S3.amazonaws.com



Tzav/Purim – It’s all GoodIn the days when we had a Holy Temple when a person’s life was in danger and he was saved, there was a mitzvah to bring a korban todah (thanksgiving offering). Nowadays, in the absence of sacrifices, the gratitude service consists of reciting a special blessing during the reading of the Torah. There are two unique distinctions between the thanksgiving offering and all other sacrificial offerings. By all other sacrifices one had two days to consume the sacrifice but the thanksgiving sacrifice had to be consumed in one day. Another distinction is that by the thanksgiving sacrifice besides the animal that was brought one had to bring forty loaves of bread. Why was there so much food and so little time to consume it? It seems impossible for one man to be able to consume it all.The Sforno comments that one man was not going to consume it by himself. The purpose of the short time period and the abundance of food was to ensure that he would need to invite many people to come share all this meat and bread with him. Through this he will be able to publicize the great kindness that Hashem has performed. From here we learn a great lesson that when G-d does a kindness for you it is incumbent upon you to spread that to people. Some have the custom to make a special meal where they invite family and friends to talk about the kindness and share the story of how Hashem protected and saved them. On the surface this concept can seem to be confusing. For example, imagine someone gets very sick and the doctors are not sure if the person will live. After a couple of surgeries and some close calls the person starts to recover slowly. After a year the person is released from the hospital and is completely healthy. One can question, why should this person thank G-d? Hashem is the one who allowed him to get sick in the first place. If Hashem would have never let the person get sick he would not have needed His protection. Instead of thanking G-d one can complain and be angry about a year of hardships.A great lesson that we can take from this which is the essence of the Purim story is that even hardships are something we need to thank Hashem for. We may not be able to see and understand why that is so, but we believe that everything has a master plan. We believe this master plan is a completely good plan. We may not ever understand why G-d would make a person suffer for a year in the hospital but we believe that it was part of this great plan and therefore when the person recovers they are able to make a feast thanking Hashem. This is the theme of Purim. Every step of the way it seems that more tragedy and more suffering is taking place but in the end it is clear that Hashem was controlling and setting up an ultimate salvation the whole time.To illustrate this point I would like to share an e-mail I received recently. The following is a conversation a person had with G-d after a long hard day:Me: God, can I ask you something? G-D: Sure.Me: Promise you won’t get mad? G-D: I promise.Me (frustrated): Why did you let so much stuff happen to me today?G-D: What do you mean?Me: Well, first of all I woke up late and I rushed to get ready so fast so I wouldn’t be late to work and then my car took forever to start. Then at lunch, they made my sandwich wrong, and I had to wait for a different person to make it. And on the way home, my phone went dead, just as I picked up a call that was very important. G-D: I see…Me (loudly): And to top it all off, when I got home, I just wanted to soak my feet in my foot massager and relax, but it would not turn on. Nothing went right today! Why did you do that?G-D: Well let me see….. I made you oversleep because there was a drunk driver on your route that might have hit you if you were on the road. You rushed so quickly that you were going to be merging on to the highway the same time he would drive by. For your safety I made sure that your car didn’t start for ten minutes. And you remember the first person who made your sandwich, she was sick. I didn’t want you to catch what she had, I knew you couldn’t afford to miss a week of work. Also, you should know that your phone went dead because the person that was calling was going to give a false witness about what you said on that call, I didn’t even let you talk to them so you would be covered. Oh, and that foot massager, it had a short that was going to throw out all of the power in your house tonight. I didn’t think you wanted to be in the dark and cold.It is true that it is easier to see Hahsem’s hand and be thankful for His work when everything in life is wonderful. The message of the thanksgiving offering and Purim is to remember that He is always there. He promised us He would never leave us or forsake us. Perhaps this is what the Talmud means when it says that a person should drink on Purim until he doesn’t know the difference between Haman and Mordechai. Haman represents the dark times of life and Mordechai represents when everything is great. Through the simcha (rejoicing) on Purim we can reach the level that we realize that there is no difference between ‘Haman’ and ‘Mordechai’. It’s all good and part of Hahsem’s master plan. Good Shabbos and Happy Purim,Avi Honigsfeld ................
................

In order to avoid copyright disputes, this page is only a partial summary.

Google Online Preview   Download