Why Is Purim Gadol Even Greater Than Yom Kippur? The Secret of the Holiday in Light of Chassidus

00:00 “All the festivals are destined to be nullified except for Purim.” So says the Midrash, Yalkut Shimoni on Mishlei. Purim is the most important festival of the year—to the point that even when Moshiach comes and all the festivals are destined to be nullified, Purim will not be. There is another opinion in that same Midrash: Rabbi Elazar maintains that Yom Kippur will not be nullified either. So there are two interesting things here. First, Purim and Yom Kippur have some connection: they are the only two festivals said to remain even when Moshiach comes. On the other hand, there is no disagreement about Purim. The Midrash states it without attributing it to anyone, meaning everyone agrees that Purim will not be nullified. As for Yom Kippur, that is Rabbi Elazar’s opinion; not everyone agrees. So we see that, in one respect, Purim is even higher than Yom Kippur. The obvious question is: What is so special about Purim? What is its secret, its depth? What is hidden in this remarkable festival, about which such extraordinary things are said? What does it mean? We also need to understand the statement that all the festivals are destined to be nullified. After all, we know that the Torah and its mitzvos are eternal. The Rambam tells us in his book of halachah that every word of the Torah endures forever and ever. So what does the Midrash mean when it says that all the festivals are destined to be nullified? Many commentators explain that it refers to joy. After all, the festivals are generally “occasions for rejoicing,” as we say in the prayers. In essence, a festival is a time of joy. When Moshiach comes, the joy will be immense—the joy of the Geulah, “everlasting joy upon their heads.” There will be tremendous joy, the

02:23 joy of the Geulah. In the face of such great joy, the joy of the festivals will no longer have the same significance. It does not mean that the festivals themselves will be nullified. G-d forbid that when Moshiach comes there will no longer be Pesach, Shavuos, or Sukkos! Rather, the purpose of the festivals is rejoicing: they are “occasions for rejoicing.” The joy of the Geulah will be so great that the joy of a festival will not have the same significance it has now. The example given in the sefarim is the Gemara’s expression, “a lamp at midday.” Imagine standing outside at noon, with the sun shining at full strength, and lighting a little candle, a little match. In the light of day, that little flame is as though it doesn’t exist. You can barely see it. It has no prominence, no significance. Likewise, we are told, the festivals will seem insignificant compared with the Geulah, because the joy of the days of Moshiach will be so great. The Midrash is telling us that the joy of Purim is so great that even in the days of Moshiach, despite all their tremendous joy, people will still feel the joy of Purim. That is a beautiful explanation, but it is hard to understand. First of all, why? What is it about the joy of Purim that will give it special significance even when Moshiach comes, amid all the great joy of the future? And second, according to this explanation, why does Rabbi Elazar mention Yom Kippur? What is the connection? Yom Kippur is not a day of rejoicing. The festivals of rejoicing are Pesach, Shavuos, and Sukkos. It is about them that the Torah says, “You shall rejoice on your festival.” It does not say “you shall rejoice” about Yom Kippur. And why not Rosh Hashanah? It is

04:27 just like Yom Kippur in this respect. So there must be something deeper here. This is where Chassidus comes in and explains the deeper meaning of Yom Kippur. That is what we will discuss today: What is so special about Purim? What is the connection between Purim and Yom Kippur? Why is Purim greater than Yom Kippur? And why do we say that even when Moshiach comes, Purim will still have special significance? Simply put, we are trying to understand the depth, the hidden meaning, of Purim. It is quite a bewildering festival. On the one hand, we see a lot of commotion on Purim. People drink more than usual. “A person is obligated to become intoxicated on Purim,” as the Gemara says; on Purim there is a mitzvah to drink more wine than usual. Then there is the unbounded joy, which can sometimes look like commotion and revelry. On the other hand, when we begin to look through the works of Chassidus, we discover Purim’s extraordinary depth. It is a remarkable festival. The Zohar, in fact, reveals the secret behind this Midrash: it tells us that “Purim” and “Kippurim” are similar words, but Yom Kippurim is only like Purim. The Zohar thus gives us a hint about what we see in the Midrash: Purim and Yom Kippur are connected, yet Purim is even higher than Yom Kippur. That is why Yom Kippur is called Kippurim: it is not Purim; it is only like Purim. Purim is greater. What, then, is so extraordinary about Purim? Today we will delve into this subject as it is explained in Chassidus, based on a wonderful verse in Shir Hashirim. If we understand the depth of this verse—and we know that Shir Hashirim

06:33 is entirely a parable. Shir Hashirim is the Holy of Holies, as the Midrash says. In Shir Hashirim, King Shlomo used the parable of a man and a woman to describe the wondrous love between Hakadosh Boruch Hu and Knesses Yisroel. The Midrash tells us that when Rabbi Akiva studied Shir Hashirim, tears flowed from his eyes. He wept because he understood its secret. In its verses, he saw the secret of the love between Hakadosh Boruch Hu and Knesses Yisroel, especially in times of darkness. If we study the verses of Shir Hashirim properly, we can discover in each one the depth of Hakadosh Boruch Hu’s love for Knesses Yisroel and Knesses Yisroel’s love for Hakadosh Boruch Hu. One of its most remarkable verses, which has a connection to Purim, especially according to the inner dimension of Torah, says: “If you do not know, O fairest among women, go forth in the footsteps of the flock.” As we said, Hakadosh Boruch Hu is speaking to Knesses Yisroel. He says to her, “If you do not know.” “Fairest among women” refers to Knesses Yisroel: Hakadosh Boruch Hu is the groom, and the Jewish people are the bride. He calls Knesses Yisroel “the fairest among women,” and then says, “If you do not know”—if you do not know where she is, what has happened to her, what her story is—then “go forth in the footsteps of the flock, and pasture your young goats beside the shepherds’ dwellings.” What exactly is this verse telling us? Within it lies the depth of Purim. Understanding its secret will give us a remarkable insight. As we said,

08:46 The Jewish people are called “the fairest among women.” If we look at this in relation to the story of the Megillah, to the story of the Jewish people in exile, then there is the Jewish people as “the fairest among women” in the person of Queen Esther, and there is the Jewish people as “the fairest among women” in the person of our matriarch Rachel. After all, as the verse says, “Rachel was beautiful in form and beautiful in appearance.” The Megillah says similar things about Queen Esther: “She found favor and kindness in the eyes of all who saw her,” and so on. So we find a similarity between Queen Esther and our matriarch Rachel. On the other hand, Rachel represents the Jewish people in a time of Geulah, when the Beis Hamikdash stood. If we calculate the gematria of the words “the fairest among women,” it comes to 502. The number 502 is the total of the years lived by Avraham, Yitzchak, and Yaakov. If we add them up: our forefather Avraham lived 175 years, Yitzchak lived 180 years, and Yaakov lived 147 years. Put all those numbers together and you get 502. In other words, everything embodied by the forefathers—Avraham, Yitzchak, and Yaakov together—is “the fairest among women.” This is explained in maamarim of Chassidus. The Rebbe discusses it in one of his wonderful maamarim for Purim. What it means is this: we know that every Jew has something of the forefathers in his soul. We received it from them. “The forefathers” means that every Jew has inherited the love of Avraham, the awe of Yitzchak, and the harmony and compassion of Yaakov. The forefathers were a chariot for supreme holiness, and there is a joining together of all the forefathers. Rachel, our matriarch Rachel, encompasses it all. She takes into herself and contains everything she received from Yaakov and, through

11:19 Yaakov, from Yitzchak and Avraham. All three forefathers are present in our matriarch Rachel. That is why “the fairest among women” has the gematria of 502: it includes all the levels, all the stages, all the qualities—love of Hashem, awe of Hashem, and compassion. That is serving Hashem in the most complete and wonderful way, and that is the meaning of beauty. Chassidus explains that beauty comes from several colors together. A single color is not beautiful. White on its own is not yet beautiful; green on its own is not beautiful. When there are different shades, colors that come together, several colors together, that becomes beauty. The beauty of the Jewish people is that we bring together what we have from Avraham, from Yitzchak, and from Yaakov. And that is the meaning of “Rachel was beautiful in form and beautiful in appearance” in every Jew’s service. It means serving Hashem with integration and beauty, being able to serve Him in many different ways and forms, not just in one way. A person might like to serve Hashem in only one way. He loves Hashem, but only with love; he does not have this—the “fairest among women.” Serving Hashem fully means being able to serve Him in every way and form. It means having complete self-surrender: he serves Hashem in every way because he is devoted to Hakadosh Boruch Hu, and so he does not limit himself to just one way. He does not serve Hashem in only one way; he brings all the ways together. That is the right way to serve Hashem. There is a whole story about this, told at the time and also brought in Chassidic books and writings. There was a war in the time of the Baal Shem Tov, or around that period—a great war between nations. Several

13:13 nations fought one another, and the great tzaddikim of the Jewish people said that we could learn a way of serving Hashem from that war. One of the things they learned was this: they saw that the army fighting the enemy succeeded because its strategy for winning the war was to send three groups against one group. In other words, they did not send one group against another; they sent three groups against one. That way they managed to break that group, and then they managed to break all the groups and win the war. They took from this a lesson in serving Hashem. As we said, the point is to bring together all the different aspects of serving Hashem. If a person serves Hashem in only one way, the yetzer hara can oppose him, and he can fall in that battle. If you really want to win the battle, you have to bring together all the ways, all the colors: Avraham, Yitzchak, and Yaakov. Rachel was beautiful in form and beautiful in appearance because she had that beauty—the integration, the joining together of all the colors, shades, and forms of serving Hashem. That is precisely how the battle can be won. So we find, in the story of our forefather Yaakov coming to take Rachel: when Yaakov met Rachel, what does it say? There was a stone over the mouth of the well, and there were three flocks of sheep. Again, we find those three flocks of sheep and the large stone over the mouth of the well. Our forefather Yaakov came and rolled the stone away from the mouth of the well with his finger. It is explained that this is what the whole story is about: he took the three flocks of sheep. He took the three paths of serving Hashem. To win the battle, all the middos must be brought together. And our forefather Yaakov

15:11 had that, because he had received the strength of Avraham, the strength of Yitzchak, and the strength of Yaakov. He passed it on to our matriarch Rachel, the source of the souls of the Jewish people, Knesses Yisroel. That is the way to serve Hashem. All of this is “the fairest among women”: Knesses Yisroel serving Hashem as the tzaddikim should. But what happens if “you do not know, O fairest among women”? “If you do not know” means there are times of exile, times when Hashem’s face is hidden, times when the Jewish people are in a state of inner exile. “And I will surely hide My face on that day”—because Knesses Yisroel is in the state of Esther, as we said. Queen Esther’s name is related to the hiding of Hashem’s face. In other words, instead of Knesses Yisroel being “the fairest among women,” with the proper, complete, and perfect service of Hashem openly visible in her, “if you do not know”—you cannot see it. You look at a Jew and do not see love of Hashem, do not see awe of Heaven, do not see compassion or true and proper service of Hashem. You do not see how a Jew should serve Hashem with all the colors and all the forms. So if “you do not know, O fairest among women,” what do we do now? Esther. And here comes Haman’s decree. Haman arrives—the symbol of evil, of kelipah, of darkness. Haman stands before Achashverosh—whose end and beginning belong to Him; King Achashverosh here is the King, Hakadosh Boruch Hu. Haman cries out, makes his claim, and accuses: “There is one people, scattered and dispersed among the nations.” Instead of being one people, they are scattered and dispersed. Their Jewishness is not visible; the pride of Yaakov is not visible; “the fairest among women” is not visible in them. And here comes the secret of the festival of

17:03 Purim: it was precisely that darkness, that accusation, that decree—the terrible decree to destroy, kill, and annihilate all the Jews, which Haman wanted—that awakened the power of mesirus nefesh in the Jewish people. On Purim, precisely because there was such a state of accusation against the Jewish people, Mordechai, “a Jewish man,” awakened the Jew within every Jew: “He would not kneel or bow down.” He succeeded in awakening the point of faith, the point of trust, the point of the soul. He awakened the Jewishness within the Jewish people. As “a Jewish man,” he stood firm with the “pride of Yaakov,” and through that he awakened the Jewish people to teshuvah. The moment the Jewish people awakened to teshuvah, they stopped sleeping. The Midrash says, “There is one people.” Why did Haman use the word yeshno, “there is”? The Midrash says that yeshno also means “they slept.” The Jewish people were asleep—“there is one people.” They had gone to sleep, but they… “I am asleep, but my heart is awake,” King Shlomo says in Shir Hashirim. Even when a Jew is asleep, deep down he is awake. The soul is always awake to Hakadosh Boruch Hu. Sometimes a certain kind of tension is needed, a decree and an accusation, to awaken it. That is what comes to awaken the power of teshuvah in the Jewish people. Once they awakened to teshuvah and revealed the power of mesirus nefesh, it became apparent again that even Queen Esther—although outwardly, as the Gemara says, she had a greenish complexion; outwardly, the Jewish people do not look so beautiful—nevertheless “she found favor and kindness” in the eyes of all who saw her. The inner dimension of a Jew’s soul is revealed; who a Jew really is becomes apparent: “the fairest of women.” That is why it says in the sefarim that “the fairest of women” has the numerical value of five hundred and two. That is also the numerical value of “Cursed be Haman,” and it is also the numerical value of “Blessed be Mordechai.” The same, the same numerical value. “Cursed be Haman” has the numerical value of five hundred and two. “Blessed be Mordechai” also has

19:16 the numerical value of five hundred and two. That means that here, too, we find the aspect of “the fairest of women.” So what does Purim tell us? Purim comes and tells us: “If you do not know, O fairest of women.” When love for Hakadosh Boruch Hu is not openly present, we have to rise to a place beyond knowledge. “If you do not know”—there is a negative sense of “not knowing,” when we cannot see it. No, no, it does not shine. But there is also a positive sense: “not knowing,” beyond knowledge. On Purim we have the obligation: “A person must become intoxicated on Purim until he does not know.” “Does not know” means rising beyond knowledge. When a Jew on Purim rises to that state of “not knowing,” beyond knowledge, he leaves behind cold, limited intellect and rises to something deeper. That is really the heart of Purim. “If you do not know, O fairest of women”—not knowing means rising, becoming revealed, entering, digging into the depths of the soul, revealing the deepest point of the yechidah within us. And then, through “If you do not know, O fairest of women,” it becomes clear that Haman is cursed and Mordechai is blessed. This is the wonderful thing people say: when a Jew on Purim says l’chaim, drinks, rises above himself and rejoices, that unbounded joy awakens the depths of his soul. Then it is clear to him that Haman is cursed and Mordechai is blessed—not only because of intellectual explanations, which have their limits, and the intellect can even lead us down the wrong paths. Rather, when we raise ourselves to “not knowing,” then “go out in the footsteps of the flock.” Go out—leave our… leave our limitations. When Purim arrives, it is a festival on which a Jew rises beyond the bounds of intellect, beyond limitations, beyond the bounds of nature and the limits of serving Hashem. It is the power of teshuvah, which is even higher than the level of a tzaddik. That is why Purim, specifically, is a greater festival than all the other festivals. That is the special power

21:28 of Purim: the Jew within a Jew is revealed. “A Jewish man”—a Jew’s deepest power, the power of faith, the power of mesirus nefesh. Then a Jew rises to the very highest level, beyond all levels, all categories and all limits. That is why the Divine revelation of Purim is higher than that of all the other festivals. Every festival has its own special joy, but that does not begin with eating more meat or holding more celebrations. It begins with the special Divine revelation present on the festivals. Chassidus explains that each festival has a Divine revelation. Pesach represents Avraham, the revelation of chesed, of love. Shavuos expresses Yitzchak: it is the festival connected with the Giving of the Torah, with the ram of Yitzchak, with the sound of the shofar that comes from the Binding of Yitzchak. Sukkos speaks of Yaakov our forefather. After all, it says of Yaakov, “And for his livestock he made sukkos.” Chassidus has extensive explanations of how the three festivals correspond to the three forefathers, Avraham, Yitzchak and Yaakov. But Purim represents concealment. It represents how, out of concealment, a Jew’s depths are revealed—the depth of mesirus nefesh—which is even higher than the level of the forefathers. In the future, there will therefore be an extraordinarily great Divine revelation. As we said, the revelation and joy associated with chesed, with the middos, with love and awe, will be incomparable to the wondrous Divine revelation that will take place when Moshiach comes. Then an infinite, unbounded Divine light will be revealed, and the joy will therefore be unbounded. But since the whole theme of Purim is that it is a festival connected with exile, when precisely out of darkness the still higher depths of a Jew are revealed, beyond all measure—“you do not know,” beyond knowledge, beyond limitations—Purim will have a special power even in the future. And this is the connection between Purim and Yom Kippur. On Yom Kippur, too,

23:38 as on Purim, we are speaking about that same point. Purim is like Yom Kippur. After all, Yom Kippur is the day of teshuvah. What does that mean? As we said, it is a day when the yechidah within the soul is revealed. Chassidus explains that the whole idea of Purim relates to what happens on Yom Kippur. What brings atonement on Yom Kippur? It is that on Yom Kippur a Jew awakens and reveals his yechidah, the deepest power of the soul. That is why it is the day of teshuvah. That is what causes Hakadosh Boruch Hu to forgive us on Yom Kippur: the moment a Jew’s yechidah, his deepest power, is revealed, everything, everything, everything is transformed; all deliberate sins are transformed into merits. So Purim and Yom Kippur are very, very similar. They are both days of teshuvah. But what is the difference between them? Why is Purim higher than Yom Kippur? We can see this very simply in halachah as well. Regarding Yom Kippur, it says that it atones for all sins, but desecration of Hashem’s name is not atoned for. There is a most severe transgression. The Gemara in Tractate Yoma, at the end of the tractate, gives the whole list: there are positive commandments, prohibitions, sins punishable by kareis, and so on. Yom Kippur atones for everything. But desecration of Hashem’s name—that is not so simple. The Gemara there says very severe things about desecrating Hashem’s name. We know that on Purim, the sin of the Jewish people was a desecration of Hashem’s name. They enjoyed the feast of that wicked man. It was a public desecration of Hashem’s name: they went to Achashverosh’s feast and enjoyed it, and publicly desecrated the name of Heaven. And according to the other view in the Gemara, which says it was because they bowed down to an idol, that was public idol worship. That is the greatest desecration of Hashem’s name there could be. And nevertheless, Purim comes, and Hakadosh Boruch Hu—“it was reversed”—forgave the Jewish people, granted them atonement, pardoned them,

25:37 Reversed Haman’s decree, as the Gemara says, because then something deeper within a Jew was revealed. The moment this tremendous power awakens in a Jew—the power of teshuvah, the power of mesirus nefesh—it becomes clear that all his sins are something external, a shell; they are not who he really is. A Jew’s true essence is revealed, and everything is turned around: “venahafoch hu.” That is really what the festival of Purim is about. That is why, even when Moshiach comes—and this is what the Gemara says—Purim will remain. Now, let’s turn to Yom Kippur. On the one hand, they are similar, but on the other hand, there is a difference of opinion about Yom Kippur. It is not so simple. True, there is a very deep revelation on Yom Kippur as well. The yechidah of a Jew’s soul awakens, meaning that a wondrous, infinite G-dly power is revealed, and that will have significance in the days of Moshiach too. But ultimately, on Yom Kippur we have to do a special kind of teshuvah. We have to fast; we have to abstain from physical comforts. With all the laws of Yom Kippur, we have to rise above the world, to step out of it, in order to receive that revelation. But the innovation of Purim is feasting and rejoicing, a Yom Tov and a festive meal. Amid all of that, while a Jew is living in the world, with physicality, eating, drinking, and rejoicing—and work is permitted on Purim—we can still sense that he is above reason; we can sense the infinite power of a Jew’s soul. That is why they say of Purim that all the festivals are destined to be nullified, but Purim will not be nullified. On Purim, the deepest power within every Jew shines forth, and it will retain its special importance even in the future. That is why it will not be nullified. So now, as the days of Purim arrive, this is the time for each and every one of us to awaken that power within ourselves, to make use of these hours, this day, these days—the days of Purim. “And these days of Purim shall not pass from among the Jews, nor shall their remembrance cease from their descendants.”

27:39 From this we learn the power of the days of Purim: that Purim can affect every day of the year, making it a blessed year, a year of “venahafoch hu.” It begins with each and every one of us allowing the light of the soul to shine within us during these days, opening our hearts. “Venahafoch hu” means that a person can be in the lowest, most degraded state, and in a single moment turn himself around completely, from one extreme to the other. Just as it was with the miracle of Purim, so too it is with the soul. And that is also how it will be with the true and complete Geulah, soon: in a single moment, we will leap from the great darkness to the great light of “venahafoch hu—that the Jews would rule over those who hated them,” with the complete Geulah and the coming of Moshiach Tzidkeinu. May each and every one of us have a happy Purim, and may the joy of Purim last throughout the year.