B"H
THOUGHTS FOR THE MONTH OF ADAR II
Dear Friends:
This is the month of Purim.
"M'shenichnas Adar marbim b'simcha... When Adar arrives, simcha increases."
Simcha increases, but not always so smoothly. Golus doesn't go away so easily. The yeshua in the time of Mordechai and Esther came only after the closest possible brush with catastrophe.
In our day, the world seems poised at the brink of great convulsions. We must be so close to the geulah shelemah, but the great question is whether we will get there peacefully.
The coming of Moshiach is compared to the travails of a woman in labor. Giving birth is a terribly painful ordeal. The baby must squeeze through a passage that is really too small. Moshiach is also having a great deal of trouble squeezing into this world. It is a very narrow passage indeed. One is reminded of the song, "Kol haolam kulo, gesher tzar m'od... All the world is a narrow bridge...."
We must be prepared for difficult birth pangs.
I would like to examine the similarities between our present situation and the world of Mordechai and Esther. Perhaps we can learn from this comparison just how close we are to the Final Redemption, and how to meet some of the difficulties which may lie ahead.
The Megillah tells us that Achashverosh ruled over one hundred twenty seven provinces, the entire populated world at that time. This means the Jews had no place to hide; our enemies controlled the whole world!
I would like to suggest that we are now living in a world very much like that of Mordechai and Esther. For decades, perhaps centuries, we in America have led a relatively peaceful and even honored existence in the United States, but there are frightening indications that the wind is shifting. In the rest of the Western world, voices are rising against us. I don't even have to mention the situation in the Moslem world; it is clear how we stand there. Of course, there is always Israel, but even in our beloved homeland, there seems to be an ever-growing war against Torah and Torah Jews.
In short, in the entire "127 provinces" of today's world, the sky is turning darker. Where can we run? Where can we find sanctuary if - G-d forbid - the flames of war erupt?
It is well known that Queen Esther implored her fellow Jews to come together in prayer and fasting. That heart-rending united scream to the Ribono shel Olam pierced the Heavens and succeeded in overturning the unspeakable evil plotted against us by our enemies. This was life or death. There was no place to run but to our Father in Heaven, so the Jews looked upward.
Why did we have to fast? Perhaps because our tragedy had come about through food, an over-enjoyment at Achashveros' banquet. Maybe we weren't meant to enjoy Golus so much. Maybe we over-indulged at the king's party. Yes, we understand that kosher food may have been available there, but perhaps that was the trap itself!
It was Golus! We were eating their food! We were enjoying their lifestyle!
"By the rivers of Babylon, there we sat and also wept when we remembered Zion. On the willows within it we hung our lyres. For there our captors requested words of song from us, with our lyres [playing] joyous [music]. ‘Sing for us from Zion's song.' How can we sing the song of Hashem upon the alien's soil? If I forget you, O Jerusalem, let my right hand forget its skill. Let my tongue adhere to my palate if I fail to ... elevate Jerusalem above my foremost joy." [1]
Woe to us! Tragedy upon tragedy! The millennia have passed, but we have not learned the lessons of Purim!
"By the rivers of Babylon, there we sat and also wept when we remembered Zion"!
Weep, my people! Weep for our lost Temple! Weep for the kedusha trampled by the hoofbeats of "civilization," the rush to obliterate the Name of G-d, Creator of heaven and earth! Is not "civilization" just one great effort to elevate man to the status of G-d?
Woe unto us! We have been sucked up into the maelstrom of the world of Golus!
In our defense, it's been two thousand years! How could any culture have maintained its integrity after two thousand years of forced immersion in an alien culture?
Well, yes and no. That is why we have our Torah. G-d gave us the medicine before the illness. [2] Every day we daven for our blood, [3] for our life. And now, we must scream out to G-d, we must strengthen ourselves mightily to overcome our petty, superficial quarrels, our flippant criticisms of each other, our "kalos rosh," [4] our love for the trinkets of alien cultures. We must strengthen ourselves greatly, for the supreme test approaches.
The baby is entering the birth canal. These are the birth pangs of a New World that has been gestating for two thousand years. The baby wants to be born, but the canal is narrow. The pains are prodigious; the cries resound to the Heavens!
Soon, with G-d's blessing, the baby will be born. We pray for a speedy and peaceful delivery! May the child bring the ultimate blessings into the world. "A staff will emerge from the stump of Yishai, and a shoot will sprout from his roots." [5]
But this requires prayer. This requires unity among us. This requires intense effort. My dear friends, this is nothing less than life and death. Queen Esther's life was on the line when she appeared before the king. Now we stand before the King of Kings, and our life is on the line.
If we succeed, we will also have "light, gladness, joy and honor" [6] and merit to live in eternal freedom from our enemies in a world filled with the light of the Torah!
May we merit to see it soon in our days!
Roy S. Neuberger
© Copyright 2008 by Roy S. Neuberger
[1] Psalm 137
[2] Tractate Megillah 13b
[3] Vayikra 19:26; Tractate Berachos 10b
[4] Lightheadedness
[5] Yeshaya 11:1
[6] Megilas Esther 8:16
