Tuesday, February 28, 2023

Amalek and the Spiritual Essence of Purim

 New shiur from Rabbi Mendel Kessin


9 comments:

Anonymous said...

I'm confused. If you go by what R'Kessin says (i.e. that anti-semitism is about the nations not being able to tolerate that the Jewish religion imposes restrictions on freedom to do as they wish), then why have the Iranians been hands-off toward the remnants of Jews living in their midst? After all, don't the ruling class of Iranians have the soul of Yishmael, who quote the Koran about killing every Jew hiding behind a tree?

Yet there isn't that type of anti-semitism in Iran. And indeed, its been my understanding that antisemitism works the other way around. I.E. that davka when Jews mingle with the nations, that's what causes the antisemitism (such as mingling in Achashverosh's party.) So why is the rabbi saying that the antisemitism was triggered by Mordechai's failure to bow down, which reminded Haman of his ancestral-mission to sever the world from G-d?
M.M.

Anonymous said...

First, antisemitism is a spiritual hatred of the Jewish nation, which is H's way of waking up our people when we go astray. That's what kept us in existence for over 3,300+ years as a nation, otherwise, we would have disappeared, c'v.
Second, the Iranians are not an Arabic people. They are a separate nation, the Persians, who once had the greatest empire of that time.
They were conquered (later in history) by Mohammed (the Yishmaelim) by the sword as almost half the world was and became muslim, but they are a slightly different sect than most of the Arabs but are, therefore, considered 'Muslims'.
Third, Haman was the second in line to the king of Persia. He hated the Jews. He, himself descended literally from the original Amaleikim and was once the 'barber' to 'Mordechai the Jew'. He personally hated Mordechai and moreso, he wanted all the 'peoples of the Empire of Persia to bow down to him (egomaniac). Of course, Mordechai would never bow down to any man and Mordechai disregarded him. Haman used this excuse to convince king Achashverosh to kill all the Jewish people in his empire because the 'Jews were different'; they didn't want to heed the rules of the king. The bottom line is Haman was an Amaleiki and hated the Jews more than any people on earth; it's in their blood. They hate the Creator and we, the Jews, are G-D's representatives on earth. Until today, the Amaleikim are our worst mortal enemies and Hashem Says that until Amaleik is completely destroyed, G-D's Holy Name and His Holy Throne cannot be complete.
The Amaleikim as a nation, do not exist today but their souls and their nature still exists. Our Sages tell us that the gematria of amaleik is the same as 'doubt'. In other words, those who doubt there is a G-D and those who fight His Laws (i.e, 10 Commandments, etc.) and hate and persecute the Jewish people in particular, are considered the 'Amaleikim'.
This is the basis of the unnatural hated of anti-semitism.

Devorah said...

Thank you Anonymous, wonderful response.

Anonymous said...

Actually I still remain with my original Q on Rabbi Kessin's lecture. Here's the crux of my Q: Is antisemitism triggered by Jews who mingle with the nations, such as joining Achashverosh' party? Or rather is it triggered by Jews who show that they are different (such as bowing only to G-d) which then triggers the latent hatred of the nations who wish to be free of the yoke of G-d?
M.M.

Anonymous said...

To M.M. - Basically, you gave all the answers to your own questions.
Everything is from Hashem, but everything comes to us through His Nature. In other words, because of the above reasons you give which are all typical natural behaviors are the different excuses and reasons the anti-semites use. For example, they say 'the Jews think they're better than anyone else because they're chosen' or the anti-semites are unwilling to heed G-D's laws to mankind because they feel they can do what they want and don't have to answer to a higher power, thus, hating the Jewish Laws from the Torah trying to dictate what is right and what is wrong. Remember, they have to abide by the Seven Laws of Noach, which we see today in these times, how there are those who want to eradicate that morality and basic laws of the 10 Commandment.
Also, they want the Jews to assimilate but when they do that, after a while, they say we don't want any Jews within our midst because of jealousy. The Jews seem to have more education and acquire wealth many times, etc., etc.
In the case of the Purim story where the Jews attended the king's party which he even had special kosher meals prepared for them, but this angered H' because these Jews wanted to be part of the mainstream society (that's how assimilation works), so H' had to wake them up and is when Haman the Amaleiki comes into the picture and instigates a worldwide (then Persia was a worldwide empire) anti-semitism.
All this comes from Above because H' is always in Control.

Anonymous said...

M.M, I don't know the answer to your question, but perhaps the mingling triggers antisemites to point out the differences and enforce separation between Jews and gentiles.
In Mordechai's day, the Jews mingled with the Persians, so Haman pointed to Mordechai's refusal to bow as a sign that the whole Jewish community doesn't belong. The Nazis pointed to supposed physical differences between Jews and Aryans as "scientific" proof that Jews were alien to German society ... even though German Jews were thoroughly intermingled and assimilated.
Hashem seems to tolerate increasing assimilation for long stretches of time (like in 20th century America), but at a critical point, antisemitism rears its head to shake the Jews out of their comfort.
All the examples of antisemitism in history (that I can think of) seem to happen when Jews become players in their host society.

Anonymous said...

To Anon 2:30 AM
Well, then accordingly, Mordechai's having refrained from bowing should have acted as a "tikkun" versus the Jews having become players in the host society (Shushan). Seems like it's !!! if we do and !!! if we don't a.k.a. heads you win, tails i lose.
M.M.

Dennis said...

At present I am just wondering if there will be some major event on Purim similar to the Turkey/Syria earthquake that occurred on Tu B'Shevat.

Devorah said...

Hi Dennis: Nobody knows what will happen on Purim, maybe something will or maybe it won't. The only time anyone has accurately predicted something that would happen on Purim was in 1991 when the Lubavitcher Rebbe said that the Gulf War would end on that date in 1991. And it did.

We don't have prophets today, and even if we did, a negative prophesy can always be reversed at the last minute by the grace of G-d. The only way to tell if someone is a true prophet is when they accurately predict a POSITIVE event and it happens when they said it would.