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1. *Refuting randomness* — The name *Purim* is the plural of *pur* (lot), representing the contrast between *Haman's* worldview of a random, statistical world (*akrai*) and our recognition of clear *hashgacha pratis* (Divine Providence).
2. *Choosing the Lot* — Like the *goralot* of *Yom Kippur*, *Purim* presents a choice: viewing the world as *L'Hashem* (guided by God) or as *Azazel* (random and chaotic).
3. *Positive Victory* — We celebrate on the day of rest (*Yom Menucha*) rather than the day of battle, demonstrating that our essence is not war-making, but the *kedusha* and *Torah* study that the victory enables.
4. *Above nature* — The *Mitzpeh Eitan* explains that *Moshe Rabbeinu* being born and dying on the same day proves he was above the "randomness" of nature; *Haman* failed because he didn't realize the Jewish people exist in this higher, non-random dimension.
5. *Joining the dots* — The *avoda* of the day is to connect seemingly disparate, "hidden" events to reveal the *Yad Hashem*, just as hearing the whole *Megilla* at once reveals the hidden miracle.
6. *Modern Recognition* — We are living in an era of *Atchalta D'Geulah* where even national leaders are increasingly acknowledging *Hashem's* hand, moving away from the arrogant "randomness" of earlier decades.
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Thank you בעזרת השם bezras Hashem. We're going to be celebrating the reading of the מגילה Megilla and I wanted to go through a few questions about the essence of Purim to understand our עבודה avoda and appreciate Purim in the right mindset. Opening question is when חז\"ל Chazal give a name to a יום טוב Yom Tov, give a name to anything, but especially to a יום טוב Yom Tov, then it helps you to understand and appreciate the deeper essence behind what the יום טוב Yom Tov is. And the name Purim is the strangest name that you would think to give to the יום טוב Yom Tov. It's just a פרט שולי prat shulai, it's a detail which is almost irrelevant in the story. Why would you call Purim Purim? Because המן Haman took lots and he chose a date which was the day where the big ונהפוך הוא venahafoch hu took place. Great. But that detail is an irrelevant detail. It's a side detail, it's a technical detail. Why call the יום טוב Yom Tov Purim? And אם כבר im kvar, why Purim in plural? פור על שם הפור Pur al shem hapur. It's called Purim על שם הפור al shem hapur. Did you ever find that פסוק posuk strange? It's called Purim על שם הפור al shem hapur, so call it Pur. Why do you have to call it Purim? Okay, there were two dates, there were two lots, one of the month, one of the date, בסדר beseder, okay, but call it Pur. Why do you have to call it Purim? So question opening question number one, A and B: Why is the essence of the יום טוב Yom Tov called Purim, why is that so critical, and also why is it in plural? Second question, and this one was a question that bothered me for a long time. The date of Purim is the strangest date that there is. משל למה הדבר דומה mashal lema hadavar dome. There was a big war that took place and there was a day of victory and they declared it a national holiday, Victory Day, the day when they won. And they said, no, that's not a good day to do it. Let's do it the next day. Why? What happened the next day? Everyone went home and relaxed. It was a day where they took a break. Wait, so why is that a significant day? No, because they got to relax. And that's our goal in life, isn't it, just to relax? No, but the victory took place the day before, so let's celebrate on the day of the victory. No, no, no, the day after, much better, much better, the day after. The גמרא Gemara in the opening of מגילה Megilla asks the question: which day do we read the מגילה Megilla? And the גמרא Gemara works out different dates and there's no פסוק posuk for the day of י\"ג yud gimmel. So the גמרא Gemara says י\"ג yud gimmel, that's obvious, you don't need a פסוק posuk for that. Why is it obvious? רש\"י Rashi says עיקר הנס ikar haneis took place on that day. So which day do we celebrate? הרא\"ש the Rosh says the next day. Why the next day? יום מנוחה yom menucha. That's הרא\"ש the Rosh on the opening page of מגילה Megilla. יום מנוחה Yom menucha. It's a strangest thing. Question number one: why is it called Purim? Question number two: we're celebrating Purim on the wrong day. Which today today is the real day of Purim, י\"ג yud gimmel. This is the day when the miracle took place. This is the day of the ונהפוך הוא venahafoch hu, when all the גויים goyim, seventy-five thousand Amalekites were killed. And the Jews turned everything around. Today's the day. So we should celebrate it. Why are we celebrating the day after, the יום מנוחה yom menucha? Third question: so what בעצם be'etzem happened on Purim is that there were גויים goyim who wanted to kill Jews and they didn't win. The Jews won. That's something which happened numerous times in Jewish history before the Purim story. And they didn't make a יום טוב Yom Tov over it. There was בן הדד Ben-Hadad who laid מצור matzor in the time of שומרון Shomron in אלישע Elisha's time. A great miracle took place, the same story where the גויים goyim wanted to come and kill the Jews and they almost killed the Jews and a miracle happened and it didn't happen. It happened again with סנחריב Sancheirev, a tremendous miracle that took place. He brought a hundred and eighty-five thousand, maybe soldiers, maybe מפקדים mifakdim, and there were maybe millions and millions of people there. And they all came, there was nothing holding them back from entering ירושלים Yerushalayim and killing חזקיהו Chizkiyahu and all the rest of the remaining people, and a great, great, great miracle took place, they all died in one night. No יום טוב Yom Tov. No יום טוב Yom Tov. Those two events preceded the story of Purim. So why did מרדכי Mordechai and אסתר Esther and the חז\"ל Chazal of that time see fit to make a יום טוב Yom Tov for something which the same story had happened in a similar vein earlier and the earlier rabbis didn't make a יום טוב Yom Tov out of it? So why did they make a יום טוב Yom Tov out of it? And the final question, question number four, is the מדרש Midrash says that all of the ימים טובים yamim tovim will be cancelled except for Purim. But we have a principle: זאת התורה לא תהא מוחלפת zot haTorah lo tehei muchlefet. Nothing in the Torah is going to be cancelled. What does the מדרש Midrash mean that all the other ימים טובים yamim tovim are going to be cancelled except for Purim? Surely the other ימים טובים yamim tovim must still continue. We're still going to have פסח Pesach, we're still going to have שבועות Shavuos. What does it mean that there's not going to be other יום טוב Yom Tov except for Purim? So question number one: why is it called Purim? יום טובים Yom Tovim will be destroyed and only פורים Purim will continue. What does that mean? So there's an amazing הגר\"א Gra at the opening of the מגילת אסתר Megillas Esther. The הגר\"א Gra is a phenomenal פירוש peirush to learn. It's readable, like it's not like the הגר\"א Gra on שולחן ערוך Shulchan Aruch or the הגר\"א Gra on גמרא Gemara where to understand what he's saying it's just רמזים remazim upon רמזים remazim and you have to go and figure out what it means and what he was alluding to and he had the מראה מקומות mareh mekomos but you don't know what he was doing with that מראה מקומות mareh mekomos. The הגר\"א Gra on the מגילה Megilla — פשש psh — ברור barur, interesting, relevant, messages that come out of it. So the הגר\"א Gra on the מגילה Megilla, he speaks about the idea of the אפילו בהסתרה afillu behastara. He speaks about the idea that איש יהודי היה בשושן ish Yehudi hayah be-Shushan. What was the idea that he was already in שושן Shushan? Why's that so special to us? And he tells the whole story which I'm sure everyone knows about the fact that actually אחשוורוש Achashverosh didn't live in שושן Shushan. He lived somewhere else far away and his palace was somewhere else far away. But the Jews who lived in the town שושן Shushan — which by the way pay attention to when you read in the מגילה Megilla there's sometimes it says עיר שושן Ir Shushan and sometimes it says שושן הבירה Shushan ha-Bira. They were two different towns and there was a river separating them. העיר שושן Ha-Ir Shushan was the Jewish town that preceded אחשוורוש Achashverosh. The people who lived in the town of שושן Shushan, they were great architects. They knew how to build. Maybe they'd even seen the throne of שלמה Shlomo that אחשוורוש Achashverosh wanted to emulate when he built his own throne. So he came and he ordered them to build him a throne and they built it on the other side of the river and it was this massive beautiful beautiful royal throne. And then after he finished building it he suddenly had an issue: how's he going to get it from where they built it across the river from העיר שושן Ha-Ir Shushan all the way back to his palace? And he said, \"Oh, it's a big problem, I don't know how we didn't think of this ahead of time.\" So we'll move the capital to שושן Shushan. And then he built the entire royal city around the throne. איש יהודי היה בשושן ish Yehudi hayah be-Shushan. He was already there. He was already there ahead of time before it all happened. מרדכי Mordechai was in שושן Shushan and they built שושן הבירה Shushan ha-Bira, the capital city. And like הרב Rav פינקלשטיין Finkelstein told us that he actually wasn't even there. He was actually in ארץ ישראל Eretz Yisrael and he came back especially to try and see what he could do and הקדוש ברוך הוא HaKadosh Baruch Hu brought אחשוורוש Achashverosh to him. And the הגר\"א Gra writes in that opening piece on the פסוק pasuk 'איש יהודי היה בשושן הבירה ish Yehudi hayah be-Shushan ha-Bira'. There's no שם השם shem Hashem in the מגילה Megilla. השם Hashem doesn't appear in the מגילה Megilla. But actually there's a secret that you can't see השם Hashem but He's behind all the scenes. The name פורים Purim is a phenomenal concept when you realize what a פור pur is. There are two types of גורלות goralot. If you think of יונה Yonah and you think of the שעיר לעזאזל se'ir la-Azazel. יונה Yonah, what was the גורל goral in יונה Yonah? They were all the same but actually one was different. One was picked out and that became the chosen one. And what happened to the rest? Throw them all away, they're not relevant. With the שעיר לעזאזל se'ir la-Azazel, there's two. One is good, one is bad. One is להשם la-Hashem, one is לעזאזל la-Azazel. So two types of גורל goral. Type of גורל goral where when you choose one that means that that one's good and the other one's unaffected. There's another type of גורל goral which when you choose one, by choosing that one the other one is going to עזאזל Azazel. It's for the good or it's for the bad. Which גורל goral is the גורל goral of פורים Purim more like? Is it like the גורל goral of יונה Yonah or is it like the גורל goral of the שעיר לעזאזל se'ir la-Azazel? פורים כפורים Purim ke-Puriym. That's already a hint towards the answer. That there are really two גורלות goralot. המן Haman, he doesn't believe in השגחה פרטית hashgacha pratis. He doesn't believe that מרדכי Mordechai was put in that place and the throne was put in that place and הקדוש ברוך הוא HaKadosh Baruch Hu was coming back exactly to ensure that all the events would take place. In order to prove the principle that the world is random, he drew a lot. Why didn't you think through and take advice from the advisors to see which the best month is? No, no, no, it's all random. Let's use the כח koach of being random and just pick a גורל goral. So from המן Haman's perspective, it was a random גורל goral and he was using the כח koach of randomness to defeat the Jewish people. Even after he saw all the events turning around and working against him, he still went to his wife זרש Zeresh and all of his חכמיו chachamav who were once אוהביו ohavav but once they saw his downfall they became חכמיו chachamav and they had to advise him and tell him now because they saw him falling. And he said to them את כל אשר קרהו es kol asher karahu. קרהו karahu מלשון אקראי milashon akrai. המן Haman even when he saw the events were turning against him, he still said the whole world is random, everything is just סתם stam, it just happens, it's all random. That was המן Haman's perspective. But there are two גורלות goralot. It's פורים Purim in plural. It's not just the פור pur. towards פורים Purim. Because there's a גורל goral taking place in this world, and there's a גורל goral taking place in שמים Shamayim. And you get to choose which גורל goral you're part of. If you decide you want to be in a world of statistics, you want to be a world where random things happen to random people and that's just the way it is, then you're choosing the lot of המן Haman. You're choosing the perspective, the mindset, the way of viewing the world of המן Haman. And if you choose to recognize, like the הגר\"א HaGra says at the beginning, that every stage of the מגילה Megilla was ordained and orchestrated exactly by הקדוש ברוך הוא Hakadosh Baruch Hu to get everyone where they needed to be to bring about the גאולה שלמה Geulah Sheleimah of the eventual בניין בית המקדש Binyan Beit Hamikdash, which is the postscript of מגילת אסתר Megillat Esther, then you're choosing ה' Hashem. So it's not like a גורל goral of יונה Yonah where you just choose one and it's random. It's a גורל goral of יום כיפור Yom Kippur. The choice is either ה' Hashem or it's עזאזל Azazel. Either you're buying into הקדוש ברוך הוא Hakadosh Baruch Hu's גורל goral or you're buying into המן Haman's. So that's why it's called פורים Purim, because that's the essence of the day. It's a decision to make, how do you view the world? פורים Purim is a day where it's presented to you to view the world in an אקראי akrai, in a random way, and everything that happens in the world just is because it happens to be, and that's המן Haman's option. Or הקדוש ברוך הוא Hakadosh Baruch Hu's version of the world where everything that's happened is perfectly divinely ordained. So it's, the reason why it's called פורים על שם הפור Purim al shem hapur is because there's a lottery taking place and you're the one who's being chosen, or more accurately, you're choosing yourself how to view the world. But it's like יום כיפור Yom Kippur, it's either-or. Either you're viewing the world as random, עזאזל Azazel, or you're viewing the world as לה' L'Hashem. You get to choose which one it is. And that helps us explain the second question as well. First question was why is it called פורים Purim, that's the essence of the day. Why double? Because there's two גורלות goralot, you choose. Second question, why don't we celebrate the victory on י\"ג Yud-Gimmel and celebrate פורים Purim today on the day of י\"ג Yud-Gimmel? Why do we wait an extra day until the day after where it's already יום מנוחה Yom Menucha? Okay great, but it's all finished. Why is that so important? And listen to this יסוד yesod, this is huge. The Jewish people are willing to fight wars. We're willing to celebrate the fact that we've won a war, but we don't make an עבודה avodah out of winning a war in and of itself. That's not our goal. We're not a war-loving people, nation. If we need to fight a war, even if it's מלחמת ה' בעמלק דור דור Milchemet Hashem b'Amalek dor dor, we'll do it. We'll do it. If vanquishing evil is our purpose, we'll do it, but that's not our essence. That's not our goal. That's not our vision as a nation. So when we need to go to war against עמלק Amalek, we only fight against evil because we recognize that's going to be bringing down קדושה kedusha into the world. And that's our goal. Our goal is the relationship with ה' Hashem. If עמלק Amalek's goal is to cut off יד על כס יה yad al kes Yah where it's cut off the name of ה' Hashem, that's their goal. Our goal is to reunite this world with הקדוש ברוך הוא Hakadosh Baruch Hu and reconnect, so the full name of ה' Hashem can be expressed. So there's a celebration of winning the war, but that's not the main thing. The day after is the main thing, the יום מנוחה Yom Menucha, when we can go back to fulfilling מצוות mitzvot, when we can go back to learning תורה Torah, we can go back to declaring ה' Hashem's name in the world, that's the ultimate victory. So when there was a war against ארם בן הדד Aram Ben Hadad, when there was a war against סנחריב Sancheriv, that war we didn't make a big עבודה avodah out of in and of itself because there the war was just a war. We didn't want to make a big deal out of that. But the war of פורים Purim, what was the ultimate war? There would be no more קדושה kedusha in the world. The world would be assigned to randomness, that everything would just be seen as being random. המן Haman's lottery won, the people are random, there's no real קדושה kedusha in the world. By us winning the war, we were able to vanquish the evil forces and that gave an opening for increasing קדושה kedusha in the world. So our celebration of פורים Purim is not just a celebration of winning the war and destroying the enemies. We don't sing about kill a גוי goy, kill a גוי goy, kill a גוי goy, kill a גוי goy. That's not our big chant on פורים Purim. Our big chant on פורים Purim is אשר בחר בנו מכל העמים Asher Bachar Banu Mikol Ha'amim. Our big chant on פורים Purim is עד דלא ידע Ad D'Lo Yada. No, that's also one that we sing but that's not the main, that's not the main one. The main one is acknowledging הקדוש ברוך הוא Hakadosh Baruch Hu in this world. ונהפוך הוא אשר ישלטו היהודים בשונאיהם V'nahafoch Hu asher yishlatu ha'yehudim b'son'eihem in order that we can then declare הקדוש ברוך הוא Hakadosh Baruch Hu's name in the world. And that's why the postscript of פורים Purim was the building of the בית המקדש Beit Hamikdash because our whole goal was to be able to bring the שכינה Shechina down into the world. So if we would celebrate on י\"ג Yud-Gimmel, that would imply that we're happy that we won the war. No, no, finished. By celebrating on י\"ד Yud-Daled, we're showing we have a higher purpose, a positive purpose, a goal of bringing קדושה kedusha and the שכינה Shechina down into the world. There's an amazing גמרא Gemara in מסכת מגילה Masechet Megilla which says that המן Haman rejoiced when he pulled the lottery and it came out on אדר Adar because אדר Adar is the month of month which was the birthday of משה רבינו Moshe Rabbeinu. And the גמרא Gemara continues and it says, but little did he know, sorry, it was a death, the death of משה Moshe. But the גמרא Gemara says but little did he know, that it was actually also the birthday of משה רבינו Moshe Rabbeinu. And I never really understood what that meant. Okay, but it's still when he died. Meaning, if that צדיק Tzadik dying at a certain time means that's a negativity in the world, so what if it was also his birthday at the same time? What does that make a difference? He also died then. So רשי Rashi there says, that מיתתו מכפרת mitato michaperet, sorry, לידתו מכפרת על מיתתו ledato michaperet al mitato. The fact that he's born is a כפרה Kapparah. So it sounds like from רשי Rashi that it kind of evens out. That's what it sounds like. It just evens out. The birth and the death, they kind of even out. But in the back of the גמרא Gemara there's a ילקוט מפרשים Yalkut Meforshim. In the ילקוט מפרשים Yalkut Meforshim there's a commentary called the מצפה איתן Mitzpeh Eitan. Maybe that's who you're named after. The מצפה איתן Mitzpeh Eitan. And the מצפה איתן Mitzpeh Eitan says something amazing. When I read that מצפה איתן Mitzpeh Eitan I took a בלי נדר bli neder that I'm going to quote it every פסח Pesach because I was so excited by it and so far I've kept it. בעזרת השם Be'ezrat Hashem I'll continue. The מצפה איתן Mitzpeh Eitan says the following: He says there's a ירושלמי Yerushalmi that says that a צדיק Tzadik is born and dies on the same day. משה רבינו Moshe Rabbeinu was born and he died on the same day. דוד המלך David HaMelech was born and died on the same day. What does that represent? What does that mean? According to nature he says, this is the מצפה איתן Mitzpeh Eitan, look it up, according to nature a person's not born and dies on the same day because the nature of a natural person is that it's random. You're born when you need to be born, you die when you need to die. It just happens. There's a day when it happens. But a צדיק Tzadik is someone who's living with השגחה Hashgachah. That he's so in line with השם Hashem that it's not random by him. There's a השלמה Hashlamah, there's a completion. He did everything he needed to do and therefore הקדוש ברוך הוא Hakadosh Baruch Hu wanted to show that he fulfilled the whole cycle, so he's born and he died on the same day. So he says, if it would have been that משה Moshe would have died on a different day than when he was born, then it would be like המן Haman said, a bad omen. Oh, he died then, it's a negative time, it's a bad time. It would have been negative, bad for the Jews. But little did he know that actually משה רבינו Moshe Rabbeinu was also born on the same day. When רשי Rashi says that לידתו מכפרת על מיתתו ledato michaperet al mitato, it doesn't just mean that it evens out. It means that the fact that he was born and died on the same day means משה Moshe is above randomness. משה Moshe is not in the world of randomness. You can't get him. You can't get him. להבדיל Lehavdil, not להבדיל lehavdil, but a different idea, but a similar idea, you know the גמרא Gemara that says about חנינא בן דוסא Chanina ben Dosa and the witch? Yeah, it's in סנהדרין Sanhedrin. So the witch was trying to get חנינא בן דוסא Chanina ben Dosa and couldn't get him. And he says, she says, he said you won't be able to get me. So she was trying to get the earth from under his feet. You won't be able to get me. And he said why won't I be able to get you? He says, אין עוד מלבדו Ein Od Milvado. So someone who's in the world, in this world, then maybe those forces of negativity can affect them. But someone who's above this world, they're not in the world of random things happen, statistics happen, nations are born and nations die. They're in a different league. By חנינא בן דוסא Chanina ben Dosa it was אין עוד מלבדו Ein Od Milvado, by משה רבינו Moshe Rabbeinu it was the fact that he was born and died on the same day. המן Haman didn't know that. He didn't know that עם ישראל Am Yisrael are above nature. That we're in a different league entirely. I want to tell you a very cute story that happened. One of my children who is eight years old dressed up for פורים Purim. Together with a friend. She dressed up as a kiddush cup. It was cute, a kiddush cup. And her friend dressed up as a moon. Together. What did they go as? קידוש לבנה Kiddush Levana. So my daughter says to me, she says to me, אבא Abba, אבל זה רק עובד שאנחנו ביחד aval zeh rak oved she'anachnu beyachad. אבל אם אנחנו לא ביחד אז זה לא עובד aval im anachnu lo beyachad az zeh lo oved. כי אנשים רק רואים אותי או רק רואים אותה ולא מבינים שזה קידוש לבנה ki anashim rak ro'im oti o rak ro'im otah velo mevinim shezeh Kiddush Levana. כי מישהו שאל אותי מה אני, אמרתי לו קידוש ki mishehu sha'al oti mah ani, amarti lo kiddush, ah okay, קידוש kiddush, זה לא כזה מה מעניין zeh lo kazeh mah me'anyen. אבל כשאנחנו ביחד aval keshe'anachnu beyachad, אז az wow, זה קידוש לבנה zeh Kiddush Levana. I was so excited. I was so excited. I said that's the essence of פורים Purim! When you see one detail by itself, you look at the detail and you say what is this? What does it mean? How does it work? How does it make sense? It looks random. That's what it looks like, it looks random. A kiddush cup, that's a random thing to dress up as for פורים Purim. But then suddenly you see the friend, a moon. A moon's random. Oh wait! Look! קידוש לבנה Kiddush Levana! I get it! When you see, you join the dots and you recognize הקדוש ברוך הוא Hakadosh Baruch Hu is here. You recognize, that's what קידוש לבנה Kiddush Levana is about, no? Recognizing the שכינה Shekhinah. It's about seeing הקדוש ברוך הוא Hakadosh Baruch Hu who's there. The עבודה avodah of פורים Purim. The עבודה avodah of פורים Purim is to rise above a recognition of this world or a mistake of this world that things that are happening are random and to acknowledge the world as being יד השם Yad Hashem and see everything as יד השם Yad Hashem. If a person in this world... looks at their life's events: why was I born where, the country that I was born in? Why was I born to the family I was born to? Why did I go to the school that I went to? Why did I have the friends that I had? How did I end up in this particular ישיבה Yeshiva? As, you have to be born somewhere. You have to go to some school. You have to have some parents. What's the question? Like, what's the deal? But אסתר Esther taught us, what did אסתר Esther say? על מה זה ועל מה זה Al ma ze v'al ma ze. What's that double language? על מה זה ועל מה זה Al ma ze v'al ma ze? Did she have a stutter? Did she have to say it twice? על מה זה ועל מה זה Al ma ze v'al ma ze. What was she asking? The מפרשים meforshim say, על מה זה Al ma ze, what's going on, technically? Physically, what's happening? Why are you mourning, משה Moshe, מרדכי Mordechai? Why are you wearing sack or ashes? מה זה Ma ze? What's going on? ועל מה זה V'al ma ze, בשמים bashamayim? Why did הקדוש ברוך הוא Hakadosh Baruch Hu decree that this has to happen? What's the underlying essence? Everything happens for a reason. Nothing is random. Says אסתר Esther, על מה זה ועל מה זה Al ma ze v'al ma ze. What's going on in the world level number one? And what's the reason why הקדוש ברוך הוא Hakadosh Baruch Hu is causing these things to happen level number two? על מה זה ועל מה זה Al ma ze v'al ma ze. That's our עבודה avodah for פורים Purim. Our purpose of פורים Purim is to reflect on everything that's going on in our lives and to acknowledge הקדוש ברוך הוא Hakadosh Baruch Hu is behind everything, everything that's happening has a divine reason. The מצוות mitzvos that הקדוש ברוך הוא Hakadosh Baruch Hu gave us on פורים Purim are מגילת אסתר Megillas Esther where that's clear what the purpose of מגילת אסתר Megillas Esther is. It's seeing all the random events and by hearing them all in one go, you put them all together. They took place over a period of nine years. People who were there maybe didn't see אסתר Esther in the palace for five years suffering for no reason. But then suddenly one day, oh, look! Maybe this is the reason you were determined to be in the palace. When you're in the event, you don't see the השגחה פרטית hashgacha pratis. It's too broad, it's too long, you don't see it. But when we hear the whole מגילה Megilla together, that's why if you read the מגילה למפרע Megilla l'mafrea, you don't fulfill your מצוה mitzvah because you're not seeing how it all happened and how it all developed. You have to see it in order exactly to put the pieces together. So that's the reason for the מצוה mitzvah of the מגילה Megilla. And the reason for the other מצוות mitzvos of משלוח מנות mishloach manos, מתנות לאביונים matanos l'evyonim, and having the סעודה seudah together, the goal there is that when עם ישראל Am Yisrael are divided like עמלק Amalek wants us to be. The word עמלק Amalek is an עם מלק am malak. What's מליקה melikah? Separating the head from the body. מליקה Melikah is separating what I'm doing in life, but I'm not thinking it through. עם מלק Am malak, the nation that divides, that separates. The goal of עמלק Amalek is that we won't be thinking there's a higher purpose. We won't be acknowledging that everything our body is doing is divinely orientated. עם מלק Am malak, the nation that divides. Our תיקון tikkun for that is the unity that we have. I'm inviting a friend over. I'm giving a friend a gift. I'm helping the poor people. And when we show that we have unity, then we're saying that we're all connected. We all have a common fate. We all have a common destiny. We're all united together in our common goal. And therefore the goal of פורים Purim is to acknowledge הקדוש ברוך הוא Hakadosh Baruch Hu. On a very, very practical level, that means that you have to have דעת da'as on פורים Purim. You have to be thinking through what you're doing. The idea, I think, of drinking on פורים Purim, the goal behind it is that a person loses the inhibitions that he has to see things on a superficial level so that he can contemplate on a deeper level everything that's happening. I was stuck in a rigid worldview of seeing things happening because of this leader and that leader and this חברותא chavrusa and that friend and this parent and move beyond that! Move beyond that! Don't be stuck in the rigid way of thinking. Drink to a point where you're uninhibited, then you can acknowledge maybe there's something broad and divine behind everything that's going on. And what comes out of that is giving gifts and loving people and acknowledging הקדוש ברוך הוא Hakadosh Baruch Hu. And therefore the goal is not to get too drunk because then you might miss the whole purpose. You might miss השם Hashem. But to drink a small amount just so that you can remove those inhibitions and then recognize הקדוש ברוך הוא Hakadosh Baruch Hu behind the whole story. I want to finish with the final idea, that we're in an era right now where we have that same choice. If you look back at from the beginning of the state until today, you can see a clear shift and movement from how the leaders of the nation define what is happening in the Jewish state. If you go back to the beginning of the state, the leaders did not acknowledge הקדוש ברוך הוא Hakadosh Baruch Hu. If you go to the Six-Day War where it was יד השם גלויה עלינו Yad Hashem gluyah aleinu and a great rabbi in ירושלים Yerushalayim said, \"This was the hand of השם Hashem,\" and the Minister of Defense said... You can call it the hand of השם Hashem, but we had to give him a little bit of help. And he said it from an arrogant place. And the Rabbi said, \"You're right, הקדוש ברוך הוא Hakadosh Baruch Hu needs us to put in השתדלות hishtadlus.\" So the Rabbi reinterpreted it in a תורה Torah perspective. But the Defense Minister, he didn't mean that. He meant that we're the ones who did it. And then you go to what's happening today. And you see a leader of a state who makes a ברכה beracha of שהחיינו Shehecheyanu and goes to the כותל Kotel to ask for help before going on a mission of destroying evil in the world. I'm not saying that it's being done על פי דעת תורה al pi da'as Torah. We haven't reached that stage yet. We're learning סנהדרין Sanhedrin and we don't yet have a בית דין Beis Din. We don't have a סנהדרין גדולה Sanhedrin Gedola. We don't have a מלך melech who's asking the אורים ותומים Urim Ve'Tumim if he should go out to war. We don't have all the conditions yet to be exactly in line with הקדוש ברוך הוא's Hakadosh Baruch Hu's world. But I feel that if at the beginning of this 70-something year journey that we're in right now in this stage in history, we were more in the עזאזל Azazel, excuse me for saying, we were more in acknowledging the lot as being random. Like, let's try and see what happens and good luck to you, Jews. We're moving more and more over to even if you don't see השם's Hashem's name written explicitly in the מגילה Megilla, you know that when it says the word המלך Hamelech, that's actually השם Hashem. And I feel that this message of פורים Purim, this עבודה avoda of פורים Purim, of moving away from defining your life's events as just it happened, it happened to be, to changing that language and recognizing everything as יד השם Yad Hashem is something that we're doing on a personal level. And you can see in this state right now that we're in, in the תהליך הגאולה tahalich hageula that we're in, you can see that that's what's happening on a national level as well. And more and more people are acknowledging הקדוש ברוך הוא Hakadosh Baruch Hu. I just finish off with one last thing. There was big news today. Big, did you hear the big news? There was a meeting about whether to attack Iran. And they sat down at the table to discuss it, to do or not to do it. And one person came to the meeting and he put a ספר sefer in front of him so if they're talking in the middle he can learn the ספר sefer. What ספר sefer did he bring? He brought the פירוש peirush of רב אלקבץ Rav Alkabetz, רב שלמה אלקבץ Rav Shlomo Alkabetz on מגילת אסתר Megillas Esther, מנות הלוי Manos HaLevi. He brought that ספר sefer. And when people were arguing a bit, he was opening and learning the פירוש peirush and then they carried on learning. The story of the מגילה Megilla is happening in real life. And part of the decision-makers in his breaks while they were discussing, he's opening and learning the פירוש peirush of רב שלמה אלקבץ Rav Shlomo Alkabetz to see how did the מגילה Megilla work, what exactly happened there. Something is happening in our time. We're acknowledging יד השם Yad Hashem in a way we've never done before. And it's your mission this פורים Purim, more than ever, to see national events that are taking place, to see the יד השם גדולה עלינו Yad Hashem gedola aleinu and to attribute it back to הקדוש ברוך הוא Hakadosh Baruch Hu and recognize that we're זוכה zoche to be in an era where it's, you have to be really defiant and really difficult and really stubborn not to acknowledge that it's יד השם Yad Hashem. Really stubborn. Our עבודה avoda is to choose המלך Hamelech, even if it's not written שם השם Shem Hashem explicitly. חג כשר ושמח Chag Kasher Ve'Sameach.