Purim - Megillat Esther
The midrash on Megillat Esther tells over a very interesting conversation that took place.
Haman was pestering Ahashverosh to let him destroy the Jews. Finally Ahashverosh considers it and calls a meeting of all his wise men and advisers and asks for their professional opinion whether it is feasible or not.
The wise men go into a lengthy response of why it is not possible. They say, the world was created for the Torah which is studied by the Jews. The Jews are the closest nation to God, even called His children. If you destroy the Jews, you are getting personal with God and He will not allow it to happen and will bring his wrath down upon you. Look at history at anyone who has tried to destroy the jews and what has happened to them. Pharoah was destroyed, Sanherev and his army were wiped out...
Haman jumps in and says it can be done. God is old and can no longer respond the way he used to. he points out Nebuchadnezzar who only 60 or so years prior had burned down the beis hamikdash and exiled the jews.
Haman is persuasive and they all agree. They wrk out some details and Haman is selected to lead the campaign against the Jews.
The midrash continues with Haman's rationale. Haman goes through history describing how bad the Jews were and how they must be destroyed. I will review it briefly. He says how Pharoah took the Jews in so kindly and the jews repaid him with nothing but trouble. they kept insisting on leaving and when he let them they took all the valuables of Egypt. Then Pharaoh decided to chase them to get his money back and ended up getting pushed into the sea. After all the good Pharoah did for them, this is how they treated him!
Haman continues describing the different nations that Israel battled with in the desert and how the Jews were cruel for no reason and started wars and destroyed nations for no reason. Then they go into Israel and wipe out all the inhabitants and steal the land. He continues through Jewish history and the various kings and talks about how they all were vicious and cruel and fought with nations for no reason and destroyed them. He gets to Nebuchadnezzar who destroyed the beis hamikdash because the Jews stopped listening to their God and he says and now they live among us and they have kept their old, ugly traditions. They continue to taunt us and our gods. Now we have to destroy them... etc..
Look how a person can deceive himself to see what he wants to see. Haman points out all these events and at the same time where he can see clearly, and even says so at times, that the God of the Jews helped them be so successful, he still refuses to look at it objectively and realize that Hashem caused all their successes.
He still, despite having walked through all of Israel's history and their successes, thinks that it is not God protecting the Jews and that he will be able to overcome them.
This is the story of the megilla and of Purim. One has to look deeper than face value, Only then can you realize that Hashem is behind the scenes pulling the strings. If you only look at face value, you can fail to see the truth behind all the events and continue to delude yourself..
Showing posts with label faith. Show all posts
Showing posts with label faith. Show all posts
Thursday, March 1, 2007
Tuesday, February 20, 2007
How hard is it to count to 70?
(this post is cross-posted at Torah Thoughts and at DafNotes)
We recently learned in daf yomi the calculations, and miscalculations, of the 70 years of exile after the destruction of the first Beis Hamikdash and prior to the rebuilding of the second Beis Hamikdash.
One would think that 70 years is not too difficult to keep track of, especially when you are living within the thick of it. However, we see Ahashverosh miscounted the 70 years. So did other people. Nobody knew from when to begin the count of 70, therefore everybody's count was skewed and nobody had the correct target date. It was only after the rebuilding of the Beis Hamikdash began that we could look back and say we know when the count of 70 years of exile began.
The same is true in the upcoming parsha regarding the creation of the golden calf. The Jews knew Moshe was going to be on Mt. Sinai for 40 days. How hard is it to count 40 days? Yet they miscounted and that led them to making the mistake of creating the golden calf.
We have many dates and calculations throughout tanach and Jewish history. Great Rabbis have calculated with varying conclusions the dates of the coming of Moshiah, the end of the world, the redemption, etc. These dates come and go. We then question how the great Rabbis could be wrong and lose faith (sometimes) or simply become cynical when hearing such things. We have to realize that we never know where to begin the count, and therefore our counts and calculations are always wrong. It is only in hindsight we can look back and say where the count began.
The gemara says the world will only last 6000 years. That is pretty good reason to start getting nervous. We are now in the year 5767 (of the Jewish calendar). That only leaves 233 years left to go before armageddon!
But considering the fact that pretty much every count in the Torah and Jewish history was found to be miscalculated, we have to consider that we have no idea when the count of 6000 years begins. Did the 6000 years begin from the first day of creation? Maybe from Avraham recognizing monotheism? Maybe from matan Torah? Maybe from the jewish nation entering Eretz Yisroel? Or maybe from multitudes of other placemarks in jewish history. We have no idea when the count begins, and will only know after it actually happens.
I think it was the Rambam who said not to bother calculating the coming of the mashiah, as doing so only causes people to lose faith when the predicted event does not happen. Instead of worrying about specific dates and calculations that will almost definitely be wrong anyways, we should heed the advice of the great masters and be "mefashfesh b'maasav" - look at our ways and correct our actions and try to prepare in that way for the days of Mashiah.
We recently learned in daf yomi the calculations, and miscalculations, of the 70 years of exile after the destruction of the first Beis Hamikdash and prior to the rebuilding of the second Beis Hamikdash.
One would think that 70 years is not too difficult to keep track of, especially when you are living within the thick of it. However, we see Ahashverosh miscounted the 70 years. So did other people. Nobody knew from when to begin the count of 70, therefore everybody's count was skewed and nobody had the correct target date. It was only after the rebuilding of the Beis Hamikdash began that we could look back and say we know when the count of 70 years of exile began.
The same is true in the upcoming parsha regarding the creation of the golden calf. The Jews knew Moshe was going to be on Mt. Sinai for 40 days. How hard is it to count 40 days? Yet they miscounted and that led them to making the mistake of creating the golden calf.
We have many dates and calculations throughout tanach and Jewish history. Great Rabbis have calculated with varying conclusions the dates of the coming of Moshiah, the end of the world, the redemption, etc. These dates come and go. We then question how the great Rabbis could be wrong and lose faith (sometimes) or simply become cynical when hearing such things. We have to realize that we never know where to begin the count, and therefore our counts and calculations are always wrong. It is only in hindsight we can look back and say where the count began.
The gemara says the world will only last 6000 years. That is pretty good reason to start getting nervous. We are now in the year 5767 (of the Jewish calendar). That only leaves 233 years left to go before armageddon!
But considering the fact that pretty much every count in the Torah and Jewish history was found to be miscalculated, we have to consider that we have no idea when the count of 6000 years begins. Did the 6000 years begin from the first day of creation? Maybe from Avraham recognizing monotheism? Maybe from matan Torah? Maybe from the jewish nation entering Eretz Yisroel? Or maybe from multitudes of other placemarks in jewish history. We have no idea when the count begins, and will only know after it actually happens.
I think it was the Rambam who said not to bother calculating the coming of the mashiah, as doing so only causes people to lose faith when the predicted event does not happen. Instead of worrying about specific dates and calculations that will almost definitely be wrong anyways, we should heed the advice of the great masters and be "mefashfesh b'maasav" - look at our ways and correct our actions and try to prepare in that way for the days of Mashiah.
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