AT FIRST IT might not seem that there is very much connecting this week’s parsha and Purim, other than the fact they are both on the same day this year. Until, that is, we recall that the Machtzis-Hashekel collected at the beginning of the parsha is what the Gemora calls the “medicine before the illness” (Megillah 13b). Haman was prepared to spend 10,000 kikar kesef to buy the right to kill all the Jews, but it turned out that the Machtzis-Hashekel given in the desert counteracted that about a thousand years in advance. 

​PURIM IS THE least straightforward holiday of all of them. There are some who treat Purim as a time to let go and have a blast, while others look at it as holy of holies. Some go no further than the Megillah’s childlike story to understand the holiday’s basis, while others see Purim as an intellectual and spiritual rabbit hole that just keeps going deeper and deeper.

​WE’RE IN PURIM territory now. Shabbos is the first of Adar and Parashas Shekalim. On a Pshat level that may not mean very much, but on a Sod level there is so much going on.

Chinuch is everything. Life is an educated guess, and the more educated you are, the less you have to guess what to do. It is certainly harder to get out of bed in the morning with any kind of bounce in your step if you are uncertain about the meaning of what you plan to do that day. The last thing a person wants to do is get to the end of life and question how they spent it.

DOES JUDAISM BELIEVE in reincarnation? Those who quote Saadia Gaon say no. But it is hard to imagine how, if he had a copy of the Zohar, which had yet to be published, because it speaks about gilgulim extensively at the beginning of Parashas Mishpatim.