On Purim 1745 the Baal Shem Tov taught that the Megilla calls the Children of Yisrael “Jews” [Yehudim] because they were willing to give up their lives rather than deny their Jewish heritage. The Baal Shem Tov went on to explain that, that year—5505, was a pregnant year [meaning there were two months of Adar].
Shortly after Purim, the Baal Shem Tov sent two Chassidim to visit Rabbi Baruch in Liozna and bless his wife Rivka, who was in her 4th month of pregnancy with the Alter Rebbe [who would bd born on the 18th of Elul].
Our Rebbe asks, what is the connection between the Children of Israel being called Yehyudim in the Megilla, a pregnant year, and the impending birth of the Alter Rebbe? Furthermore, how can we apply all three to our service to Hashem?
A teaching of the Arizal provides a connection to these three ideas. The Megilla (9:28) states, “These days will be commemorated and accomplished.” The Arizal taught, “When the days of Purim are commemorated properly, then the event will be “experienced” once more. In other words, all the achievements of the first Purim can be re-experienced by commemorating the holiday properly.
Realistically, a person knows his true standing. Even if he would properly commemorate those days, his experience cannot compare to, much less replicate, how Mordechai the Jew or Esther the Queen experienced them. In fact, he cannot even experience Purim on the level of the Jews who lived through it. They fasted for three days, day and nights. They saw 22,000 school children fasting, praying, and learning Hashem’s Torah despite the threat of certain death. Through their self-sacrifice, all the incredible miracles of that first Purim occurred. So how is it possible to say that, here in America, we have the power to experience those levels?
The answer is there is a big difference between accomplishing a challenge the first time and going through it after it already happened.
Every year on Pesach, we re-experience going out of Egypt by leaving our spiritual constrictions. So too, the self-sacrifice of Mordechai and Esther, the 600,000 Jews, and those 22,000 schoolchildren cleared the way for us to accomplish and experience the revelations of Purim today. As a result, we don’t need the same level of self-sacrifice that they exhibited, we only need to walk in the path they cleared for us with true devotion.
This is how the Purim story connects with the Alter Rebbe, whose soul had never yet inhabited the world. This new soul descended to empower and enable the human intellect to understand the inner teachings of Torah through the faculties of Chachma, Bina, and Daas. This required the Alter Rebbe to bear the hardship and deprivation of prison with self-sacrifice. Consequently, the heavenly court ruled that, in the merit of his self-sacrifice, the Torah of Chassidus was established in the world. And with this self-sacrifice the Alter Rebbe cleared the way so that we can follow the straight path that he prepared.
Furthermore, by fulfilling every detail of the Torah with fear of heaven, and practicing good middos [attributes], all those who are tied to Alter Rebbe and go in his footsteps will have the upper hand.
When the new soul of the Alter Rebbe was going through its stages of development, the whole world was in an “embryonic state,” and needed to develop to receive that general soul, just like the body must develop to receive its particular soul.
This explains the Torah teaching delivered by the Baal Shem Tov on that Purim, why he noted that the year was a “pregnant” year, and how it connected to the birth of the Alter Rebbe.
At that time, the world was in a state of pregnancy in two levels.
- The embryonic state of the new soul which was needed to illuminate the world with the light of the inner teachings of Torah.
- The world was in an embryonic state in preparation for receiving the revelation of that soul.
Our Rebbe says that there are those who mistakenly think that it is not their job to teach Chassidus. They say, “I have not perfected myself; and if I am not ready, how much more a person who knows even less than me.”
Therefore, we say to him “you are not the first to tread this path, the way has been prepared for you, the way of the King, the King of the world, for the spreading out of the inner level of Torah. So “If you know alef and Bais,” (the Rebbe said in 1991), “then teach the other person alef.”
(a sicha of the Rebbe Purim 1965)
