Vayakhel - Pekudei: 5783 - Rabbi Shimon Zonnenfeld with a wonderful story about his great grandfather, the Rabbi of Jerusalem, Rabbi Yosef Chaim Zonnenfeld, in honor of the yahrtzeit falling on Motza'ei Shabbos. At the conclusion of the Daf…

00:00 Speaker 1 Please.

00:03 Speaker 2 Since we’re still close to Purim, and the yahrzeit of the rabbi of Jerusalem also falls on Motzaei Shabbos—the yahrzeit of 19 Adar, as recorded in the books—there’s an interesting interpretation of Megillas Esther that he gave. At the time, there was a school in Jerusalem where they wanted to introduce secular studies and teach another language. Actually, I think it was Arabic; they wanted to teach Arabic there too. The rabbis of Jerusalem were strongly opposed. They wanted the school, the Talmud Torah, to be devoted entirely to Torah studies, with no other subjects taught, and there was a major dispute. Someone came to him and said, “Megillas Esther gives us proof that we should learn a foreign language. The entire miracle of Purim happened because Mordechai understood what the gatekeepers were saying to each other. If he hadn’t learned a foreign language, the whole miracle of Purim would never have happened. So there’s our proof from Megillas Esther that we should learn a foreign language.” He replied, “That proves exactly the opposite. Because they knew that Jews didn’t learn foreign languages, they were sure he couldn’t understand them, so they spoke to each other. If they had known that Jews learned foreign languages, they wouldn’t have spoken to each other. So that’s precisely the proof for the opposite conclusion: that one must not learn a foreign language.” That was his interpretation of Megillas Esther. So Motzaei Shabbos is his yahrzeit. May the true Geulah come through his merit, very soon indeed, amen.