redirect him. It is then that he sings between events separated by so much the praises of Hashem for having time - that the Divine Healer prepared provided him with such an educational the cure before the illness by removing experience. Vashti in favor of Esther even before He On Chanukah we offer both hodaah sent the plague of Haman’s genocidal in the form of the Al Hanissim prayer decree to alarm His sinful people into and hallel in the recital of Hallel for repentance. The clue to this linkage is eight days. On Purim the reading of the wine - the wine which brought a king to Megillah is our hallel, for it teaches us to a drunken rage against a rebellious appreciate the value of the danger as “...historians queen and the wine which another well as the salvation. queen, concealing her Jewish identity, “Cursed is Haman” refers to the are served both husband and enemy at the danger, “Blessed is Mordechai” to the capable of climactic banquet where she salvation. When one drinks enough successfully pleaded for her people’s wine to link all the events in the hallel of dealing only salvation. our Megillah he no longer discerns If the link is wine then it is wine between the values of the two. with tangible which we must indulge in beyond our links.” habit in order to remember and reflect upon this invisible thread which weaves dj such disparate events into a miraculous tapestry of divine intervention. And the ohrup level of our indulgence must be one that rejects the normal approaches of !jna discernment, that abandons the logic of