One Who Gladdens Hearts on Purim is Compared to Hashem
לדעת מה זה ועל מה זה
“To know what is this and about what is this.” (Esther 4:5)
The Rambam in Hilchos Yom Tov (6:18) speaks about the nature of the mitzvah of simchas Yom Tov. The Rambam writes: “When one eats and drinks, he must feed the stranger, the orphan, and widow together with the other poor and unfortunate people. However, he who locks the gates of his courtyard and sits down to feast with his wife and children but does not provide food for the poor and embittered of spirit — such is not the rejoicing of mitzvah; it is the rejoicing of one’s own stomach!”
In Hilchos Megillah (2:17) as well, the Rambam speaks of the mitzvah of rejoicing on Purim. There the Rambam writes: “It is preferable for a person to be excessive when it comes to the mitzvah of giving gifts to the poor rather than to be excessive when it comes to feasting and sending food portions to friends, because there is no greater or more glorious rejoicing than to gladden the hearts of the poor, the orphans, the widows, and the strangers, for one who gladdens the hearts of these unfortunate individuals can be compared to the Shechinah as it is written (Yeshaya 57:15): ‘To revive the spirit of the humble and to revive the heart of the crushed.’”
It would seem to us that if we would speculate when there is a greater mitzvah to gladden the hearts of the widows and orphans — on Yom Tov or on Purim — we would logically think that on Yom Tov there would be a bigger mitzvah. Yom Tov, after all, is de’O’raisa, whereas Purim is Rabbinic in origin. Yet the Rambam goes out of his way and says something that he says very rarely in the entire Mishneh Torah — “that one who gladdens the hearts of these can be compared to the Shechinah!” He does not say that concerning Hilchos Yom Tov.
What is the Rambam telling us here by saying that a person who makes the less fortunate happy on Purim is comparable to Hashem?
The Medrash in Esther says on the pasuk: “To know what is this (mah ZEH) and about what is this (v’al mah ZEH)” (Esther 4:5) that when Esther queried Mordechai she was alluding to something. She said “What’s happening? What have we done? Never in Jewish history has there been such a decree as Haman has issued. Have they perhaps denied the pasuk: ‘This is my G-d’ (ZEH Keyli) or perhaps they denied the Ten Commandments about which it is written ‘from this way and that way (m’ZEH u-mi’ZEH) were they written?’”
The Medrash continues that Mordechai responded and said that the reason the Jews were suffering was a result of the grandson of ‘Karahu.’ Who is ‘Karahu?’ ‘Karahu’ refers to Amalek about which it is stated, “Who happened to you (asher Korcha) on the road” (Devorim 25:18). Chazal tell us that Amalek represents the antithesis of Belief in this world. Amalek denies the existence of a Creator of the world.
When Mordechai told Esther that the Jews are suffering because of ‘Karahu,’ he was saying that the Jews were suffering because of a terrible, terrible, lack of emunah [belief]. This is a lack of belief that even in our own times we don’t see. What do I mean? We have Jews today who do not believe — do they ‘believe’ more than the Jews in the time of Mordechai and Esther?
What I mean is as follows: The Gemara says that the reason the Jews were deserving of destruction, was that: “They enjoyed the banquet of that evil one” (Megillah 12a). What was so bad about partaking in the banquet of Achashveirosh?
Was it treife? Chas vesholam! “The drinking was according to the law, nothing was forced” (Esther 1:8). It was as kosher as could be, according to every stringent opinion. So, what was the sin? The sin was that the Jews attended a feast given by a non-Jew, at which the non-Jew took out the vessels of service (klei shares) of the Beis HaMikdosh — and the Jews sat there and kept on feasting!
Even Jews who today are totally assimilated, who would not think twice about eating at a non-kosher feast ... if their non-Jewish hosts would serve them on the utensils stolen from the holy Beis HaMikdosh, their reaction would be: Stop! “These are the utensils of the Beis HaMikdosh.” Which Jew would not get up and yell, “These are my utensils! These are the vessels of our Beis HaMikdosh!”?
The fact that the Jews in Shushan could sit there through a meal and use those vessels was a terrible sin!
What was wrong with them? What was wrong with those Jews was that they were ‘hopeless Jews.’ They were Jews who had lost all hope. They had counted the 70 years of galus [exile] and knew that the galus was supposed to be over and yet the geulah [redemption] had not yet come. Those were Jews who had seen the building of the Second Beis HaMikdosh stopped in its tracks. Those were Jews who had come to the conclusion that there would be no geulah. Those were Jews who said “Moshiach is not going to come.” Those were hopeless Jews.
The difference between those Jews and the Jews of our day is that today, as non- observant as a Jew may be, he can still can believe in Judaism, he can believe in Hashem and redemption, and he knows that there is hope.
That is what the story of Purim restored. There was a decree. The Jews were motivated to do teshuva and the Ribbono shel Olam came back and breathed life into this dead body of the Jewish people and gave them hope. That is what happened on Purim. Hashem took His breath of Life and restored hope to a forlorn nation.
Rav Hutner said there is a mitzvah to emulate the Ribbono Shel Olam. If the Ribbono Shel Olam on Purim brought the dead back to life, if He took hopeless and down- trodden Jews and gave them hope, it becomes our mitzvah on Purim to do the same thing. Therefore, the Rambam says that on Purim there is no greater mitzvah than to gladden the hearts of the unfortunate and downtrodden. The essence of the day is to give hope, meaning, and comfort to broken-spirited people ... because that is what the Ribbono Shel Olam did. A person therefore who does this will be comparable to Him. (R’ Frand)
