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Weekly Thought
by Rabbi Shimon Raichik
In one of the sichos on Purim 5729/1969 the Rebbe asked the question, why doesn't Rashi explain the difficulty in the Megillah that when Queen Esther was begging Achashverosh to rescind the decree she said, I am asking for /ani/ – my nation – /vnafshi/ –and for my soul.
Haman’s accusation against the Jewish people was that they were spread out, they don’t keep the law of the land, and therefore, it is not worthy of the king to have them. Where do we find in Esther’s request a rebuttal to Haman’s accusations? She should have tried to explain that the Jewish people are not different! The only thing she was saying was /ami/ – my people. So the Rebbe said that it is obvious that in her words are the rebuttal.
Esther said to Achashverosh, “Yes, we are different, I am different!: I don’t drink the wine you touch, I have seven maids so I remember when Shabbos is. Even though I am different, from among all the young women of your kingdom, you chose me. The decision that Haman made that because we are different we are not worthy of existence is false because you alone, King Achashverosh, proved it. I am your queen and I am different, /ami/, I am Jewish and this is my people.”
The Rebbe continued that in America today, there is a feeling that if someone wants to impress the non-Jewish world he must show how he are equal to them. When a person in Wall Street wants to show off his heritage, he tells his broker or banker, “Michael, do you think I come from the moon?” He brings the non-Jew into the office and shows him a picture of his grandfather, a Yid with a big yarmulka and a long white beard, and a grandmother who covered her hair and dressed very modestly. The grandson is proud of his grandparents. But when he is asked, what about you? He says, now we are living in a different time. The way of my grandparents was in the alte shtetel – America is different.
The grandson is doing to his grandparents what Haman wanted to do to Mordechai – put him on a pole 50 cubits high for all to see – and he's proud of his grandparents, but they are above him and he has no connection to them! When the granddaughter wants to daven to Hashem she goes to her grandmother, asking grandmother to pray for her. Why shouldn't the granddaughter be dressed as modestly as the grandmother, why is she dressed in a mini-mini?! It is up to you to educate your son to go in the way of his grandfather, with a full beard; and your daughter should dress as refined as her grandmother, she should bentsch licht every Friday and daven like her grandmother did. The only way to live is the way Esther said - /ami/ – my nation – I am living like a Jewish person. That is how Esther prevailed upon the king and changed the decree.
I am reminded of a farbrengen among chassidim in Australia on Purim night in 1973 when I was on Shlichus in Melbourne. At one table was Rabbi Mordechai Perlow and Rabbi Betzalel Wilshansky. They learned in Lubavitch by the Rebbe Rashab between 1913 and 1916. At a second table was Rabbi Yitzchok Dovid Groner, who learned in 770 during the 1940s, in the time of the Previous Rebbe. At another table there were younger chassidim, who learned by the Rebbe in 770 in the 1960s. Whether they learned in the time of the Rebbe Rashab, the Previous Rebbe or our Rebbe, they all lived with the feelings and experiences of their Yeshiva years and it penetrated into every aspect of their lives. Rabbi Perlow and Rabbi Wilshansky learned in Lubavitch before World War I and suffered through the revolution, the rise of Communism and World War II. Even sixty years later, when they lived openly as chassidim in Melbourne it was /ami/ – my nation – I am a chossid. That was the common denominator that entire night. Wherever they learned, whatever generation, their Yiddishekeit and Chassidishkeit was not only a picture on the wall. Instead each generation was permeated with the Chassidishe warmth they had internalized in their formative yeshiva years.
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