Terumah: 5783 - Rabbi Shimon Zonnenfeld with a wonderful story for the month of Adar and the festival of Purim about his grandfather, Rabbi Yosef Chaim Zonnenfeld, Rabbi of Jerusalem. At the conclusion of the daily Daf Yomi class given by Rabbi…

00:00 Speaker 1 Please, Rabbi Shimon.

00:02 Speaker 2 When Adar begins, we increase in joy. They tell a story about the rabbi of Jerusalem, Rabbi Yosef Chaim Sonnenfeld, who observed the instruction “A person is obligated to drink on Purim until he cannot distinguish between ‘Cursed is Haman’ and ‘Blessed is Mordechai’” literally. He would drink to fulfill the— He had an established custom of leading the prayers on Purim at the Rabbi Yehuda HaChassid synagogue. When it came time for Minchah, he came up to the lectern, wanting to lead the prayers. That was his established custom, but he had fulfilled the mitzvah of drinking on Purim. One of the worshippers pointed out to him that, according to halachah, if he had been drinking, he could not lead the prayers. So he accepted that and did not lead. Someone else had to step forward, but no one wanted to. They knew it was his established custom, that he always led the prayers, and they didn’t want to offend him. No one stepped forward. There was no one to lead the prayers. The man who had pointed it out had no choice, so he stepped forward. During the repetition of the Amidah, he made a mistake: instead of saying “Who causes the wind to blow and the rain to fall,” he said “Who causes the wind to blow and the dew to fall.” No one noticed the mistake except Rabbi Yosef Chaim Sonnenfeld, who pointed it out to him. After the prayers, the man felt bad. He had stopped Rabbi Sonnenfeld from leading because he had been drinking and couldn’t be the chazzan, and then he himself made a mistake—and the only one who noticed was Rabbi Sonnenfeld. So, to make him feel better, Rabbi Sonnenfeld told him, “Listen, I’ll tell you why you made that mistake. ‘Mashiv haruach umorid hageshem’ and ‘morid ha—’ and ‘mashiv haruach umorid hatal’ together have the same gematria as ‘Chayav inish levesumei bePuraya ad delo yada bein arur Haman lebaruch Mordechai’—‘A person is obligated to drink on Purim until he cannot distinguish between “Cursed is Haman” and “Blessed is Mordechai.”’” It came out exactly—I

02:06 Speaker 2 did the calculation. It comes to 1,018. It’s the same gematria, and that’s why you made the mistake. There were people there who tried to do the calculation. They found that something didn’t add up. I told them, “You spelled inish with two yuds, but it’s written with one yud, and then it works out: 1,018.” When this story was told, Rabbi Yehoshua Leib Diskin, known as the Brisker Rav, was in Jerusalem. When they told him the story, he said, “A gematria like that can only come through ruach hakodesh.”

02:38 Speaker 1 And that was after he had already said l’chaim. So...