Tuesday, March 18, 2008

A Quick Buck, Anyone ?

When Esther decides to invite Achashverosh and Haman to her little soiree she has several reasons running through her head [ see megilla 15b]. One of the reasons was to appear to her fellow Jews that she had defected to the dark side and taken up with Haman and his ilk. This was done to spur the Jews to daven for divine mercy with increased fervor because they could no longer count on their "inside (wo)man".

So we see that the Jewish nation was well aware of the Queen's secret nationality. Yet, Achashverosh spends much effort and money to (unsuccessfully) determine Esther's true identity. He even made whole banquets dedicated to this purpose [ see megilla 13a ].

Why then, did no enterprising Jew sell out the Queen ? Was there no one amongst the people who could have used a quick buck ? Achashverosh had already proved that he was willing to shell out the dough for the information.

We see here an incredible and perhaps unprecedented level of achdus amongst klal yisrael. They might have bitter disagreements amongst themselves ( blaming each other for their current predicament - megilla 12b-13a ) but when it comes to uniting for a common cause - they are truly the (re)incarnation of "איש אחד בלב אחד" - perhaps this is why, of all generations, this one was the one to reaffirm the kabbalas haTorah. [ see shabbos 88b ]

And what of our mission this Purim ? To turn up our ahavas yisrael a notch or three - and to the extent we manage this - we will be rewarded with a new level of kabbalas haTorah - "בימים ההם" but "בזמן הזה".

Hatzalcha !!

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