Dear Friends,
I once eavesdropped on a lovely little conversation between Haman and Pharaoh, two guys who tried to get rid of the Jewish People, and both of them failed in the end. Not only that – important holidays in our calendar bear their copyright: Haman has the copyright for Purim, and Pharaoh has the one for Pesach. But to get back to their conversation: Haman complained to Pharaoh: “Look, they got from me a happy holiday, but it lasts only one day, but you managed to arrange a seven-day holiday for them, and in the Diaspora it’s even eight days.”
“You’re right,” responded Pharaoh. “I did arrange a seven-day holiday for them, but it is preceded by two weeks of slave-labor…”
In Masechet Megillah, Rava says that a person must drink on Purim until he “can no longer distinguish between ‘Cursed is Haman’ and ‘Blessed is Mordechai’.” Many commentators give different explanations of this demand – to drink and be happy until we can no longer distinguish between Haman and Mordechai. One of the classical explanations is that words “Arur Haman” and “Baruch Mordechai” have the same numerical value – 502. So we should drink on Purim to the point where we won’t be able to make the calculation correctly.
Chassidism searches for the deep meaning of Rava’s statement. Rava says: Reach a level in which you will not be able to tell the difference between “Arur Haman” and “Baruch Mordechai”, and if they are equal numerically, that means on some level they really are equal.
Since everything comes from Hashem, even something bad contains within it something good. If so, Rava’s demand that one should drink until he no longer distinguishes between “Cursed is Haman” and “Blessed is Mordechai” is: Peer into the depths of the matter; search for the good that is hiding within the bad, the “Baruch Mordechai” that is hiding in the “Arur Haman”. On Purim we will have full faith in the Creator, and we’ll see that the “Arur Haman” is just a disguise – a rather scary and painful one sometimes, but just a disguise, for really everything bad contains some good.
And sometimes, as happened in the Purim story, we merit to reach the situation of “Venahafoch Hu” – everything turning around. The bad becomes good, just like Pharaoh and Haman wanted to harm us, and from their bad deeds we gained wonderful, joyous holidays.
Purim Same’ach – Happy Purim!!!
Rabbi Zalmen Wishedski