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MARCH 10, 2022 | The Jewish Home OCTOBER 29, 29, 2015 2015 || The The Jewish Jewish Home Home OCTOBER
From the Fire Parshas Zachor
Remembering Each Jew’s Holiness By Rav Moshe Weinberger Adapted for publication by Binyomin Wolf
T
he inyan of Parshas Zachor is to remember, and we also find the inyan of remembering when the Torah talks about the Urim v’Tumim. “You shall place both stones on the shoulder straps of the ephod, stones of memory for Bnai Yisroel. And Aharon shall carry their names before Hashem on both his shoulders as a remembrance.” (Shemos 28:12). “Aharon shall carry the names of Bnai Yisroel on the choshen mishpat on his heart when he approaches the kodesh as a constant remembrance before Hashem.” (Shemos 28:29). The Ramban explains that the letters of the Urim V’Tumim would light up. They were called Urim because they would light up before the eyes of the Kohein Gadol, and Tumim because with his ruach hakodesh and temimas halev, pureness of heart, the
Kohen Gadol knew how to combine the letters in the proper way. Mordechai is called Mordechai ben Yair ben Shimi. The Gemara in Megilla (12b) explains that the Megilla calls Mordechai “Ben Yair” because he illuminated the eyes of Yisroel with his tefilla. Similarly, it calls him “Ben Shimi” because he was a son whose tefillos Hashem heard, from the word “shema.” Through Purim, we see a wondrous idea in the koach of tefilla. We see that “kimu v’kiblu” did not just apply to Torah, but to tefilla as well. Up until the time of the Anshei Knesses HaGedolah, everyone davened according to their heart’s desire. The Anshei Knesses HaGedolah, which existed around the time of Purim, established the letters, words, and form of davening that we are familiar with today in or-
der to allow us to properly fulfill the mitzvah of tefilla. The sugya regarding the establishment of tefilla is found davka in masechtas Megilla. This is explained by R’ Yonasan David, the Rosh Yeshiva of Pachad Yitzchak and son-in-law of R’ Hutner, zt”l, who says that with the yom tov of Purim, Hashem revealed to us the kedushas haguf, the holiness of the bodies, of Klal Yisroel and of every single Jew. The pasuk in Yeshaya (51:21) says, “Therefore, hear now this, thou afflicted, and drunken, but not with wine.” The Gemara in Eruvin (68a) uses this pasuk to state that since the Bais Hamikdash was destroyed, Klal Yisroel should be patur, exempt, from tefilla/davening because we are drunk from the trial and tribulations of galus, exile, and we don’t have the settled mind re-
quired to daven properly. Haman’s decree was “to destroy, to slay, and eradicate” (Esther 7:4), to simply destroy every Jewish body and eradicate them from this world. To Amalek, Haman, Hitler and even the current rasha in Iran, the thoughts of a Jew do not make any difference – they do not care what the Jew is thinking. These reshaim want to simply remove the physical presence of the Jewish people from this world. The Gemara (also in Megilla 9a) refers to the letters of Aleph-Bais as gufin, bodies. The Anshei Knesses HaGedolah, by arranging the letters/bodies into tefillos in the format that we now know, infused the tefillos with all of the kavanos and sodos which enable a Jew to daven without even understanding the meaning of the words he is saying.
