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Purim 5777

The Spice of Purim[1]

מיחייב איניש לבסומי בפוריא עד דלא ידע בין ארור המן לברוך מרדכי
A person is obligated on Purim to get inebriated to the point where they don’t know the difference between “Cursed Haman” and “Blessed Mordechai”[2]

Chazal inform us[3] that משנכנס אדר מרבים בשמחה, when Adar arrives, we increase in joy. For sure on Purim itself we should be joyous, as it’s referred to[4] as a day of משתה ושמחה, partying and joy. One could wonder, how exactly are we supposed to increase in joy? Are we supposed to put a big smile on our faces? Seemingly, it can’t simply be an external joy. It must be something felt internally. How can a person reach a state of true joy during Adar and Purim?

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Chanukah 5777

The Secret of the Dreidel[1]

ואת יהודה שלח לפניו אל יוסף להורות לפניו גשנה
And [Yaakov] sent Yehudah before him, to Yosef, to teach before him, to Goshen[2]

After Yaakov found out that his son Yosef was not only alive, but that he was the viceroy in Egypt, he and his family made plans to move there. There was a worldwide famine and the only place with food was with Yosef. The verse tells us that Yaakov sent Yehudah ahead of everyone else to Yosef, in the city of Goshen. The question is why was he sent, and why specifically Yehudah[3]. Another question is a grammatical one. The verse says Yehudah was sent גשנה, to Goshen. The normal way to write this would be לגשן. Why did the Torah choose this formulation? Chazal tell us[4] whenever you have a ל at the beginning of a word, which means ‘to’, you can replace it with a ה at the end for the same result. While this explains how it works in the verse, it doesn’t explain why sometimes one format is chosen over another. There must be some significance.

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