Preparing for Purim - The Characters of the Megillah in Light of Chassidus

00:00 Who isn’t thirsty for a word of hope, of encouragement, of reassurance? In these days, in this momentous time, amid a darkness that has deepened over the many months we’ve been waiting and hoping: When will this nightmare finally end? When will the pain and suffering end? When will the terrible news that reaches us day after day finally stop? When will we finally reach that long-awaited moment when light triumphs over darkness? The long-awaited moment of Geulah that we all hope for—when we, the entire Jewish people in Eretz Yisroel and the Diaspora and throughout the world, will finally see the great light of the complete Geulah. When the month of Adar arrives and Purim draws near, the hope and confidence within each of us surely grow even stronger. Megillas Esther is really the story of our lives. It’s the story of the Jewish people—not only the story of Haman and Achashverosh two thousand years ago, with Mordechai, Esther, and the Jewish people living in Persia and Media on the other side. The story of the Megillah is the story of the Jewish people in every generation. In every generation, they rise against us to destroy us, and Hakadosh Boruch Hu saves us from their hands. In every generation there is a Haman, in one form or another, under one name or another. And in every generation there are Mordechai and Queen Esther, and we see the miracles and wonders Hashem shows us. Right now, we’re waiting and hoping for the Purim miracle of 5784, the Purim miracle of our generation, of our time. Surely, as Purim approaches, hope beats within us and awakens in each of us: that this year, in these very days, we won’t have to wait any longer. We will truly merit to see the miracles and wonders, to see how Divine Providence directs events, just as it did in the Purim story.

02:27 And in the most wonderful and complete way. Megillas Esther is a living Megillah, a living story, a story unfolding now. The Baal Shem Tov gives us a wonderful explanation of “One who reads the Megillah backward has not fulfilled his obligation.” The Gemara says—the Mishnah says, and it is brought in halachah—that when you read Megillas Esther, you must read it in order. You begin, “And it was in the days of Achashverosh,” and read chapter after chapter until the end of the Megillah: “For Mordechai the Jew was favored by most of his brethren,” and so on. The Megillah is read in order. Someone who reads it backward—say, by starting with the last chapter, because sometimes you just can’t wait to find out how the story ends—the Mishnah says he has not fulfilled his obligation. You can’t read the Megillah out of order. You have to read it in the order it was written. But the Baal Shem Tov says there is a deeper explanation here. “One who reads the Megillah backward,” says the Mishnah: a person who reads the story of the Megillah as something that happened back then, in the past. Once upon a time, three thousand—two thousand years ago, sorry—there was a story in Persia and Media, with King Achashverosh and all that happened. Someone who reads the Megillah as a story from the past has not fulfilled his obligation. In other words, when we fulfill the mitzvah of Megillas Esther, when we read and delve into the Megillah, we must see it as a story unfolding now, a living story. Now, there are two ways to understand this. One is on a broader, collective level, concerning the Jewish people as a whole. As we said, the story of the Megillah is the story of Jewish history in every generation. On that broader level, of course, the characters are always there. There is always a King Achashverosh in history, under a different name,

04:40 in another country. There is Haman—the figure of Haman appears throughout history. And on the other side, of course, there are Queen Esther and Mordechai. In one form or another, the story keeps repeating itself in the history of the Jewish people: Hakadosh Boruch Hu saves the Jewish people from all their enemies and shows us that He is with us and loves us. As our Sages say, “One lamb among seventy wolves, yet it is protected.” The Jewish people are one lamb, surrounded by seventy wolves who all want to devour us, and Hakadosh Boruch Hu is the great Shepherd who, as our Sages say, guards the lamb. But today we’ll take the story of the Megillah and look at it in the wonderful, profound way Chassidus explains it: the Megillah within the soul, the Megillah in a Jew’s life of serving Hashem, especially at this time. From Megillas Esther we can receive guidance; we can learn from the story how a Jew lives in days of darkness, in days of exile, and what a Jew’s avodah is precisely in these difficult days. Of course, we could talk endlessly about the Megillah and examine every one of its characters. We won’t manage that in a single class. So today we’ll choose one character from the Megillah and try to go into some detail: what she represents in our personal lives, in the soul of every Jew, and what we can learn from some of the details, as much as time allows, to guide us in our service of Hashem. As we said, Megillas Esther is the story of a Jew in moments of darkness, in moments of exile, in moments when Hashem’s face is hidden—which is, in fact, the situation the Jewish people are in right now. And the story of the Megillah, with all its details, is part of the sacred writings. “Write me down for the generations,” Queen Esther requested, and it was included there, because

07:15 every word of the Megillah, every letter of the Megillah, contains layers upon layers of the most wondrous secrets. But we’ll focus on just a part of it, a few verses. We’ll choose the most central character in the Megillah: Esther, after whom it is called Megillas Esther. We’ll take the character of Queen Esther and try to understand what she represents in the life of every Jew, and what the details the Megillah gives us mean for us. Let’s read the first verse that speaks about Queen Esther. In the second chapter of Megillas Esther, in verse 7, after the Megillah tells us in verse 5, “There was a Jewish man in Shushan the capital, whose name was Mordechai son of Yair, son of Shimi, son of Kish, a Benjaminite”—introducing us to Mordechai the Jew—the Megillah continues in verse 7: “And he raised Hadassah, who is Esther, his uncle’s daughter, for she had neither father nor mother.” The Megillah tells us who this Esther was—the Esther we’re about to read about throughout the Megillah, the central figure through whom the wondrous miracle of Purim came about. So we learn that Queen Esther was Mordechai’s cousin. Mordechai had an uncle named Avichayil, and Avichayil had a daughter named Esther. Mordechai and Esther were cousins. The Megillah tells us that Esther was an orphan, and Mordechai took her in. “And he raised”—Mordechai was the one who brought up Hadassah, who is Esther. So here we discover that Esther actually had two names: Hadassah and Esther. Now, interestingly, the name Hadassah appears only once. That’s it. But it seems as though it was her better-known name, her original name, because

09:47 First, the Megillah calls her Hadassah, and then it says, “Hadassah is Esther.” Okay, she has another name, Esther—and suddenly that name becomes the name of the Megillah. We never hear the name Hadassah again, not once; it’s Esther all the way through. During the decree, after the decree, even at the time of the victory, right to the end of the Megillah, the only name that appears is Esther. So that’s already something we want to understand. What’s going on here? Is she Hadassah or is she Esther? And why is it important for us to know? If the Megillah wants to call her only Esther, why tell us that she had another name too, that she was also called Hadassah? Why does that matter? What is its significance? Especially since, as we said, the Megillah doesn’t even return to it. It just says, “Hadassah is Esther,” and that’s it. What’s the story here? Then, as the Megillah goes on, it tells us everything that happened: how Achashverosh gathered many young women to Shushan the capital. We hear all kinds of details about what Achashverosh gave each of them while he was searching for a queen: “When each young woman’s turn came, she was given six months with oil of myrrh, six months with perfumes and women’s cosmetics, and with these the young woman would come to the king.” But when it comes to Queen Esther, the Megillah tells us in verse 15: “When the turn of Esther, daughter of Avichayil, Mordechai’s uncle, who had taken her as a daughter, came to go to the king, she asked for nothing.” She asks for nothing, and the story continues that she, of all people, is the one the king chooses: “Esther was taken to the king,” and then comes the rest of the wonderful story of Purim. So we want to understand the message. What can we learn from this? What does it tell us? Who is Queen Esther, what does she represent in our lives, and what do the details we’ve just read mean? What do they represent

11:59 in our everyday lives? When we look in the Gemara, we find something interesting. In Megillah, page 13, the Gemara says that Hadassah is a name associated with the righteous. That’s what the Gemara says: Hadassah is connected with the righteous, and it cites the verse, “And he was standing among the myrtles,” which represent the righteous. That’s in Megillah, page 13. Elsewhere, in Sanhedrin, the Gemara adds more detail. “And he was standing among the myrtles” is a prophecy of Zechariah the prophet, who lived around the time of the Megillah of Esther. He was one of the last prophets; he lived in that period. In his prophecy, Zechariah saw a company of horses, “and he was standing among the myrtles.” Who are the myrtles? The Gemara says they are the righteous Chananiah, Mishael, and Azariah. We know the story of Chananiah, Mishael, and Azariah, don’t we? They lived during the Babylonian exile, and they were Jews who showed genuine mesirus nefesh. Even though they were in the household of Nevuchadnetzar, the king of Babylon, when the great test came—when Nevuchadnetzar wanted everyone to bow down to his image—they were the ones who stood firm with mesirus nefesh and were thrown into the fiery furnace. As the story continues, with all its well-known details. So those are the myrtles: just as myrtles have a pleasant fragrance, the righteous have a pleasant fragrance too. That’s the meaning of Hadassah. She was called Hadassah because she was a righteous woman. As for Esther, the Gemara says that in Persian the name is associated with the moon. Esther comes from istahar, the Persian word for the moon. In other words, just as the moon shines at night, Esther shone in the night, in the darkness. It was a time, a moment, of darkness, a moment of exile, and she brought light to the Jewish people in that darkness.

14:30 We know that the moon represents something much deeper. The moon symbolizes the Jewish people. As we say in Kiddush Levanah, “They are destined to be renewed like it.” The Jewish people are like the moon. The moon has moments of darkness: at the end of the month, when it disappears from sight, it becomes completely dark. Then it begins to shine anew, until it reaches the fullness of its light. The Jewish people, too, have moments of darkness and moments of light. Esther is connected with the Jewish people in this moonlike state. What’s more, the Gemara in Chullin, page 139b, asks about Esther: “Where is Esther alluded to in the Torah?” The Gemara asks where the name Esther appears in the Torah, and answers with a verse in Parshas Vayeilech, at the end of the Chumash: “And I will surely hide My face on that day.” In other words, the name Esther represents the hiding of Hashem’s face: “And I will surely hide My face on that day.” Hakadosh Boruch Hu says that a time will come when He will hide Himself. These are the dark moments of exile, when Hakadosh Boruch Hu hides His face from the Jewish people, and that is what the name Esther represents. So what is the positive message here? At first glance, Esther sounds like a negative name, a name that speaks of Hashem hiding His face. But no, G-d forbid—that’s a mistake. And that is really the message of this verse in the Megillah: “Hadassah is Esther.” They are not two separate things. When we say, “And I will surely hide My face on that day,” the verse carries an immense, profoundly positive message. It is a powerful, empowering message, one that gives us strength in the hardest moments of exile. What the verse tells us—or, as the Baal Shem Tov explains it—is that “And I will surely hide My face on that day” comes to tell

17:04 us that even when there is concealment, if you look only on the surface, what do you see? You see Hashem’s face hidden. You see darkness. You see an extremely difficult exile. But know this: within that concealment is Anochi, “I Myself”—that very Anochi, Hakadosh Boruch Hu, who stood at Mount Sinai, revealed Himself to each and every person, and said, “I am Hashem your G-d.” I Myself, Anochi, am your strength; “Hashem your G-d”—your strength and your life. So that very Anochi says, “I will surely hide My face.” Within the concealment, within the covering, within all of this, who is there? Anochi. Hakadosh Boruch Hu is here. And that is the story of the Megillah of Esther. The story of the Megillah of Esther is the story of the Jewish people and the story of every one of us. When we are in this physical world, living in the darkness of exile, there is the reality of Hashem’s face being hidden. The soul is literally a part of G-d above. The soul of every Jew is a pure soul, as the Alter Rebbe explains in Tanya: “The second soul in a Jew is literally a part of G-d above.” The soul is beneath the Throne of Glory. The soul is above in Gan Eden, delighting in the radiance of the Shechinah. That is the soul of every single Jew. This pure soul is a Hadassah. Every Jewish soul, without exception, is in its very essence a Hadassah. It has the wonderful fragrance of strength, mesirus nefesh, and the power of faith. In the very essence of a Jew, pure, wholehearted, steadfast faith in Hakadosh Boruch Hu is engraved in the soul. That is our root; that is where we belong. We say it every morning when we wake up, in the morning blessings: “My G-d, the soul You have given me is pure.” The soul is pure. We don’t say that it was once pure; it is pure now, too. “It is pure.” But the soul descends into this world: “You created it, You

19:50 “You formed it; You breathed it into me.” The soul descends from one stage to the next, from one level to another, from world to world, and becomes clothed in a physical body. And alongside the yetzer tov dwells the yetzer hara. In the language of Tanya, this is the animal soul found in the heart of every person. As Tanya explains, on the right side is the G-dly soul, and on the left side dwells the animal soul. From there come negative character traits, negative thoughts, improper speech, and improper actions. It all comes from the animal soul. So here we have the concealment of Hashem’s face, and this is where Haman enters. Haman represents evil. Haman represents the force of arrogance. King Achashverosh elevated Haman. Haman is a symbol of arrogance, selfishness, egocentrism—of a person seeing only himself and his own needs. Haman is the symbol of arrogance. We see this throughout the Megillah, in every detail, and he wants “to destroy, to kill, and to annihilate all the Jews.” In other words, what does he want? He wants to destroy the Jew within us. The Jew. The Jew is that strength, that faith, the ability to give thanks to Hakadosh Boruch Hu. We are all Jews; that is what we are called in the Megillah. It’s remarkable. Throughout Tanach, in all sorts of places, the Jewish people are called the people of Israel, the children of Israel, the children of Yaakov, and other names. But in Megillas Esther, the Jewish people are called Jews—as they are in Ezra and Nechemiah. In other words, it is specifically in this period that we are all called Jews. Of course, there are many explanations for this, but one is what the Gemara in Megillah says: “Anyone who rejects idolatry is called a Jew.” Because the meaning of a Jew is that he acknowledges, believes, and recognizes the truth. Every Jew has this acknowledgment. “Modeh Ani lefanecha”—“I thank You.” You get up in the morning and say Modeh Ani. Modeh Ani is really the Jewish core, the Jewish spark, the pintele Yid, what we call our Jewish essence, which is always connected to Hakadosh Boruch Hu. And that strength is present in

22:14 each and every one of us. Haman wants to destroy, kill, and annihilate the Jew. Queen Esther represents our pure soul, which is inside this concealment. She is in the house of King Achashverosh. What is King Achashverosh? The Midrash says that Achashverosh refers to Hakadosh Boruch Hu. Achashverosh is a kind of acronym, a kind of allusion: “the end and the beginning are His.” The King, Hakadosh Boruch Hu, to whom the end and the beginning belong, is everywhere—at the beginning, at the end, and in the middle. Hakadosh Boruch Hu is present even during exile, even in moments of darkness, but His face is concealed. The Gemara says: “When they were exiled to Bavel, the Shechinah was with them; when they were exiled to Media, to Eilam and Persia, the Shechinah was with them; when they were exiled to Edom, the Shechinah was with them.” The Shechinah goes with the Jewish people: “I am with him in distress.” Hakadosh Boruch Hu is with us even in exile, but His presence is itself in a state of exile. The Shechinah is in exile. That leaves room for some Haman to come along, grow powerful, and feel as though he is in charge here and can do whatever he wants. And here we return to Queen Esther. The verse tells us about Mordechai the Jew. Mordechai is the one who stands firm. Mordechai is the one for whom things are illuminated. He is the tzaddik who sees things with the greatest clarity, and “Mordechai would not bow or prostrate himself.” His Jewishness is present with all its strength, firmness, and pride. So “he was raising Hadassah, that is Esther.” Mordechai educated, guided, taught, and raised her. What does “raising” mean here? It means educating. An educator is someone who trains a person. What is the educator’s role? To accustom a young person to things, teach him, and develop him until he can stand on his own two feet. A baby, a small child, doesn’t know anything at all. He needs someone to raise him, someone to help him learn—even in physical matters—how to walk, how to stand, how to

24:57 eat, how to touch things, how to do things. And of course, the same applies to spiritual education: helping him become a person, a person with values. That is what it means to raise someone. The verse tells us—and here we come to the wonderful lesson of Megillas Esther: What did Mordechai do? “He was raising Hadassah, that is Esther.” In other words, Mordechai speaks to the Jew who is experiencing the concealment of Hashem’s face. He reminds him, teaches him, and engraves this within him: Know that these are not two separate things. Hadassah is Esther. She is the very same pure soul, and she is within you. In your essence, you are Hadassah. Esther—we are now in a state of concealment, but what does that concealment mean? These are not two separate things. Don’t think we are talking about two different states: Once I was a pure soul; before I was born, when my soul was above in Gan Eden, in the World of Atzilus, my soul was Hadassah, but now it is Esther. When we had the Beis Hamikdash, when times were good, there were days when the Jewish people were holy, pure, and righteous. There were such times, but our generation—our generation is a weak generation, a generation that has declined. We are not Hadassah; that belongs to the past. Today we are Esther. Mordechai is the one who educates us, teaches us, opens our eyes, and tells us: You should know, friends, Hadassah is Esther. Hadassah is Esther. That Hadassah is present even within this concealment. Your soul is inside a body, alongside the animal soul and the yetzer hara and all the rest, but in your very essence, nothing has changed. That is the strength behind mesirus nefesh and “I will surely hide My face.” Within the concealment, the Jew’s burning faith remains in full force. That is why you can overcome every challenge and everything that interferes with your service of Hashem, and reach the deepest and most wonderful things. This is really what the Megillah goes on to tell us when it says: “And when her father and mother died, Mordechai took her

27:38 as his daughter.” Let’s explain this according to the spiritual meaning of the words. Tanya explains that when we speak of “her father and mother,” there are a father and mother in the literal sense, biological parents. But there are also a father and mother in the spiritual sense. Spiritually, father and mother refer to chochmah, binah, and daas. They are called father and mother because the feelings of love of Hashem and awe of Hashem come from them. When a person contemplates Hashem’s greatness, using chochmah and binah, this gives birth within him to love for Hakadosh Boruch Hu and awe of Hakadosh Boruch Hu. The verse says, “And when her father and mother died”: There come moments of darkness when the mind isn’t working. We can’t concentrate, can’t contemplate Hashem’s greatness, can’t awaken love of Hashem and awe of Hashem. When the Beis Hamikdash stood, or at other times of light for the Jewish people, things were different. We could see Hashem’s greatness; there were days when we saw Hashem’s hand openly. Then each person had “her father and mother”: he had understanding and contemplation, which brought him love of Hashem and awe of Hashem, and through them he served Hakadosh Boruch Hu. But here, “when her father and mother died,” we find ourselves in moments when the mind does not function. It is hard to understand what is happening. We have many questions, many difficulties, many things that leave us bewildered by the situation, and love of Hashem and awe of Hashem are at their lowest point. “Mordechai took her as his daughter”: Mordechai arrives, the one whose faith shines with full force. This Mordechai, of whom it says, “He would not bow or prostrate himself.” He is not shaken by any of the hardships of exile, and Mordechai raised Hadassah, that is Esther. Mordechai, we might say, represents the tzaddik who is the leader of the generation, the tzaddikim of each generation who teach us, help us find our bearings, teach us how to see things correctly, and strengthen the faith of the Jewish people. As the Midrash says, Mordechai in his generation was like Moshe in his generation. And in every generation there is a Moshe Rabbeinu, this Mordechai,

30:06 He is the one who stands with mesirus nefesh and strengthens the Jew in each and every one of us. Mordechai, in essence, represents the power of Torah, of Torah study. That is what gives each of us the strength to withstand the challenges in this darkness of exile. So Mordechai raised Hadassah, who is Esther. He teaches her; he engraves in Hadassah the understanding that Hadassah is Esther—that this is our true essence. And with that strength, we can keep going without being shaken. True, we will call you Esther all the time now, because we are living in a time when Hashem’s face is hidden. But Hadassah is Esther. And I take that with me through this whole journey, through this long process that we are now going to follow in Megillas Esther, where Haman and Achashverosh are present in the time of exile, with everything that is going to happen. Queen Esther stands firm, and she succeeds in bringing about the reversal: turning darkness into light, evil into good, mourning into Yom Tov, turning everything from the very, very darkest place into the most wonderful, most extraordinary place. What is Queen Esther’s defining quality? Here we come to an especially wonderful lesson and teaching in serving Hashem. What does the Megillah show us about Queen Esther’s essence? The Megillah says: “She asked for nothing.” When each young woman’s turn came, there were all kinds of things the king provided and that they could request—the women’s cosmetics, oil of myrrh, and perfumes. But when the turn came for Esther, daughter of Avichayil, Mordechai’s uncle, the Megillah says: “She asked for nothing.” What does this story of “she asked for nothing” signify? It signifies the Jewish soul, its extraordinary strength. What is a Jew? When the hardest moments come, we have seen it recently in a way that is simply moving. What we have seen among the Jewish people, especially in recent months, stirs something extraordinary. We see it in an extraordinary way. A Jew, the soul of a Jew,

32:28 a Jew who stands face to face with the truth, with Hakadosh Boruch Hu, and with faith, says: I don’t need anything. There is that approach of “give me.” On ordinary days, we see ourselves coming to Hakadosh Boruch Hu in prayer and saying: Give me—give me a livelihood, give me health, give me material things, give me spiritual things. What will I gain from this? What is the benefit? It does something for me. I want to receive. I want to receive Gan Eden. I want to receive the World to Come. I want to receive this world. But precisely at the hardest moments in the history of the Jewish people, we see something wonderful and astonishing. We see it now, in our own days, in the conduct of soldiers and Jews, precisely at moments when Hashem’s face is most deeply hidden: “She asked for nothing.” I don’t want anything. I don’t want anything. Meaning, I don’t want anything for myself. I want the King. “She asked for nothing.” I want Hakadosh Boruch Hu. There is a saying that the Rebbe would repeat often, and he would usually be moved to tears when he said it. It is a saying of the Alter Rebbe that he would often repeat with deep feeling: “I don’t want anything.” It is as though he is speaking to the Master of the Universe and saying: Master of the Universe, I don’t want anything. I don’t want Gan Eden; I don’t want the World to Come. I want only You, You Yourself. What is the depth of this prayer? What is the depth of this expression, of this request? A Jew has an absolute devotion to Hakadosh Boruch Hu—the mesirus nefesh of a Jew. I want to be Yours. That is all. I’m not asking for anything. I’m not asking for a material reward or a spiritual reward. I just want to be Yours.

34:44 And that is what the Megillah shows us. “When the turn came for Esther, daughter of Avichayil, Mordechai’s uncle”—“she asked for nothing.” I want to be Yours, to belong to Hakadosh Boruch Hu. And precisely then, “Esther was taken to King Achashverosh”—as we said, the King of the universe. Throughout the rest of the Megillah, Esther stands in the courtyard and touches the tip of the scepter, and the whole story continues in this direction. A pure Jewish soul awakens to teshuvah, awakens to connect with Hakadosh Boruch Hu, and then that soul emerges from all the darkness, from everything that obstructs and conceals. The G-dly light in the soul shines in the most wonderful way. And then we see measure for measure: the moment a Jew awakens to teshuvah, the moment a Jew stirs his innermost self and awakens his true essence, then “On that night, the king’s sleep was disturbed.” The Midrash says: the king’s sleep—the sleep of the King of the universe. The Jewish people awaken from sleep, and Hakadosh Boruch Hu, so to speak, also awakens from sleep. Chas v’shalom, “The Guardian of Israel neither slumbers nor sleeps.” But sometimes Hakadosh Boruch Hu makes Himself appear, so to speak, as though He is sleeping. That is what the Midrash says. And this is to awaken us from sleep. The moment a Jew awakens from sleep and uncovers what lies within “I will surely hide My face,” uncovers his true essence—Hadassah is Esther—awakens his power of mesirus nefesh, and strengthens himself to draw close to Hakadosh Boruch Hu, this brings about, measure for measure, something we see in the most wonderful way. “The king’s sleep was disturbed”—this is the pivotal moment of the miracle. Then comes everything that follows, the great reversal: “Thus shall be done to the man whom the king desires to honor.” This refers to Mordechai the Jew. Then the city of Shushan rejoiced and was glad, and “For the Jews there was light and joy, gladness and honor.” And as we conclude in Havdalah: So may it be for us. This is the message we take for our own days: may we merit to see it in these days in the most revealed

37:12 and complete way. May each and every one of us merit to be redeemed from this deep, doubled darkness. May we merit to see with our own eyes how “On that night, the king’s sleep was disturbed.” May we merit to see the wonderful light of the complete Geulah that we all await, when “For the Jews there was light and joy, gladness and honor”—so may it be for us. And this month, the month that was transformed for them from grief to joy, from mourning to Yom Tov—may that happen now as well, in those days and in our time. May we merit complete joy, the joy of Purim and the joy of the true and complete Geulah through Moshiach Tzidkeinu.