Yoel Chaim (Jared Kushner) informs his wife Yael (Ivanka): “Abu Mazen (Machmud Abbas) has just sealed a deal with Hamas in the south, and Hezbollah in Lebanon to attack Israel and murder all the Jews – men women and children – on one specific day, and the only one who can prevent it is you!”
Yael is desperate. She tells Yoel Chaim to secretly request all the Jews in the world to fast three days and pray for her success.
The military victory is the essential, although underplayed, miracle of Purim. The Megillah records that on the 13th of Adar in the outlying areas, and on the 13th and 14th in Shushan, the capital, the Jews killed 75,800 of the enemy while losing none of our own.
In the lighter spirit of Purim and the military victory, I wish to cite four non-military anecdotal episodes which appear in my forthcoming autobiography dealing with the 22 years I served as a reserve soldier in Tzahal.
“Esther is likened to the dawn. That just as dawn signals the end of night, so too does Esther signal the end of miracles.” What does this mean?
The Gemara (Megillah 14a) explains that although the Jewish people brought forth many prophets, only those prophecies which would have relevance in the future were included in the Bible. From here we learn that the story of Esther, which is included, will hold relevance for the Jewish people and the world in the future. In a manner of speaking, Megillat Esther serves as “coming attractions” for the final days when HaShem will bring about the final redemption of the Jewish nation in Eretz Yisrael.
What can we expect?
The Holocaust was the greatest calamity to befall the Jewish nation.
How did it come about in Hashem’s world that six million Jews (the belief today is that the number is closer to seven and a half million Jews), including one-and-a-half million children and millions of God-fearing Torah Jews, were sent to Olam Haba (the next world) through the chimneys of Aisav’s (Esau) death camps?
Our parsha relates an incident that revolves around a man and his son in law – Yitro and Moshe Rabbeinu. The father-in-law offers advice which the son-in-law accepts. In these days, we are witnessing a similar relationship but here the son-in-law Gerald Kirschner advises his father-in-law Donald Trump.
Our Prime Minister is in Washington to hear what the President has to say regarding the limitations on our independence in our own land.
“When Pharaoh sent the (Jewish) nation out, HaShem did not lead them on the road through Philistine land, though it was a shorter route, for HaShem said that they (the Jews) would return to Egypt when faced with the necessity to wage war.
So HaShem led the people by the desert road toward the Red Sea. The Israelites went up out of Egypt CHAMUSHIM.”
What is the meaning and context of CHAMUSHIM?
