Today we are going to have our class and learning for an all Berachot (blessings), if there are any Berachot here, or there are packages here. I see a little package; that's cute. Make the Berachot for the Refuah Shelemah (complete recovery) of Yitzchak Aharon ben (son of) Jean Jamila Yocheved. Again, Yitzchak Aharon ben Jean Jamila Yocheved. He's having very delicate procedures, going through aggressive treatment, and we're really praying and hoping that his body has a full, complete recovery. Again, I see in the bag Shehakol (by whose word all exists), Mezonot (sustenance), and Refuah Shelemah for Yitzchak Aharon ben Jean Jamila Yocheved.
Today we're going to give a class to prepare you for the holiday of Purim. Ladies, it is my belief that most are unprepared, and most don't really understand the nature of this day. I'm going to begin with a little story. It's a classic story that's told, and I'm pretty confident that most of the room has heard it before.
There were two men once walking on an empty beach. Actually, there was one man walking on the beach; I apologize. He sees someone in the distance, and that person seems to keep bending down and throwing something: bending down, throwing something; bending down, throwing something. Finally, he comes close to the man and sees that all over the beach there are starfish. The fellow is bending down, taking a starfish, and tossing it back into the water to save its life. He keeps picking them up and tossing them back into the water to save their lives.
Finally, the two men reach each other, and one man says, “What are you doing?” He says, “I'm saving the starfish.” The other man says, “Come on, you're not saving the starfish. There are zillions of starfish on this beach. I don't know how many you could throw in, but there are still millions here on the shore. What do you think you're doing? You're not accomplishing anything. You're not really saving all of them.”
The man bends down, picks up one starfish, throws it in, and says, “I saved that one. And that's what I'm doing.” You've heard this story before? No? Isn't it a nice story? Nice little story, right?
I totally disagree with the story. Here's why. Are you really doing anything? You've got starfish. It's not about starfish. It's about doing this random little act of kindness for one starfish. What's really getting accomplished? I really mean to ask a much deeper and stronger question. Everyone in this room, I'm sure, is involved in chesed—kindness—in some way. If I ask you why, many people will give me the same answer: “I want to make the world a better place. I would like the world to be better when I die than it was when I was born.”
My response to that is, “Come on. Come on, are you going to make the world so much better? No matter how much money you give, there will still be plenty of poor people. No matter how much time you give, there will still be so many people complaining, so many people frustrated.” You know what I notice about every organization that opens up in this community? What they basically get in return for their efforts is complaints. We have a drug organization: “Oh, my son—you didn't save him, you didn't help him, you didn't do anything.” We have organizations that help people with businesses: “You didn't get me a job. There are no jobs.” An organization helps people get married: “No one's getting married. You didn't do anything about marriage.” An organization gives money: “You can never get any money out of them. They don't give any money, they don't give charity, they don't care. So much red tape.” Every organization that's there to do something basically gets complaints. It's really true. I'm not saying it's a joke; it's true. Any school, any shul (synagogue)—everybody.
I want to know why bother. Why can you save me one starfish? Come on, the bottom line is, I don't care how much charity you give; there will still be a zillion poor people. Very often, when you give somebody money, what it basically is, is a ticket for his return. He's coming back to your door in six months to ask you again and ask you for more. So really, what are you accomplishing with all the kindness you're involved with? That's my question for today. My goal is to totally change your perspective on giving this morning. My goal is to totally change your perspective on the holiday of Purim. And my real goal is to totally change your perspective on the story of Purim. In the process, hopefully, you'll be happy. You'll understand giving in a whole different light, and your responsibility towards it in a whole different light.
Let me ask my question about the holiday in one question that really encompasses my whole problem. The story of Purim was the subject of a class we gave last week, but everyone knows the story of Purim is about God's hand behind the scenes. That's the story of Purim: how God dictated all these events to eventually save our nation. That is the story of Purim. What in the world does that have to do with anything? What in the world does that have to do with money for poor people? What in the world does that have to do with anything? What in the world does it have to do with having a party? Half the things we do on Purim don't seem to have anything to do with the holiday.
What we do on Pesach fits. You eat matzah (unleavened bread) because we ate matzah. You have maror (bitter herbs) because it was bitter. It fits. On Sukkot, you shake a lulav (palm frond). There's a message in the lulav. You sit in the sukkah (temporary booth). You eat matzah. You blow a shofar (ram's horn) on Rosh Hashanah. You learn Torah on Shavuot. It fits. What in the world does all that candy have to do with anything? What in the world does it have to do with God dictating events?
I'll take answers, by the way. If anyone has an answer to this question, I'll take an answer. Room? Plenty of women here? I'd like to have one person who knows the answer to this question. Everything we do is according to what happened in the time of Purim. Nobody in the time of Purim sent Mishloach Manot (sending portions) at all, and you've been preparing Mishloach Manot for two weeks. So we need to explain that better. No one in the story of Purim gave charity. That wasn't a big deal in the story of Purim. It wasn't a big part of the story.
Like I said—and to be honest with you—every other holiday, the mitzvot (commandments) of the holiday are between man and God. This is the only holiday where the mitzvot of the holiday are between man and man. Pesach is eating matzah. You by yourself. The mitzvot of every holiday are between man and God. Why is this between man and man, when the story had nothing to do with it? That's my problem. If we had crowns, or scepters, or we all acted like queens, I'd get it. But this, I don't get. It has nothing to do with the story.
I'll go to another question—not really about the overall picture, just curious to see how much we know. How long did it take from the time the decree against the Jewish people happened, from the time Haman made his decree, to the time Haman was hanged? How many decades, how many years, how many months, how many weeks? How long did it take from the decree until his hanging? A year? Anyone else? I'll take opinions. Go. Nine years? Anyone else? Up to bidding. Highest bidder. Twenty years? Twelve years? Anyone else? Good. Anyone else? I got one year, nine years, twelve years. Again: from the time Haman made his decree to annihilate the Jewish people until the moment he was hanged. You all know how long it was? Four years? Seven years? I got one year, four years, seven years, twelve years, nine years. How long was it from when Haman made the decree until Haman was hanged?
The answer is, none of you were even close. Four days. Four days. Did you hear that? The time from Haman's decree until he was hanged. Ladies, settle down. You're going to try this trivia at home tonight. You're definitely going to. From Haman's decree to annihilate the Jewish people until Haman was hanged was four days. Four days. Even he agrees: four days. That's a fact.
The parties of Achashverosh were a few years before. The Jewish people actually went to war a few—eleven—months later. But the actual time from the decree to the hanging was four days. It's very simple. I'll tell you later how the days commute. It's a simple thing. I'll tell you now. Haman made a decree. Mordechai knew what was happening. He went to the gate of the king. Esther asked him what was going on; we'll tell you more about that dialogue in a minute. Esther asked what was going on. Long story short, she said, “Okay, we're going to fast for three days.” That's one, two, three. On the third day, she came to Achashverosh and said, “Come to a party tonight.” At that party, she said, “Come to a party tomorrow night.” That's four. And that night, she hanged him. That's the story. Four days.
So why in the world are we celebrating this holiday 23 days, 2300 years later? If it was a four-day mistake, they made the decree on Saturday and by today it was gone. It was just a small little thing. It's not a big story. So why is it such a big deal? That's my question. I'm telling you: first of all, I need silence. Second of all, nobody understands the holiday—or not enough people understand the holiday of Purim—the way it's meant to be told. Not enough people really understand the magnitude of that time. If you think the Jewish people were in danger and God saved our lives, and that's the story, you never read it in your life. If that's what you think it is, you never saw it. Again, you're spending a lot of time and effort preparing for this holiday. You need to know why.
In fact, I'll give you an example. In my house, we have themes. One year, we had a wedding ceremony and all that. No girls to get married in the house, so that's good. Then we did pomegranate. That was very cool. Last year, we did the Arab Shuk (market). That was cool. I'm telling you, it was cool, with barrels and toilet seats and nuts and crates and curtains. It was great.
What's the problem when you do something great? What's the worst part of doing something great? The next year. So I keep telling my wife, “Honey, we have to do something awesome this year. We have to do something awesome.” She's like, “Who's we? What are you doing? You're just telling me and giving me...” A few weeks ago, I came home one Friday night and my wife said, “We're debating what to do.” I said, “Okay, give it to me.” My wife was debating between a botanical garden—the boys weren't very into it—or the Wild West. The girls weren't very into that. You see the problem?
I came home one Friday night. I didn't know exactly what was going on. I said, “What are we planning for Purim?” My six-year-old son is a classic. He says, “Dad, either we're going to do a garden or we're going to do the east.” I said, “The east?” He meant the west. “The east.” He got it. Okay. Anyhow, we decided on something about a week ago. Since we decided, every piece of it has cost a million dollars. My wife got sick, and the housekeepers missed three days in a row. So we're rolling, the pressure is mounting, and my wife last night was like, “Honey, why are we doing this again?” So I need to re-explain why we're doing that again.
What we're going to do this morning is tell the story of Purim again. I know you heard this story when you were in fourth grade, and again when you were in seventh grade, and maybe again when you were in high school. But you never heard the story as it was really meant to be told. We're going to try to tell you that story in a way that you'll understand the power behind this holiday and the magnitude of how dramatic this day was in Jewish history. It wasn't just a moment in our past when someone tried to kill us and God saved us. There were many such points in Jewish history that wouldn't warrant a holiday being celebrated well over 2,000 years later. When we tell the story again, hopefully it will be very clear and you'll be able to understand.
The students of Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai—this is a Gemara—said, “Rabbi, can you please explain to us what sin the Jewish people committed in the time of Purim that made them deserve a decree to kill them?” Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai, the great Rabbi, said, “You know what, you guys? You answer me.” So they said, “Oh, I know. It's because they went and celebrated and benefited from the party of Achashverosh at the beginning of the Megillah.” The students said, “That explains the people in Shushan, but it doesn't explain all the Jews across the globe. What did they do wrong?” So the students told the Rabbi, “Rabbi, please give us the answer.” Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai said, “I'll tell you the answer. Years prior, there was a king called Nebuchadnezzar. When Nebuchadnezzar was king, he created an idol. The Jewish people bowed to that idol, and that's why they deserved to be annihilated.”
Then the students asked Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai a great question. They said, “Okay, you gave us the sin. They benefited from the party, and they bowed to an idol. I got it. Big, dramatic sins. So why in the world did God forgive them?” His answer was, “They only sinned as a fake, as a facade. And that's why God's decree was only a fake and a facade.” That's the Gemara's conclusion. The sin was the party or the idol. It was a fake sin, and that's why there was a fake decree. In fact, that's why your children on this holiday will wear fake clothes, fake faces, and fake costumes, because of that facade. At least that's one explanation. Eating from a party is that big a deal? Bowing down to an idol for a fake... I'm not understanding the story. What we're going to do right now is understand the story, and then we'll retell it.
The Jewish people began when God created the world and decided there was going to be one chosen nation. He finally came up with the nation, the man who was going to be the founder of that nation: Avraham Avinu. He told Abraham, right when he realized that he was the man, that his children would be the chosen nation, and that his children would go through 400 years of hardship in Egypt. But when they left that country, they would be formed as a nation. That nation would get the Torah, and that nation would finally have its country, and it would be Israel.
From the point of that promise until the Jews entered the land was 470 years: 30 years until Yitzchak was born, 400 years from Yitzchak's birth until they left Egypt, and then another 40 years in the desert. 470 years of building and building and building and building towards that promise. Put 470 years in context. What year are we in today? 2000 and... 2014. 470 years means that if God came and made a promise to you today, it would come true in the year 2484. Are you with me? A million years from now. It took so long, almost a half a millennium, for the Jewish people to build into what they were supposed to be: a nation, a Torah, and a country.
In that country, they had a Mishkan, but still no Beit HaMikdash, for hundreds of years. After almost 400 years, King Shlomo finally built the Beit HaMikdash. Our nation was finally what it was meant to be: a nation, a Torah, a country, and a central location, the Beit HaMikdash. We were what we were intended to be, the way it was described in the Torah, the way it was promised to Abraham HaShem, and the way it was written in the Torah. That Beit HaMikdash lasted for over 400 years, and then it was destroyed.
When it was destroyed, as far as the Jews knew, they had never seen anything like this before in their lives. A nation? There's no country. There's no place. There's no Beit HaMikdash. There's no talking to God. They're just dispersed. Did you ever see a nation without a country? There's no such thing. Without a Beit HaMikdash, they were used to speaking to God, or having people who could speak to God on their behalf, from the time of Abraham until this point. And now, it's lost.
So these people are in exile for the first time. When they're in exile, their mindset is that all the rules, all that they were taught, and all that they were built into were true when they were in that country. But now it's gone, and now they're just a bunch of individuals in a foreign place. Now they go into survival-of-the-fittest mode. They just have to do what it takes to survive. Their mindset became a new mindset, one that had never been there in Jewish history, because they had never needed it before. As far as they were concerned, the Beit HaMikdash was gone. As far as they knew, “I don't even know if God is relevant anymore. I don't know if the Torah is relevant anymore. The country is gone. We're lost. We're helpless.”
When they bowed to that idol, they weren't trying to bow to an idol. They were just doing what it takes to survive. When they went to that party, they weren't trying to go to a party. It wasn't about the sin of going to the party. It was thinking that they had to do what it takes to survive in that society. That was the mindset at that point in history. And it was dramatic, because if that mindset had stayed, there would be no nation today. The mindset was: just do what it takes, survive, integrate, assimilate, be part of society, and just live and make it.
I'm going to give you a very current example. This is a story someone sent me. Then someone else sent it to me. Then someone else sent it to me. Within one hour, I got it from four people. Within 24 hours, I got it from eight different people, the same story. I'm assuming some of you got this story too. Anyhow, I'm going to tell it because I think it's very cool. The story isn't even told as a story. It's just a series of emails between two people.
From the look on their faces, I'm getting the impression that a lot of the room did not hear the story. Good. A fellow named Andy—how many heard the story? I got it? Yeah, less than half. Okay, good. Andy sends an email to his travel agent. He says, “Hope all is well. Greetings from the Hyatt Regency Hotel in Boston. Thanks for booking me. This is great. It's a pretty nice place. I need to do the following trips in March. This guy seems pretty busy. March 1st, I need to go from Sydney to Hong Kong. March 3rd, Hong Kong to the location. March 8th, from the location to Beijing. And March 12th, from Vietnam to Melbourne.”
The travel agent, an Orthodox Jew, sends him a whole business-class itinerary for all those flights. He says just one thing: “The flight from the location to Beijing, I need to change from March 8th, which is a Saturday, to March 7th, which is a Friday. And the price is going to be $3,890.” He sends him the itinerary.
Andy responds, “Thanks for the prompt reply. The price is fine. Please invoice me as usual. But there's one little change I need to make. The flight from the location to Beijing—I need it the next day. I need it on Saturday. I need an extra day there. So please, can you lock it up the way I asked at the beginning?” The travel agent responds, “I wish I could give you that day. But, you know, I'm an Orthodox Jew, and I'm uncomfortable booking a Jew on a Saturday. So listen, I'll take that part out of the trip. I'll book everything else. And here's the flight number. You lock it in yourself.”
Andy responds, “I guess I'll just book it myself. No problem. Lock in the rest.” The travel agent sends a nice little response email. He says, “You know what? I'll lock them all in. You'll have the tickets within 24 hours. But if you decide to change your mind on that flight from the location to Beijing, just shoot me an email. No problem.”
A little while later, Andy sends an email while he's about to get on the plane at LAX airport—a Delta flight, I don't know, in 50 minutes. He says, “I reconsidered. You're right. I should be more observant.” Obviously, he's not a very religious Jew. “But I'll manage without the day there. Book me the flight the way you set it on Friday morning from the location to Beijing, which means I'll be in Beijing that Friday night. While we're at it, can you get me a nice place to stay, a nice place to eat my Friday night meal?”
The travel agent books the flight. This past Saturday night, the travel agent, who lives in Israel, gets an email. The email basically says, “Holy God.” I'm glad he said it that way. Okay? I'm sure you heard what happened to that Saturday flight. That Saturday flight was the flight that we all know is missing. He says, “I can't stop thinking about this. This is like a true miracle for the books. You're like a true lifesaver. And by the way, don't ever book me on that Malaysian airport flight ever again.”
The travel agent responds, and he seems like a very calm and cool guy. He says, “Andy, I'm so happy for you. I am not the lifesaver. God and Shabbat were your lifesavers. You don't owe me anything. You owe them everything.”
The mindset of this Andy is the mindset of most Jews in America today. Most Jews think they're in a rat race, going from here on March 1st to there on March 3rd, there on March 8th, and there on March 13th. Basically, “I need to do what it takes to survive.” So if I have to email people, if I have to be involved and travel on Saturday, travel on Mondays, eat in non-kosher places, I just gotta survive. That's what we do. Most Jews in this country, or most Jews in exile, believe the way the Jews in Shushan believed before the story of Purim: we need to survive. The Torah, its laws, its concepts were great a thousand years ago, two thousand years ago, when we had our country the way we expected it, in the Beit HaMikdash, and things were rolling. That's when the laws applied. But today, all you have to do is survive.
And so, Haman made his one comment in the book of the Torah, and he said—Haman made his one comment when he wanted this decree, and this comment captured exactly where we were at this time. He said there's a nation, mefuzar u-meforad bein ha'amim (scattered and dispersed among the peoples). There's a nation that is dispersed. You know what dispersed means? They're a bunch of individuals. You ever see a nation without a country? There's no such thing. There's no nation. There's just people. So it's so easy: just kill them all. It won't mean anything. It won't be anything. You're not doing anything serious. You didn't come to a country and capture it. There's nothing left. They're just individual people trying to survive. Knock them off here, them off there, them off there, and they're done.
Mordechai's job was not to save the Jewish people from an Achashverosh. Mordechai's job was to save the Jewish people from themselves. Mordechai's job was to recreate the Jewish nation, to make them understand that although we have no country, we have no prophet speaking to God, and we have no Beit HaMikdash, we are still very much a nation. We are one unit and one nation, something you never see on the planet. On the globe today, and at any time, you have countries and you have religions. You never have a nation with no country. Name me a nation that has no country. You have religions that are all over the place, and you have countries that are countries. If they last for a thousand years, a hundred years, they're countries. But how about a nation with no country? It makes no sense. Mordechai is going to have to rebuild the nation himself.
And so here's what he does. He puts on sackcloth. He puts on sackcloth and gets to the— which, again, is opposite from logic. The logical thing is, you know you have Esther in the palace. Put on your best clothing. Get into that palace. She's related. She's your cousin. Get into that palace. Speak to her. Have a few meetings. Come up with ideas. The decree isn't supposed to be carried out for another eleven months. Plan, figure it out, scheme, and work it out. That's not what he does. Sackcloth, which means he isn't allowed into the king's palace.
Esther sends him a message back, and we'll explain it all in a minute. She says, “Put on regular clothing.” He says, “No.” She says, “Explain to me what's happening.” He says, “There's an hour, there was a decree against the entire Jewish people. You need to go into Achashverosh now.” Esther's response is pure logic. “I haven't been called into his palace for thirty days. Everybody knows that if you go in, you get killed unless he decides to save your life. So we have eleven months to work on this. Why don't we wait a little? I'm his wife. Eventually he's going to call me in; eventually he'll want me in. We'll talk two weeks, three weeks; we'll figure it out at some point. Let's have some meeting, let's figure it out.” Sounds fair? Sounds logical?
If I were on the other side of that message, I would have said, “Esther, great idea. We'll have a meeting tomorrow at two o'clock in my house. We'll discuss it and figure it out.” Mordechai's response is strange. Mordechai's response is strange. Mordechai's response is strange. His response is, “If you are quiet at this time, the Jewish people will be saved a different way, and you and your father's house will be destroyed forever.” What kind of response is that? She didn't say, “I'm not going in.” She didn't say, “I'll never go in.” She didn't say, “I'm not going to help you.” She just said, “Let's give it some time. We have eleven months”—again, the decree wasn't supposed to happen for another eleven months—“we have time.” And he's so harsh. Mordechai's response—why?
The answer is, Mordechai, as I said, is trying to recreate the nation. The way you recreate a nation when you have no country and no Beit HaMikdash is for every person in the nation to sacrifice for that nation. Every person says, “I am not me. I am here for the unit, and I'm going to give everything I have for the unit.” The first person to do that was Mordechai. “I'm in sackcloth, ashes on my head. I'm nothing. I'm here for the nation.” Esther, we don't need your plotting and your scheming. We need you to give all you have for the nation. That's what we need from you. We need to show the entire nation that we are one unit.
Giving, in the Torah's mind, is not about how much we need to get from you. Because I hate to say it, we don't need your money. We don't need your advice. We don't need your time. We don't need your help. God can figure it out a different way. He doesn't need mine either. But what God needs to see from you is: are you willing to give everything you have for that nation and for that unit? That's what he's demanding of Esther. “Show me that you're willing to rebuild the nation with me. Show me that you're willing to give all you have, to give up everything you have, to save and contribute to our Am (nation), to our unit. If you get that, you'll be the one able to save us all.”
This is not just Mordechai going in and saying, “Go try to speak to the king.” No. If you think that's what happened, you missed the story. What Mordechai is saying is, “We have to recreate the nation in a way we never saw before, where every single member of the nation has to give everything they have for that greater good.”
I'll try to give you a story that I think encompasses this concept. This is the concept of giving I want you to think about for the next 10 minutes in this class. What are you doing for that nation? Not that the nation needs you—and not, I don't mean you; me. The nation doesn't need me either. God doesn't need me. I like to tell myself before I give a speech, “Oh, there's this number of people listening. It's very important; they need to hear from me.” Not true. God doesn't need me. God can get the message out any way he wants. My job is just to show that I can give everything I have to that nation. It's the same job that you have, he has, she has, everyone of Am Yisrael (the people of Israel) has. That's how we become a nation: when we all give whatever we have for that unit.
Let me tell you a nice story. There's a father who passed away in the 60s. He had a young family. Once he passed away, the oldest son, who was studying at the time, realized that there was absolutely no income in this family and that he had to leave his studies and begin to work. This is the kind of story you've heard many times. He went to work to take over his father's business. He was a young man with not a lot of experience, let's say in his 20s, trying to take over a business, and he had a great community around him. During the Shiva (seven-day mourning period), they went downstairs one night and saw freezers full of food for weeks and weeks. To this day, they have no idea how it got there.
Now he's starting to try to take over the business. He's a young, inexperienced guy. All the competitors know that he's young and inexperienced. They're eating him like tigers, taking his customers, taking his employees, because that's how competition is. So one day, a Mr. Freedman walks into his store and sits down. He says, “Young boy”—“Sir, I want to sit with you.” He sits down and says, “How's it going?” The young man says, “You know, it's a struggle. It's hard. My daddy passed away; it's not easy.” Mr. Freedman says, “I know. I'm sure I know. I hear what's going on. Here you go. I'm sure it's hard with the finances.” He has $2,000—$2,000 in this case. He says, “Here's $2,000. I want to give you the money. You'll handle it for the business and get yourself rolling again.”
The young man says, “Sir, this is unbelievable, but I'll be honest with you, I don't really want to take charity. We're not like that kind of... I don't really feel like we need charity. I don't know if we're really charities.” Mr. Freedman says, “No, no, I'm not giving you charity. It's just a loan. I'm lending you the money. When you have a chance, you'll pay it back.” The boy was comfortable. No problem. Thank you. He and his mother were excited. They were worried about the business, and eventually the boy started to get the hang of it and rebuild the company.
Within about two years, the company was back on its feet, and he put together the full $2,000 to pay the man back. He comes to Mr. Friedman's house and says, “Mr. Friedman, I'm excited. Thank you so much. You really helped me when I was down, but now I'm ready. Thank God, I'm ready.” He brings $2,000, puts it in an envelope, and hands it to Mr. Friedman.
Mr. Friedman says, “No, no, no, I don't want it.” “What do you mean you don't want it? You told me the deal was that it's not charity; it's a loan.” He says, “It is a loan, but I don't want it.” “If it's a loan, why don't you want it?” He says, “Here, let me tell you a story. Years ago, I was a young boy starting my own business, and I was struggling tremendously. One day, a Mr. Stein came into my office and sat down. He said, ‘Young man, I'm sure this is hard for you. I want to help you out.’ I said the same thing you said: ‘I don't need charity.’ He said to me the same thing I told you: ‘I'm not giving you charity. I'm giving you a loan. Here's money. Take the money, use it, and pay me back.’”
“A few years later, my business was rolling. I came to pay him back, and he said, ‘No, I can't have the money.’ I said, ‘I don't understand. It was a loan, exactly like you said.’ And he told me, ‘It is a loan. But it's a loan not for you to pay me. It's a loan for you to take this money and give it to the next person who needs it. So, young man, what I want you to do with this money is find the next person who's in trouble and give that money to the next person who needs it.’” And that's exactly what he did.
That's what we're here to do. We're here to understand that we are responsible to that unit. We are responsible to that nation. We don't have money that's our own. We don't have time that's our own. We don't have talent that's our own. We have loans from God, to see who you can give them to and who that person can then give them to. Because, to tell you the truth, you're never going to get it. You're never going to get it. You're never going to save all the starfish. You can give as much charity as you can possibly imagine, and you'll probably get more complaints than appreciation. But it's not about that. It's not about saving the starfish. God will worry about the starfish. What it's about is seeing whether you're contributing to the unit. Are you here for that group, and are you here to sacrifice for that nation?
Esther finally gets the message and sends a message back to Mordechai: “Go and unite the entire Jewish nation. Put them all together.” Because if that's what it's about, let's make a nation. “You and me together are going to make a nation. Together they're going to fast. Together they're going to pray. And then I'm going to go in, and here's her key line: ‘And if I get killed, I get killed.’” So be it. She totally gets the message of how we're going to pray. We're going to build a nation without a country and without a Beit HaMikdash. We're going to give everything of ourselves.
I told my wife, “Honey, when Purim's coming, you're not doing a theme for how cool it looks. You're doing a theme because if we want so many boys and so many people to come to our house, it's because we want to inspire their Purim. That's what you're doing.” It's not about whether we're the Wild West, a wedding, pomegranate, garden, or farm. It doesn't matter. That's not what it's about. It's about making and inspiring and connecting with people. Every mitzvah on Purim is about building a nation. It's sending gifts to your friends. It's sending money to the poor. It's supporting the shul. It's uniting with friends. It's the whole nation together, and so many people together hearing the word of God. It's: we are a nation once again.
That's the concept of the holiday. It's not about just items. It's about being part of rebuilding that nation the way they did in the time of Moshe Rabbeinu. Excuse me, in the time of Mordechai HaYehudi. Someone told me a line that I think captures it best. He said, “You know, Purim and Halloween seem very similar. What's the difference?” Now, there's a million differences. Yeah, I know you don't like that comparison. I didn't like it either, but I like the difference. “What's the difference? Did I get it from your son? I'm not sure. On Halloween, they go to people's houses to ask. On Purim, we go to people's houses to give.” That's what she said.
That's the concept of the holiday. If you're celebrating Purim by giving one Mishloach Manot to somebody, giving your required $10 of charity, having a little meat, sending meat with your husband to his office, you missed the whole point. Nice, you did the requirements, but you missed the whole point. If you're celebrating Purim, but you're busy from morning to night giving charity, giving more charity, going to people, giving Mishloach Manot, getting Mishloach Manot, celebrating and enjoying it with a lot of people, having a great time, with the kids excited, you excited, the neighbors excited, the community excited—that's Purim. Purim is uniting as a nation. It's not just, “Oh, I sent you a card on your behalf. I gave charity.” It's nice. It's nice. I'm not going to knock it. It's nice. And it might be more valuable than all the wafers I'm going to get on Sunday. It might be. It might be. But the camaraderie that's created is really the goal. The nation being rebuilt is really what we're trying to accomplish.
Once you understand everything we told you in this class, you'll understand the statement in the Gemara on Masechet Shabbat. When this class started, I imagine you would have had no understanding of the Gemara; you would have had no idea what it meant. The Gemara says that the Jewish nation accepted the Torah on Har Sinai, and they reaccepted the Torah in the time of Purim. Reaccepted the Torah. Come on, it was four days; they were challenged, they went to war a few months later, they beat the enemies. That's all it was. Now that you understand it, it makes full sense. When the Torah was given on Har Sinai, they became the nation we thought we were supposed to be. When the story of Purim happened, we became a nation reborn again, the nation in exile that we needed to be. We were reborn as a nation. It wasn't just four days of challenge that we survived. We were reborn as a people, because we became a nation—a unit of people who give and sacrifice and give all we have for one another—because that's the only thing that makes us a nation.
When you walk out of this room today, don't say, “Good class, bad class, a lot of jokes, not a lot.” That's not what you should say. You should walk out of this class and say, “What am I doing for that nation? What am I giving for this unit? Am I giving everything I have?” There are people who sit in their homes on Purim, and this is true, with big checkbooks, and they just write out checks all day. You know why? Because if God blessed them with that money, they understand that God blessed them with that responsibility. Your job is to figure out what you're giving. Don't tell me you give your nation an hour a week. Tell me that you give your nation everything you have, all that God gave you.
I'm going to give you a story that I think captures it best, and we'll conclude with this. This story happened only a few weeks ago. There was an event, a dinner in Switzerland for some Jewish organization. Towards the end of the dinner, they decided to auction off a bottle of wine. Let me tell you about this bottle of wine. A little while before, a mother and father went with their two-year-old son to Rabbi Kanievsky in Bnei Brak. They went to the Rabbi and said, “Rabbi, we want you to cut our son's hair.” The Rabbi said, “Usually people come to me to cut their son's hair when he's three. Your son is only two. Why is he coming?” The father said, “I'll tell you the truth, Rabbi. He just got a diagnosis, and it's not likely that he'll ever be three, so we're asking you to cut his hair now.”
The Rebbetzin (rabbi's wife), who was alive at that point—I guess it was a year or so ago—said, “You know what? I want to try something.” Again, this is the story the way it goes. She took a bottle of wine from the Rabbi's Siyum (completion celebration), which he has every year when he finishes the whole entire Torah, everything. At the Siyum, he has wine, and they take some of that wine and make bottles of wine. She took some of that wine and rubbed it on the kid's head. I don't know, again—not my style of thing—but she rubbed it on the kid's head. The next year, a year later, they came to the Rabbi's house with their child, and the Rabbi said, “What happened?” They said, “To tell you the truth, we went to the doctor a little while later, and whatever there was in his brain is gone. So he was okay.” The Rabbi gave them the bottle of wine, and that bottle of wine was being auctioned off at this event in Switzerland.
You can imagine the prices started to flow: a thousand dollars, two thousand dollars, four thousand, six thousand, twelve thousand, eight thousand, fourteen thousand. One person bid twenty thousand dollars for a bottle of wine. Twenty thousand dollars. He came up to the front of the room, wrote out his check, and was handed the bottle of wine. And then what happened? He opened the bottle, walked from person to person, and poured them a little drink so that everyone could have a piece. That's our nation, and that's Purim. Purim is that we are going to rebuild by every single one of us saying, “I am here for the unit.”