ONCE BACK IN the 1980s while driving a car I came across a talk show on the radio. Normally I would have just turned off the radio, but the topic gave me reason to pause, and the person calling in gave me reason to worry about the future of mankind. Those worries have since materialized….
It is interesting that accounting should be a part of Torah. Torah is the word of God, our instructions for living. It is so holy that if a Torah falls to the ground, God forbid, the congregation has to fast.
When it comes to Mishnah or Gemora, there is no disagreement in the Torah world regarding their universal importance. Mishnah is the basis of Torah law, and the Gemora explains how to implement it.
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.
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