"Shabbat Shalom from Bangkok"

Bob and his wife were the architects for the Chabad House Synagogue that my brother built in Westport. They were visiting Thailand two weeks ago and came to meet me.

Bob told me about one of the challenges. The land that had been purchased for the parking lot needed to be raised to conform with local requirements. Getting the ‘fill-in’ earth was a costly undertaking. It just ‘so happened’ (i.e. Divine Providence) that a builder friend was doing a redevelopment and needed to dump earth and other materials to clear his site. The developer was happy to offer his earth for free, so long as the Chabad House sent the trucks to pick it up.

It reminded me of the story in the Megillah of Esther that we will be reading on Purim.

Haman said to King Achashverosh, "There is one nation, scattered and dispersed among the nations throughout the provinces of your kingdom, whose laws are unlike those of any other nation and who do not obey the laws of the King. It is not in the King's interest to tolerate them.

"If it please the King, let [an edict] be issued for their destruction, and I will pay ten thousand silver talents to the functionaries, to be deposited in the King's treasuries."

The king removed his signet ring from his hand and gave it to Haman, son of Hamdata, the Agagite, persecutor of the Jews.

The king said to Haman, "The money is yours to keep, and the nation is yours to do with as you please."

It seems that Achashverosh turned out the offer of a large sum of money being offered to him by Haman.

Why?

The Talmud tractate Megillah provides more details to this part of the story of Purim.

The actions of Ahasuerus and Haman can be understood with a parable; to what may they be compared? To two individuals, one of whom had a mound in the middle of his field and the other of whom had a ditch in the middle of his field, each one suffering from his own predicament. The owner of the ditch, noticing the other’s mound of dirt, said to himself: Who will give me this mound of dirt suitable for filling in my ditch; I would even be willing to pay for it with money, and the owner of the mound, noticing the other’s ditch, said to himself: Who will give me this ditch for money, so that I may use it to remove the mound of earth from my property?

At a later point, one day, they happened to have met one another. The owner of the ditch said to the owner of the mound: Sell me your mound so I can fill in my ditch. The mound’s owner, anxious to rid himself of the excess dirt on his property, said to him: Take it for free; if only you had done so sooner. Similarly, Ahasuerus himself wanted to destroy the Jews. As he was delighted that Haman had similar aspirations and was willing to do the job for him, he demanded no money from him…

Much has been said about this and how it relates to anti-semitism throughout the ages. For example an article by Aron Moss or Rabbi Josh Gordon.

When I heard this exact story being told by Bob the architect as something that had transpired in real life, with my own brother’s shul, a mere few years ago, it prompted me to look into some of the commentaries on this story.

Chacham Yosef Chaim of Baghdad (1832-1909) commented on this story.

From the way the Talmud depicts Achashverosh, he too, was a hater of the Jews and was pleased to have Haman dispose of them. Why then, does Achashverosh not meet an ignominious end just like Haman? Haman was killed for scheming to kill the Jews; shouldn’t Achashverosh have been at least demoted for his role in enabling this diabolical plan? Yet the Megillah ends off with Achashverosh firmly ensconced on this royal throne.

The matter can be understood by the following analogy.

There was a king who had a son that was captured by two people who were sworn enemies of the king. They planned to kill the prince, but the actual killing was delayed.

The motivation for the delay was not the same by each of the enemies. One of them recognized the innate dignity of the royal family and wanted to procure a poison that could be inserted into a drink and kill the prince in a ‘gentler’ and more ‘refined’ way.

The other enemy was delaying the killing as he wanted to create a big fire and cause the prince a more agonizing and ‘dehumanizing’ death.  

The king swooped in just in time to save his son the prince.

He treated the two captors very differently.

The cruel captor he puts to death for his role in planning his son’s murder.

The other captor, who also wanted to kill his son, but was more respectful of the king’s stature and wanted to preserve some of the royal dignity even while killing the prince, was allowed off without being punished by the king. It was this delay that allowed the prince to live. Although admittedly, had the king not come in time, the more ‘genteel’ opponent would have murdered the prince.

Similarly says R’ Yosef Chaim of Baghdad, Achashverosh respected the stature of the Jewish people. To be sure, he hated them and was going to facilitate the extermination plans against them. But at the same time, he didn’t want to do it in a demeaning way. Which is why he rejected the money offer.

You see, Haman wanted to pay money for the right to kill the Jews as part of his plan to demean the Jews. He wanted them to feel like human chattel and mere assets and thus dehumanize the Jewish people.

Whereas Achashverosh did not agree to take the money as he wanted to avoid demeaning the Jewish people in that way.

This also fits the ‘mound’ and ‘pit’ in the Talmud’s analogy.

Achashverosh saw the Jews as a mound, something elevated above the flat earth. Whereas Haman saw the Jews as a ‘hole in the ground’ as something totally worthless and disgusting.

When Hashem brought about a salvation for the Jews on Purim, He treated Haman and Achashverosh differently. For Achashverosh, although he was innately antisemitic, he at least treated the Jewish people with a modicum of respect.

Do you see any parallels in the patterns of anti-semitism as they play out in 20th and 21st centuries?

I find the Haman figures very identifiable. We can quite easily identify our enemies who want to kill us and treat us like dirt.

It is the Achashverosh kind of antisemite that to me seems more difficult to identify. On the outside they may be quite genteel, but a deeply rooted intolerance of the Jews may be lurking in the background, only waiting for a ‘cover story’.

The Talmudic story with its various commentaries is like dots. Applying the story to the contemporary geopolitical situation is like drawing the lines to connect the dots.

I have provided the dots. The drawing of the lines and the lessons for the world news headlines of today, I leave to you. No two people think alike. I am curious how you understand this topic.

Some Torah scholars share Torah thoughts with each other (in addition to food items) as a form of ‘Purim gifts’ Mishlach Manot.

Perhaps you have a thought to share with me in honor of Purim about this story. I would love to hear feedback from you.

To draw two quick lessons from this story that are applicable in our personal lives.

Sometimes a person may have a ‘mound’ in their life. Perhaps they have gone through a very difficult challenge that they would have preferred to avoid. They have layers of experience that others who have not gone through those circumstances don’t have.

The way to move forward in a positive way is to understand that there must be purpose in gaining the wisdom that could only be gained by going through this difficulty. And to pray to Hashem that He guide you to find the person with a ‘hole’ that can be benefited by the experience gained.

I have seen people who have gone through very difficult things take that experience and use it to counsel, console and bring positivity to others. I am in awe of such giants.

For the second positive message garnered by this story, let me end with another story.

The Alter Rebbe once sent a messenger to a chassid of his to ask him to participate in a very urgent life-saving cause. It was a significantly large amount of money that the Rebbe was requesting. The messenger, himself a very devout chassid was sure that it would take a few days for the benefactor to put together such a respectable sum of cash. To his surprise, the moment he arrived at the persons house, he was greeted warmly, and asked by his host ‘how much money does the Rebbe need to alleviate the crisis’. The messenger named the amount, and the host went to the next room and brought the full amount.

The messenger asked incredulously, ‘how did you know to prepare such a generous sum and have it on hand’?

To which the benefactor replied ‘yesterday I transacted a very successful business deal, and I said to myself ‘if Hashem sent me such a tidy profit it must be that the Rebbe has a larger than usual need and I have been sent this amount to be able to provide Tzedaka for this need’.

My dear friend, if you have a ‘mound’, understand that your excess is for a higher purpose. The extra money you have found in your budget can be used to help someone. Find someone who has a hole and help him or her fill it.

There are a number of people I know, who are ‘baalei tzedaka’ philanthropists that look at their financial success in exactly this way.

As well as people that are blessed with other blessings, who give freely of themselves and their gifts to fill the needs of others.

This is a truly inspirational way to live life.

So relevant to Purim, as two of the four mitzvahs of Purim are about helping others.

These are the four mitzvahs:

Hear the Megilah by night and then by day

Send food gifts to at least one other person.

Send monetary gifts to at least two other needy people.

Eat a Purim feast.

May Hashem bless us with salvation from our enemies just like he did in the time of Purim.

In closing:

Let my talk about antisemitism not G-d forbid be taken in the wrong way.

The celebration of Purim is all about the reality that has been borne out over the millennia of world history of the eternity of the Jew.

We are Hashems people, his precious children and He has promised that we will always be here.

As we say in the Haggadah on Pesach:

For not just one enemy has risen against us to destroy us. But in every generation they rise against us to destroy us. And the Holy One Blessed Be He saves us from their hands.

Nations and superpowers have come and gone. Am Yisrael is still here, proud, strong, positive, and passionate.

In just a few short moments the history of the world will take a giant leap, to welcome Mashiach and usher in the world of peace that we yearn and wait for.

So let us now cower and hide and pretend that if we act invisible and try to ‘blend in among the nations’ we will be better off. The opposite is true. Let us stand up with determination and pride and engage with Torah and Mitzvahs with joy and enthusiasm.

During those few short moments before Mashiach comes let us have ‘light’ אורה ושמחה וששון ויקר , may Hashem bless our soldiers, return our hostages, heal our wounded and banish antisemitism to the annals of history while we the Jewish people spread the message of G-d and His universal laws of morality to the entire world.

Shabbat Shalom

Purim Sameach

Rabbi Yosef Kantor

For the joyous month of Adar, let me start off with a joke.

A young man asked an old rich man how he made his money.

The old guy fingered his wool vest and said, “Well, son, it was 1932, the depth of the Great Depression. I was down to my last nickel.

I invested that nickel in an apple. I spent the entire day polishing the apple and, at the end of the day, I sold the apple for ten cents.

The next morning, I invested those ten cents in two apples. I spent the entire day polishing them and sold them at 5:00 pm for 20 cents. I continued this system for a week, by the end of which I’d accumulated a fortune of $6.40.

Then my wife’s lost long great uncle died and left us two million dollars.”

The ‘moral’ of the joke?

Sometimes it’s not really our efforts that are at the source of our wealth, rather it’s someone else’s hard work that we were gifted with.

I used this in my Shabbat speech at Synagogue last week in connection with the special reading about the half shekel that was given by every Jew as a donation to the construction of the Temple. 

Fast forward from the story of Pesach (Exodus from Egypt) to the story of Purim which took place almost a thousand years later in Persia. 

When Haman offered Achashverosh ten thousand talents of silver to the royal coffers for permission to kill all the Jews in his kingdom, Hashem said ‘you wicked person, their silver shekels already preceded and preempted your silver shekels’.

In other words, the instruction of giving a half shekel in the year 2448 from creation was the mitzvah that averted the Haman scheme of annihilation of the Jews some 950 years later.

Think about the incredibleness of it. A half shekel was a modest amount and was required to be given by poor and rich alike. Who would have imagined that a mitzvah done so many years back would be the spiritual power needed to generate the miracle of Purim.

Makes you stop to wonder about how powerful our actions are. Not just in our lifetime but for our future progeny.

I spoke about this at the Friday night Shabbat meal last week. At Shabbat lunch, one of our overseas visitors shared how proud she was of the fact that she has three sons who are rabbis. Indeed it is quite something to be proud of, a source of Jewish ‘naches’ (nachat).

As we were chatting over lunch she also shared the following story:

My father was a soldier in the British army during WWII. As he was about to be sent to the Far East, his commanding officer suggested that he remake his army issued identity disc that bore a J indicating that he was Jewish. His officer explained that the Japanese were allies of the Germans and it would be prudent to take off the J. My father responded, ‘The J represents that I am one of G-d’s children. He has protected me till now, and when I head off to battle, I am even more eager to have His protection. I will keep my disc with the J’.

As the lunch progressed, our London guests shared another story from the war years. This time she shared a story from her mother’s childhood during The Blitz (the German bombing campaign against London in 1940-1).

My mother was a young girl and was part of the evacuation of children to rural areas of England. My grandmother accompanied my mother to settle her in. On Sunday morning they awoke to a smell that was unfamiliar. Upon going downstairs to the kitchen, the mother saw that the smell came from frying bacon. She decided then and there that she was not going to leave her daughter in an environment that could have very wide-reaching consequences and they returned home to London.

While the stories were told without connection to each other, I see a pattern in these stories. They both speak of determination and unyielding commitment to the point of sacrifice. 

All of a sudden it dawned on me that maybe this connected to the theme I had conveyed in my speech on Friday night about the impact of the shekel many generations later.

Could it possibly be that these acts of valor by the grandparents and great grandparents are the spiritual ‘wealth’ that came to this family by inheritance?

To think this way is quite humbling. It means acknowledging that it may not be to my credit that I am the way I am. The power and blessings for what we do may be sourced in the holy and brave deeds of our grandparents and ancestors.

It is also quite inspiring and empowering to think that our deeds have the potential to reverberate and impact future generations even without knowing it.

It’s a call to action.

Next time you think about being too lazy to do a good deed, try to evaluate how much worth it may have to your grandchildren’s grandchildren. 

The next major holiday coming up is Chag Purim (evening of 23 and entire day of 24 of March).

The story of the Megilah is read every single year. To remind us to be grateful to Hashem for saving us then. And we must read it as a contemporary story as well. Hashem is making miracles for us now as well. 

We exchange food gifts so that the joy is shared with everyone in the community.

Monetary gifts are given to the poor so that they too should be able to full partake of the festivities.

And of course, a festive meal. A Purim feast.

These are the four Purim Mitzvahs.

Click here for more information and for instructions on how to fulfil the mitzvahs the way they were instructed. 

In the meantime, Shabbat Shalom

Rabbi Yosef Kantor

By the Grace of G-d

Dear Friend,

Two people shared similar stories with me this week.

Is this a sign from Heaven to share the stories and find how the parsha or date relate to the stories?

Perhaps I can ask you for your help.

Here are the stories. Please share with me if you see the connection with the Parsha of the week – Vayakhel. Or with the time of the year, Shabbat when we read about the Shekalim (half shekel) or Rosh Chodesh Adar the first day of the month of Purim.

S.Y., a community member who was eating lunch at JCafe, told me that he had merited to save a life this week.

A business client was visiting him from the USA and started experiencing pain in his chest. The visitor brushed it off and said he would check it out in the USA when he went back the next day. S.Y. insisted on taking him to the doctor to check it out. It was a 95% blockage in one of the main arteries. Who knows what could have happened G-d forbid on the plane. An angioplasty cleared the blockage and now he is free to travel back home safely.

A life was saved thank G-d through S.Y.’s caring and responsible intervention.

As S.Y. told me his story, I remembered that I had heard a similar story just a few days earlier from a visitor to Beth Elisheva’s daily afternoon service.

It was related to Tefillin.

Dr. H. told me that he was in the airport in NY checking in to a flight to Israel. He needed to use the bathroom and didn’t want to take his Tefillin which he was carrying by hand, into the bathroom. He saw a Jewish couple nearby and asked them if they could hold his Tefillin for the few minutes. After retrieving his Tefilin he conversed for a few minutes with the couple and noticed that the woman didn’t seem right. Being a doctor, he asked a few questions and came to the conclusion that she has a delicate medical condition and shouldn’t be flying. They indeed went straight to a medical clinic, and it was confirmed that she needed medical treatment. Again, a life was saved because of a concerned person who acted to intervene responsibly. In this instance it was a doctor who through his commitment to honoring Hashem’s mitzvahs, was granted the gift of saving another life.

The common denominator of both stories is the great mitzvah of saving another person’s life.

Another thing that stood out was the uplifting way the protagonists of the story related this to me. Their voices reflected joy and feelings of gratitude to Hashem for being able to have the merit of saving someone else's life.

There are so many things that we can be grateful for in our lives.

Every morning when we wake up, we make twenty blessings of thanksgiving.

Click here for more information and guidance to incorporate these blessings of gratitude to your life).

Before we eat, we make a blessing and recognize the gift G-d gives us of food. After eating we thank G-d for the food. These are parts of our life that we are aware that we ought to be thankful for.

For the most part we recognize the great gift of helping someone else. Often helping someone else is not so easy. Effort, sometimes great effort, is required. Some people refer to it as a ‘pain in the neck’ when they get requests of help from people.

However, at the end of the day, they recognize that this is the greatest form of joy.

When looking back at your day, your week, your month, your year or your entire life, there is so much precious joy in the knowledge that you were able to contribute beneficence and goodness to someone else.

How much more so the gift of literally saving someone’s life.

What we sometimes don’t realize is that we need to be grateful to G-d even when He places us in a position of neediness. When we need to be recipients of favors from others, we must also thank G-d for that role in life.

If you are like many people I know, when you need to ask someone else for a favor, you cringe. You would rather be the provider, rather than the receiver.

Let me present a reframing of asking for favors.

(Care must be taken that this information doesn’t fall into the ‘wrong hands’).

Have you ever considered that when Hashem puts you in the position of needing kindness from someone else, He has given you a ‘giving’ role as well?

How so?

Hashem has designated you as His messenger to deliver a gift to the person you are asking for help.

The gift of the mitzvah opportunity of being kind to a fellow.

(I say it must be saved from ‘wrong hands’ as it is possible for someone to use this way of thinking in a dysfunctional way becoming an ingrate and taking advantage of the kind persons benevolence).

To sum it up.

Hashem has created His world with giving and receiving built into the very rubric and rhythm of creation.

Sun and moon. Male and female. Givers and receivers.

In each of these roles, the receiver is also a giver.

A group of wealthy people were once complaining to their Rebbe that he was asking them to help the poor too much. To which the Rebbe responded that Hashem created two groups. Receivers and givers. Hashem intended for the wealth he entrusted to the rich people, to be His way of supporting the poor people from whom He had withheld abundance. If you – the wealthy ones – are not happy with your role as being the Givers on Hashems behalf, the other group – the poor ones – are standing by and quite happy to take on that role. “Would you like to flip roles”, asked the Rebbe?

You can imagine the answer. Nobody volunteered to give up their role of being on the side of the wealthy ‘givers’ to be on the side of the needy ‘receivers’.

Today I want to speak to those in the role of receivers.

Fortify your faith and trust in G-d.

He has not withheld from you the gift of wealth.

Rather, He has GIFTED you the individual financial status that you are currently struggling with.

It is valid to ask Him and pray to Hashem for a change in that gift, for a few more zeros in your bank account, but from a place of inner serenity and peacefulness knowing that Hashem is your loving Creator and is directing and overseeing every single aspect of your life.

While you are still in the receiving mode for the most part, meditate on the fact that as well as receiving, you are also giving.

You are giving your benefactors the gift of giving.

Sometimes, allowing someone else to help you through a touch patch, may be lifesaving – literally – for the giver.

A social worker once told me that a woman she was counseling through suicidal depression would ‘come to life’ whenever talking about the help she was providing to others.

Conventional thinking is ‘woe to me that I need to ask someone else for help’.

Counterintuitive thinking is, ‘I will embrace my role in the world of giving and receiving and right now I need to receive graciously’.

As I have said, and it bears emphasizing, this way of thought, requires caution not to be misused. But it’s the truth.

Do you see the connection with the Parsha of Vayakhel?

Hint: every Jew contributed to building the Mishkan sanctuary for G-d in his or her own way. (Click here to see it spelled out).

Do you notice the connection with the second Torah we are going to read from on this Shabbat speaking about the half Shekel?

Hint: by giving a non-complete shekel, we are reminded that each of us is in need of the other to become complete. (Click here for more on this theme).

How about the connection with Rosh Chodesh Adar II (Sunday and Monday)?

Hint: the fact that we have two Adar months – i.e. a leap year – is to realign the moon and the sun. Giver (sun) reflector (moon). The leap year represents their alignment. (Click here for more on this).

May Hashem give us the gift to give to others graciously. If we need to receive, may Hashem give us the healthy mindset of seeing the blessing in receiving.

And most importantly, may we recognize that each and every one of us is an indispensable part of the community.

In the spirit of Adar, here is a joke that Rabbi Gordon told: (click here for full article).

I am reminded of an adorable story about a mechanic that was called in to try to fix a gigantic cruise ship that suddenly stopped working. Surveying the situation, and after making an elaborate show of taking out all his tools, he proceeded to tighten one single screw, and then announced that the ship was repaired. The mechanic’s bill arrived a few days later, for $10,000! Unwilling to pay such a hefty sum for seemingly minimal work, the cruise operator requested an itemized invoice. The revised invoice arrived: $1.00 for turning the screw; $9,999 for knowing which screw to turn.

My dear friends, what we know from the stories regarding space shuttles (tragic Challenger explosion) and airliners (Boeing door blown off) is that every rubber seal and every bolt a small as it may be is critical to the functioning of the huge and powerful aircraft.

Each and every Jew is even more critically needed for the community to be wholesome.

Every person must look at themselves in the mirror and say, ‘I was created to serve my Master’. I am needed. I am not a spare part. Without me Hashem’s world is incomplete.

The proof? He created me. He doesn’t create ‘junk’.

Engage in your mission. G-d will bless you and bless the collective.

May Hashem bless us with secure peace, health, and the safe return of all who are in captivity and let us ask for the real ‘gold’ – the ushering in of world peace and harmony, the coming of Mashiach NOW.

Shabbat Shalom

Chodesh Tov (for Sunday).

Rabbi Yosef Kantor