Return to site

Purim Fun...

· Purim

 

Purim, the happy, giddy, day. The candy streams endlessly, the wine and emotions flow freely. In the heat of the commotion, we feel a quiet, yet insistent, inner surge of …something. After all our frenzied preparations, the day is flying past at top speed. What are we supposed to get out of it? How do we even connect to it?

Observing the Breslover Chassidim when they’re good and drunk gives us an idea of what the day is really about. The words which escape their usually sealed mouths, the true ambitions, the intense aspirations, and the sincere desires, teach us what to want, and how to get it.

Once on Purim, Reb Yonah Lebel turned to Reb Avraham Sternhartz with tears streaming from his eyes, begging him, “Oy Reb Avraham! Today is Purim, ‘when the wine goes in, the secrets go out.’ Reveal the secret to us, how do we become erliche Yidden? How do we truly serve Hashem? Oy Reb Avraham! How do we get a pure mind, a pure heart for Hashem? Oy Reb Avraham!” He continued in this vein until he became choked by his tears and couldn’t talk anymore.

Reb Avraham answered him with a slightly raised voice, “Yonah! The Rebbe already revealed this secret to us long ago, through his heilige sefarim and precious eitzos which are full of hischazkus and hisorerus, especially the Likutei Halachos which is filled with chiyus and feelings to avodas Hashem. Through pouring out your heart with the Likutei Tefillo,s which gives you a way to have hisbodedus with Hashem.

Today is Purim; ‘all those who stretch out their hand are given.’ The Rebbe says that a ‘hand’ is tefillah, so throw yourself onto Hashem and pour all your words out before Him; all these things you asked me about. After all, He listens to everyone’s tefillos and He’ll surely answer you and give you mishloach manos and matanos l’evyonim. You can daven for this all year long; this is what the Rebbe taught us and this is where the secret of Yiddishkeit lies. This is what the Rebbe said that ‘My whole thing is tefillah.’ And he said that even if you fall into the mud, cry and cry and cry. The main thing is ‘from the depths of gehinnom, I cried….” Such sweet words flowed forth from Reb Avraham, and Yonah stood there, crying and laughing and begging Reb Avraham that nevertheless, he should reveal the secret of how to become an erliche Yid to him, because the Rebbe himself asked, “How are we zoiche to be a Yid?”

Reb Avraham answered him, “Today we read in the megillah that Mordechai Hatzaddik cried out a great bitter cry to Hashem, until there was a Purim for the Yidden, and there was light, rejoicing, happiness… and they accepted the Torah anew. Reb Nosson writes in Likutei Halachos that what the Rebbe says about "ועכשיו" – and now, refers to Purim. Reb Nosson understood from the Rebbe that nowadays, the beginning is from Purim. So Yonah, you have a golden opportunity from today on to start crying to Hashem every day, ‘Ribbono Shel Olam, have rachmanus on me already! From now on, I want to become an erliche Yid like You want! You Yourself taught us that we should beg You that You should give us Yiras shamayim, so I’m begging You that with Your mercy, You should give me a life of Yiras shamayim…’ Beg, insist, and plead every day, until Hashem will have mercy and you’ll be zoiche to a true mishloach manos to become truly erlich. If we’re zoiche, we receive the mishloach manos on Purim itself, and if not, we get it later, so long as we cry and beg…”