Purim 5786 "Chayav inish livsumei b'Puraya" - The secret behind the obligation to drink wine on Purim

00:00 There was a well-known chossid named Reb Alter Simchovitch. Reb Alter Simchovitch was one of the Temimim of Lubavitch, among the finest of them: one of the great servants of Hashem, great scholars of Chassidus, deeply devoted chassidim, and most distinguished of the early Temimim of Tomchei Temimim Lubavitch. When the Rebbe Rashab, of blessed memory, founded the Toras Emes yeshiva in the Holy Land, in Chevron, Reb Alter was among the first students he sent there with a group of the finest Temimim of Lubavitch. He sent them to Eretz Yisroel to establish the branch of Tomchei Temimim called Toras Emes in Chevron; the yeshiva later moved to Jerusalem. Reb Alter was one of the great, well-known mashpi’im. After studying at the yeshiva, he later returned to Lubavitch. He missed the Rebbe Rashab greatly and returned to the yeshiva to spend another full year there. He was one of the chazranim, those who reviewed the maamarim. During his studies in Lubavitch, Reb Alter had exceptional aptitude and talent, and he was one of the chazranim. That is, he was among those who could absorb the long, deep, rich maamarim the Rebbe Rashab delivered, remember them, and repeat them. He was one of the foremost chazranim, among those who would go in afterward to review a maamar. The procedure with the Rebbe Rashab is well known: he would deliver the maamar on Shabbos, on Friday night, and after Shabbos—usually on Sunday, though sometimes at another time—they would enter the Rebbe Rashab’s room.

01:34 A small group of chazranim would repeat the maamar. As they did so, the Rebbe Rashab would correct it word by word and offer explanations, until the chassidim knew the maamar clearly. That was the procedure in Lubavitch. Now, on one Purim, in 5679—known as Ateres—it was among the Rebbe Rashab’s last maamarim. As is known, the Rebbe Rashab passed away in 5680. This was the year before, 5679, which the chassidim called Ateres. That year, the Rebbe Rashab was in Rostov, and Reb Alter was there too and took part in that Purim. The Rebbe Rashab delivered a great deal of Chassidus. Purim fell on Sunday. There was a maamar that Shabbos, Shabbos Zachor, and then two maamarim on Purim. The Rebbe Rashab delivered one maamar during the meal and another later on. There was a great deal of Chassidus, and a long farbrengen. The Rebbe Rashab said “l’chaim” many times. The Purim farbrengen went on for hours. As for the maamarim as they are printed today, not all of them were included in Sefer Hamaamarim Ateres. The sichos are printed today in Sefer Hasichos Toras Shalom, but the sichos from that Purim do not appear there.

03:05 And something interesting happened: a few days after Purim, Reb Alter went in for yechidus. During the yechidus, the Rebbe Rashab asked him what had happened on Purim and asked him to tell him about it. Reb Alter began to recount it: the first maamar, the second maamar. And he saw that the Rebbe Rashab was surprised: “What do you mean, the first maamar and the second maamar? There were two maamarim on Purim, at the meal?” Reb Alter said, “There was a maamar. First came ‘A Person Is Obligated to Become Intoxicated on Purim,’ and then there was another maamar, ‘And He Raised Hadassah, Who Is Esther.’” The Rebbe Rashab said, “I remember the first maamar I delivered, but I don’t remember the second one. What did I speak about? Tell me.” Reb Alter began repeating it word for word. The Rebbe Rashab said, “You know what? I don’t remember delivering another maamar. I would like to recall it, but I don’t have time now. Come back in a few hours or a few days; I want to hear from you about this maamar.” And [unclear] he returned. The Rebbe Rashab wanted to hear the entire maamar from him. It was remarkable that the Rebbe Rashab did not remember delivering the whole maamar, and...

04:35 The Rebbe Rashab related that this was an extraordinary thing. He said that with the Alter Rebbe it was a regular occurrence. That is what he related about the Alter Rebbe: for him it was a regular occurrence. But when the Alter Rebbe delivered a maamar, the Divine Presence spoke through his throat. Afterward, he himself did not know what he had said. He related that when the Alter Rebbe traveled from one town to another, two of his students accompanied him, among his greatest students and chazranim: Reb Pinchas Reizes and Reb Shlomo Freides. The Alter Rebbe arrived in a town and said, “What should I say? What should I say?” His students, Reb Shlomo and Reb Pinchas Reizes, said, “The Rebbe could deliver the same maamar he delivered on Shabbos in the other town, the previous town.” The Alter Rebbe said, “What did I say? I don’t remember what I said. Repeat what I said to me, because I don’t know what I said.” Reb Pinchas was embarrassed and did not want to speak. But to Reb Shlomo Freides the Alter Rebbe said, “You have such a

05:56 sharp tongue. Tell me, what was last week’s maamar?” And so he repeated the maamar to him. The Rebbe Rashab relates the whole story and says that with the Alter Rebbe this was a regular occurrence, because the Divine Presence spoke through his throat—to the point that he himself did not remember what he had said. “You see, with me,” the Rebbe Rashab says, “I speak. This happened.” [unclear] says l’chaim. “I don’t know what I’m saying. I see it without remembering what I said.” Of course, these words were said with [unclear]. But that is the story regarding the maamarim. And as for Purim, we do indeed find that this is a mitzvah of Purim. What does the Gemara say? “A person is obligated to become intoxicated on Purim.” Rava said: “A person is obligated to become intoxicated on Purim until he does not know.” In other words, on Purim there is an obligation, one of the obligations of Purim. What does “become intoxicated on Purim” mean? Rashi says: “‘Become intoxicated’—with wine.” One must drink wine until, in the simple sense, one reaches a state of “until he does not know,” until he cannot distinguish between “Cursed is Haman” and “Blessed is Mordechai.” He does not remember and does not know how to distinguish between “Cursed is Haman” and “Blessed is Mordechai.” We need to understand the significance of the obligation to drink wine. The Gemara says—and everyone asks—we need to look at the plain meaning, the allusion, the

07:25 homiletic interpretation, and the mystical meaning. There is a whole world surrounding this Gemara: what is going on here, and what is it trying to tell us? But one of the main things we see is that Purim has a special connection to wine. “A person is obligated to become intoxicated”—intoxicated with wine—that is one point. We need to understand: what is the significance of wine here? Why does wine take on such special force and excitement on Purim—“become intoxicated with wine”? And moreover, it has to be “until he does not know.” After all, we drink wine on every Yom Tov, and we make Kiddush over a cup of wine. But on Purim we say that the drinking must be in a way of “becoming intoxicated” and “until he does not know.” “Until he does not know the difference between ‘Cursed is Haman’ and ‘Blessed is Mordechai’”—what is all this about? Why are we talking about wine here? On a simple level, when we look at the Megillah, it makes sense: the Megillah tells us that everything about Purim was connected to wine. Achashverosh loved to drink and held feasts. And at Achashverosh’s feasts, we see that the main excitement centered on wine: “Royal wine in abundance, according to the king’s bounty”; “The drinking was according to the law, with no compulsion.” Later we find that even Vashti held a wine feast. And then we find that the entire Purim miracle was connected to wine. We see that Achashverosh

08:54 Achashverosh loved to drink and loved wine. Queen Esther made use of that and invited Haman and Achashverosh to a meal, to the first wine feast, which was on the night of Pesach. And then, the next day, she said: Come drink wine again, on the second day. And that night, of course, the king’s sleep was disturbed. The entire Purim miracle came about through wine. Especially since Achashverosh was quite a drinker, wine was a way to get something from him. So the whole story of Haman and the whole story of the Purim miracle revolved around wine. On a simple level, then, one could say that this is why we celebrate the Yom Tov with wine, until we do not know: because the entire Purim miracle happened thanks to the wine Achashverosh drank. But the truth is that this first explanation is indeed good and makes good sense. Why is Purim really connected to wine? That is what happened, but what is the deeper meaning? What lies behind it? What does the wine tell us? What is the secret of wine that makes it such a central matter? As we see in Mordechai’s enactment, just as the Gemara says: “A person is obligated to become intoxicated on Purim until he does not know.”

10:15 And the Rebbe once gave a beautiful explanation of this. At a Purim farbrengen, the Rebbe once said, in the spirit of Purim Torah, that Mordechai was a Chassidic Jew. Only a chossid could think of instituting that, after the miracle and everything that had happened, we should say a little more l’chaim. That could only come from a Chassidic Jew. The Rebbe said this in jest. But what is the idea behind it? The Rebbe once explained at a Purim farbrengen: Wine, as we know, is something that brings joy. Wine arouses joy. “Wine that gladdens G-d and people.” In other words, drinking wine makes people happy; that is its nature. But for wine to become wine that brings joy, it must go through a whole process, a whole sequence of steps. If you take grapes—wine grapes, as they say—and eat them as they are, they will not bring you joy. Even if you squeeze them right away, as long as the juice is not yet wine, there is still a whole process that the grapes must undergo.

11:44 The grapes have to be pressed. There is a whole process of pressing, and after that process they become wine. Only then is it wine that brings joy. But the wine was there, hidden. It is not something that must be created from nothing; it is in the grapes, but concealed within them. When you look at grapes, what do you see? You see fruit. But you know there is wine inside. After the whole process, when you press them and keep pressing, the wine comes out, and it becomes wine that gladdens G-d and people. This is an analogy for the Jewish people. The Jewish people are likened to wine. They are likened to a vine, as the verse in chapter 80 of Tehillim says: “You brought a vine out of Egypt; You drove out nations and planted it.” The Jewish people are called a vine. What is a vine? Grape juice, [unclear]. If you take the vine as it appears, as fruit, that alone will not make you happy; you might even get a stomachache. But when you take it and press it, the good wine that gladdens G-d and people is revealed. That is exactly what a Jew is. The vine symbolizes and expresses a Jew’s essence. “The vineyard of Hashem of Hosts is the House of Israel,” as the verse says. The Jewish people are likened to a vine. What does that mean? You see a vine—and what do you see? You see a Jew of flesh and blood, with a body,

13:26 with physicality, [unclear]. But then pressure is applied, and that was the whole story of Purim. The Jewish people had stumbled in various ways: they enjoyed that wicked man’s feast, bowed to an idol, and there were other things. But that was not who they were inside. “Yeshno”—they had fallen asleep. But inwardly, even when the soul is asleep in exile, a Jew is always bound to Hakadosh Boruch Hu. A Jew always has a soul within that burns with a fiery love and joy for Hakadosh Boruch Hu; it is merely covered over. Sometimes pressure is needed, and that was the whole story. The entire story of the Megillah—Haman coming and decreeing “to destroy, kill, and annihilate all the Jews,” events flaring up like fire and people being beside themselves, and [unclear]—all of it was pressure, to bring out the wine, to bring out the [unclear]. And what happened on Purim? The moment Haman applied pressure and issued his decree, the true nature of a Jew was revealed. “Go, gather all the Jews”—the Jews stood firm. As the Alter Rebbe says in Torah Or, throughout that entire year they stood with mesirus nefesh, and not even a single other thought entered their minds, even for a moment. The Jews were so deeply connected, so immersed in faith and the revelation of G-dliness, as expressed in their communities, in public, and in Torah study—it all came from one single point. What gave that beautiful faith such tremendous strength? How was the faith revealed? Through the pressing.

14:53 That is the analogy of the grapes. And that is why wine is central to Purim. That is why we make wine a major part of the Purim celebration. For Purim is the time when a Jew’s inner self is revealed: the good wine, the true joy that emerges through pressing. Sometimes pressure is needed, but the pressure is not the point. The point is that the wine is revealed, that the joy, the light, and the truth come out, and then a Jew’s inner self is revealed. And just as this relates to a Jew’s inner self, it also relates to the inner dimension of Torah. The Rebbe Rashab explained this in his Purim maamarim of 5666: The significance of wine on Purim is that it is the good wine. [unclear] “A person is obligated to become intoxicated on Purim”—this is not just ordinary wine; it is the wine connected to the wine preserved for the time to come. In general, wine has several levels. But the true wine is in the sense of “Your palate is like the finest wine, causing the lips of sleepers to speak.” Yes, there are those who are asleep, dormant in exile. And then comes “Your palate is like the finest wine,” revealing the truth, the inner self, the innermost part of the soul. But this comes through the inner dimension of Torah. As explained, Torah is likened to wine; within Torah itself, the wine of Torah is its inner dimension. And within that, the good wine is

16:19 not merely wine, but the good wine, the preserved wine, the wine found on the highest levels of the inner dimension of Torah. It is about this wine that it says, “causing the lips of sleepers to speak”—through studying the inner dimension of Torah. And so, regarding Purim, this is what people say: Among the Rebbes, it was specifically on Purim that the greatest meals and the most significant events took place. At the Rebbe’s Purim farbrengens, one could see how the Torah flowed, how the words flowed over a cup of wine, how Chassidus flowed. The Rebbe sat for hour after hour, and the words flowed; he delivered the deepest ideas in Chassidus at Purim farbrengens. Why? That is what Purim is about: the good wine is revealed then. When that wine is the wine of the inner dimension of Torah, it reveals the innermost part of the soul. The “Jewish man” is revealed, the innermost part of the soul, as it will be in the future. And when that future inner reality is revealed, all concealments are removed. All the layers of compounded darkness are then dispelled, and the light of Moshiach is revealed, “with joy and gladness and a voice of thanksgiving.” “With great compassion I will gather you”—the promise “For a brief moment I forsook you, but with great compassion I will gather you” is revealed, along with the true and complete Geulah. May Hakadosh Boruch Hu help us celebrate the joy of Purim together—as the Midrash says, all the festivals will cease in the future except Purim—and may we celebrate the joy of Purim

17:44 in the most exalted way, with the complete Geulah through our righteous Moshiach.