Why Did Our Sages Hide the Secret of Purim Specifically in the Laws of Tisha B'Av?

00:00 Who doesn’t know the saying of our Sages, “When Adar begins, we increase in joy”? Do you know where that saying appears? If you asked someone who isn’t well versed in the Talmud where it’s written, they would surely say it’s probably in Tractate Megillah. After all, Tractate Megillah contains all the laws of Purim and the Megillah. So that must be where the saying “When Adar begins, we increase in joy” appears too. But that’s not quite right. Where does it actually appear? In Tractate Taanis. And not just anywhere in Tractate Taanis, but specifically at the end, where it discusses the laws of the month of Menachem Av and Tisha B’Av. There we have the Mishnah: “When Av begins, we decrease in joy.” It’s talking about the month of Av and its laws. What happened in Av? What happened on Tisha B’Av? This is the difficult Gemara that discusses the destruction of the Beis Hamikdash and everything that happened then. And that is precisely where this saying of our Sages appears. The Gemara comments on the Mishnah, which says, “When Av begins, we decrease in joy.” On page 29 of Tractate Taanis, the Gemara says: Just as we say, “When Av begins, we decrease in joy,” so too, “When Adar begins, we increase in joy.” Of all places, where did the Gemara see fit to bring up the joy of the month of Adar? Right in the laws of Tisha B’Av. “Just as when Av begins, we decrease in joy, so when Adar begins, we increase in joy.” The Gemara then continues: Because Adar is a month of joy, if someone has a legal dispute with a non-Jew, he should arrange for it to take place in Adar, because then his mazal, a Jew’s mazal, is stronger, and so on. It’s remarkable. Why is this law about the joy of the month of Adar

02:23 found specifically among the laws of Tisha B’Av, as a kind of continuation? “Just as when Av begins, we decrease in joy, so when Adar begins, we increase in joy.” There’s a very special hint here, and that’s what we’re going to discuss today: the deeper meaning of the joy of Adar. Why is Adar really such a joyful month? So much so that we say its joy is a matter of “increasing in joy.” Why do we learn about this joy specifically from the month of Menachem Av? What connection is there between the two? They seem like complete opposites. So why does the Gemara link them? We learn about the joy of Adar from the decrease in joy during Menachem Av. What connects these two months? What does that teach us? And not only does this not diminish the joy—on the contrary, by presenting the law of “increasing in joy” as a continuation of the discussion of Menachem Av, the Gemara gives us a deeper understanding of just how great this month’s joy is. “The month that was transformed for them from sorrow to joy.” There’s something very interesting here that we also need to notice. We say the entire month of Adar is a month of joy. But why, really? Seemingly, the whole story of Adar took place on just one day. The great miracle of Adar happened on just one day. Look at the Megillah. It says that when Haman came to accuse the Jewish people and, rachmana litzlan, sought to impose that terrible decree on them, what did he say? To destroy, kill and annihilate the entire Jewish people—when? “On one day.” Haman’s whole decree was that he specifically wanted to do it on one day. Nevertheless, we say

04:34 no. True, we celebrate Purim for one day, but throughout the month of Adar we increase in joy. So much so that the Jerusalem Talmud says that, after the fact, one may read Megillas Esther at any point during the month and the reading is valid. This is also brought down—the Rema brings it in the Shulchan Aruch, though in practice we don’t follow that custom. But there is even this idea that, as a matter of basic law, there is reason to say one can read Megillas Esther throughout Adar. The source is actually the Megillah itself. We learn it from a verse there: “It was reversed, so that the Jews gained power over those who hated them.” And later the verses say, “The month that was transformed for them from sorrow to joy and from mourning to a Yom Tov.” It says “the month,” not “the day.” “The month that was transformed.” From there our Sages learn that the entire month is a month of joy. People tell a joke about this. What’s really going on here? Why do we say “the month that was transformed”? So, jokingly, people try to get inside Haman’s head. What was he thinking? Why this obsession with killing the Jewish people in one day? Why did he want to do it all on one day? What difference would it have made to Haman if he had done it over several days? After all, Haman served under Achashverosh, and Achashverosh was, as the Gemara says, a king who ruled the entire world. That is, Achashverosh ruled over all the peoples and all the provinces—127 provinces, as the Gemara says. There are different opinions about exactly how we count those 127 provinces. But as the Gemara indicates, all the Jewish people at that time were under Achashverosh’s rule, so they had nowhere to run. It’s not as if, unless he did it in one day, the Jews would flee from one place to another and then they wouldn’t be able

06:34 to carry it out. The Jews had nowhere to escape. At that time, wherever the Jewish people went, Haman could pursue them. So he had no need to hurry; he could have taken his time. Nevertheless, he said, “One day.” So people joke that Haman knew subconsciously—somewhere in his subconscious, he knew that this would become a holiday. He knew that, in the end, this story would give the Jewish people a holiday. And because of his intense hatred for the Jewish people—he hated Jews so much—he said, “If this is going to become a holiday, I don’t want them celebrating for more than one day.” He didn’t want to give the Jewish people that privilege, that gift, of celebrating for more than one day. So our response is: Haman wanted Purim to be only one day because he didn’t want the Jewish people to have more than one day of celebration. The Megillah comes and says, “Know this: a month.” Throughout the month we increase in joy. The whole month of Adar is a month of joy. It’s a nice saying, a nice line, but we really need to understand the matter more deeply. Why do we say the entire month of Adar is a month of joy? Just because that’s what the Megillah says? That itself needs explaining: Why does the Megillah tell us, “The month that was transformed for them,” making the entire month of Adar a month of joy? The truth is that we learn this, too, from Menachem Av, from Av. And here is the connection between the two. What connects Adar and Menachem Av? It’s this point as well: the time itself has a character. In other words,

08:22 the fact that it was Tisha B’Av, the fact that it was the month of Av—we say, “When Av begins, we decrease in joy.” As the Gemara itself says in that discussion in Tractate Taanis, “Good things come about on an auspicious day, and bad things on an inauspicious day.” In other words, the destruction of the Beis Hamikdash happened in Menachem Av because the time, the period—the month of Menachem Av—was a month in which negative events had occurred from the very beginning of our history. That made it a time that was, chas veshalom, the opposite of auspicious. As the Gemara relates, back when the Jewish people were in the desert, this was when the episode of the spies took place. “That night, the people wept.” The story in Parshas Shelach tells us that the Jewish people wept that night out of fear of going up to the Land of Israel, and Hakadosh Boruch Hu said that it would become a night of weeping for generations. So the period, the time, was inauspicious, and later various events recurred on that same day. In other words, there is a kind of negative energy that made this an unfavorable period. And this is what the Gemara is trying to tell us: Just as, when Menachem Av arrives, the time itself—its energy—has made this month one in which we decrease in joy, the same applies to Adar. It isn’t just about that one day. There is a positive energy, something very, very positive about Adar, that has made the entire month a month of joy. What is that positive energy in Adar? Here we come to a teaching of our Sages in Tractate Megillah. The Gemara says that when Haman cast the pur—the lot—to find out which month to choose for the decree he wanted to carry out against the Jewish people, rachmana litzlan, the lot fell on the sign of Pisces, the month of

10:34 Adar is the month whose mazal is Pisces, the fish. So the lot fell on the month of Adar. The Midrash says that Haman rejoiced in his heart. Why Adar? Because he knew that Adar was the month in which the savior of the Jewish people died. Moshe Rabbeinu passed away on 7 Adar. So Haman said: This month, in which the savior of the Jewish people died, is the most suitable month. He saw it as something negative. If Moshe Rabbeinu, the savior of the Jewish people, passed away in this month, that means it is a negative month, a bad month for the Jewish people. And the fish fit his thinking too: just as a big fish swallows a small fish, he would swallow the Jewish people, the small nation. That was Haman’s calculation. But as the Gemara says, he did not know that the savior of the Jewish people not only died in Adar; he was also born in Adar. Moshe Rabbeinu was born on 7 Adar. The whole beginning of the Jewish people’s joy—the birth of their savior—began in Adar. So on the contrary, Adar is a month of joy. The birth is worthy of atoning for the death. As the Midrash explains, the very fact that Moshe Rabbeinu was born in Adar is the month’s true strength. What do we see from this Gemara? We see that we are not looking only at the day. Moshe Rabbeinu passed away on a particular day, 7 Adar. Purim is on 14 Adar, with the entire decree and miracle of Purim. Nevertheless, the Gemara says that Haman’s joy—and his mistake—concerned the month. He saw Adar as a month in which he could harm the Jewish people, and it turned out to be the opposite: Adar is an especially wonderful month for the Jewish people. And here we

12:34 can now understand and read Rashi. Rashi’s comment on this Gemara is very interesting. Everyone asks about it. The Gemara there, on page 29 of Tractate Taanis, says: “When Adar enters, we increase in joy.” Rashi addresses this and asks: What does it mean? Why do we increase in joy when Adar enters? Rashi says: “They were days of miracles for the Jewish people: Purim and Pesach.” Remarkable! Days of miracles for the Jewish people—Purim and Pesach. All the commentators ask: What is Pesach doing in this Rashi? We are talking about Adar. Why mention Pesach? Pesach is in Nissan, not Adar. The commentators generally answer that these are two connected months, close to each other. That is what Rashi is trying to tell us. He wants to explain why we increase in joy as soon as Adar enters—why the joy extends through the whole month of Adar. Seemingly, Purim is only one day. So Rashi answers: Purim and Pesach. Because the miracles come in close succession, we move from Purim to Pesach. In the Gemara’s words, we “join one Geulah to another.” In other words, these Geulos took place around the same time, Purim and Pesach, so we begin rejoicing already in Adar. It is an ongoing joy that begins with Purim and continues through Pesach. That is how most commentators answer. But the truth is that, based on the Gemara we just discussed—the story of Haman—the explanation is much deeper and more wonderful. As we said, Haman’s whole reason for rejoicing was that he saw Adar as a wonderful month in which to do something bad to the Jewish people. What did he see in Adar? It was the time of Moshe Rabbeinu, the savior of the Jewish people: the savior of the Jewish people had died. That was how he saw it. But he did not know

14:37 that, on the contrary, Adar is the month of Moshe’s birth. The Rebbe once gave a wonderful explanation of why Moshe’s birth is so significant in relation to his passing. We know that when Moshe Rabbeinu was born, the entire house filled with light. Already at his birth, it was apparent that death does not apply to Moshe Rabbeinu in the way it does, G-d forbid, to everyone else. As the Gemara says in Tractate Sotah, Moshe Rabbeinu did not die. In other words, the house filled with light when he was born; the light was visible from the very day of his birth. Why light? Because Moshe Rabbeinu’s entire being is Torah, and he brings Torah to the Jewish people. Moshe Rabbeinu, in essence, stands and serves on high even today, as the Gemara in Sotah says. So for him, death does not have the same meaning. Therefore Adar is a month of Geulah—not only the Geulah of Purim, but of Pesach too. After all, Pesach is the Geulah brought about through Moshe Rabbeinu. Hakadosh Boruch Hu sends Moshe Rabbeinu to redeem the Jewish people. When did the story of Pesach begin? It began in Adar, when the savior of the Jewish people was born on 7 Adar. So 7 Adar is not connected only with Purim; it is connected with Pesach as well, through the birth of Moshe Rabbeinu. The two festivals, Purim and Pesach, thus have a deep, inner, essential connection, and that is why the whole month of Adar is a month of joy. Based on this, we can begin to understand more deeply the teaching of our Sages that links the joy of Adar with the month of Menachem Av: Just as when Av enters, so when Adar enters, we increase in joy. The Gemara is hinting at the character,

16:33 the kind, the very essence of that joy. Why is Adar a month of such great joy? We increase in joy. And not just any increase in joy: it is unbounded joy. We see this in the halachah concerning Purim, which says that our joy must reach the point of ad d’lo yada, “until one does not know.” The joy of Purim is unbounded. There is no joy like it at any other time of year. What is it about Purim, about Adar, that calls for increased joy—joy that reaches ad d’lo yada, unbounded joy? The answer is that the joy of Purim emerges from darkness. Light has an advantage when it emerges from darkness. King Shlomo says in Koheles: “I saw that wisdom has an advantage over folly, as light has an advantage over darkness.” There are two kinds of light. There is natural light, and there is light that emerges from darkness. When darkness is transformed into light, that light is immense; it is a different kind of light. Natural, ordinary light is beautiful, pleasant, good. But when light emerges from darkness, it is much greater. That is what is special about the joy of Purim, unlike any other time of year: it comes from “and it was reversed.” It is ishapcha, the transformation of darkness into light. After all, what happened at Purim? Purim came after the destruction of the Beis Hamikdash. It followed Tisha B’Av. The Jewish people had experienced the destruction of Tisha B’Av, the destruction of the First Beis Hamikdash, and had gone into exile in Babylon. The Babylonian exile lasted seventy years. Then, toward the end of those seventy years, came the well-known story of why Achashverosh brought out the vessels of the Beis Hamikdash and celebrated with them. The Gemara tells us that one reason Achashverosh held the great feast described in the Megillah, and brought out the vessels of the Beis Hamikdash, was that by his reckoning the seventy years had already passed. He had made a particular calculation

18:45 according to which he thought seventy years had passed. There were Jewish people who also thought that way and therefore took part in the feast. They had given up hope of the Geulah, may Heaven have mercy. But it was a mistake. So the whole story of Purim is a continuation of Tisha B’Av, a continuation of the destruction of the Beis Hamikdash. Then Haman wanted, may Heaven have mercy, to destroy the Jewish people, to bring the destruction to its ultimate conclusion. That was why Haman rejoiced when he saw that the lot had fallen in Adar, the month in which Moshe, the leader of the Jewish people, had died. Now the destruction could be carried through to the end. But he did not know the truth: it was entirely the opposite. As they say of Moshe Rabbeinu, Moshe did not die. On the contrary, Moshe Rabbeinu lives on, the Torah of Moshe lives on, and the Jewish people live on. Destruction does not define the Jewish people. Quite the opposite: the moment the Jewish people were aroused to teshuvah—as happened in the story of Purim, the story of the Megillah—“it was reversed.” What does “it was reversed” mean? As the Gemara says, “The mouth that forbade is the mouth that permitted.” The same Haman—the same Achashverosh, sorry, the same Achashverosh who sealed Haman’s decree with the king’s signet ring—said, “Write concerning the Jews as you see fit.” “It was reversed, so that the Jews ruled over those who hated them.” That is the greatest joy of Purim: the advantage of light that comes from darkness—“it was reversed.” This is what the Gemara hints at. The Gemara comes and tells us: What accounts for the great joy of Adar? Just as we diminish joy when Menachem Av arrives, so too it is from that darkness that we reach the great light. Adar is, in essence, the rectification of the destruction of the Beis Hamikdash. It reveals the deeper meaning of that entire destruction: it was for the sake of a deeper Geulah. “It was reversed”—from darkness, we reach light.

20:50 Great, and that is why there is joy throughout the month of Adar. Because it is not just Purim itself. It is connected with Moshe Rabbeinu, it is connected with the essence of the Torah, and it actually explains something else as well. It explains what the Gemara says in tractate Shabbos about the giving of the Torah. The Gemara says something remarkable. When Hakadosh Boruch Hu gave the Torah to the Jewish people, Moshe Rabbeinu—once again, we come back to Moshe Rabbeinu—came and gave them the Torah. On Shavuos, he gave them the Torah. There was the episode of “He held the mountain over them like a barrel.” There was a kind of coercion. As explained, the very fact that Hakadosh Boruch Hu performed such great miracles for the Jewish people was itself a kind of coercion. They felt so indebted, so connected, that they said, “We will do, and we will hear.” But afterward, the Gemara says, there were excuses: “No, we didn’t want this. No, no, no, we weren’t ready,” and so on. “A strong claim of coercion against the Torah”—the famous Gemara. The Gemara continues there in tractate Shabbos: “They accepted it again in the days of Achashverosh.” When did the Jewish people accept the Torah willingly, with love and joy? On Purim. Specifically Purim. When the whole story of Purim took place—the decree of Purim and the miracle of Purim—that was when the Jewish people accepted the Torah anew, with love and willingness. So when was the giving of the Torah completed? It was completed on Purim. Purim is the completion of accepting the Torah. So it turns out that Purim is the holiday that expresses the deeper meaning of Pesach, and that is what Rashi tells us: “They are days of joy for the Jewish people, days of miracles for the Jewish people.” The miracles here are really the miracles of Purim and Pesach, which complete one another. It began on Pesach; that is when the redemption of the Jewish people began, leading to the giving of the Torah. But then the revelation came from above. The Jewish people were not yet fully ready for it, and so afterward

22:46 there were all the problems and the excuses that followed. On Purim, the Jewish people accepted the Torah completely, and so the redemption, too, was more complete. That is why the joy of Purim is even greater according to halachah. Specifically on Purim, the joy is greater even than on Pesach—unlimited joy, because the superiority of light comes from the darkness itself. And that is where we are now, in the month of Adar. Every single day of Adar, we increase in joy. Unlimited joy. The joy of “it was turned around.” So just as it was in those days, so too in our time, in the month of Adar. Each and every one of us should use these great days of Adar to hold joyous gatherings, to hold parties, to celebrate, to rejoice and bring joy to others, to be joyful and make celebrations of joy—with the joy of Adar reaching the point of ad d’lo yada. Especially on Purim, that joy will burst forth. As is known, joy breaks through barriers. Joy will break through every partition, and this will also bring about, just as in those days, so too in our time, “it was turned around, so that the Jews ruled over those who hated them.” May there already be victory over all the darkness, the victory of holiness over impurity, of good over evil. May there truly be the complete Geulah already, the greatest joy, the joy of ad d’lo yada, and “eternal joy upon their heads,” with the redemption through our righteous Moshiach, speedily in our days. Amen.