Women.
You know … I used to feel sorry for you all.
You work hard. Whether it's work, children, husbands (some include husbands as children), household work, every other work that you have to do since your husbands are too incompetent to do them themselves.
But when it comes to Purim and Pesach, naturally difficult holidays to prepare for, especially this year when Purim is going into Shabbos, honestly, you make things harder for yourselves.
If you asked and LISTENED to your husbands regarding mishloach manos, you and the rest of the world (including non-Jewish women, somehow) will find things MUCH easier.
Instead of giving 10 billion of them, each one handcrafted with the most expensive type of food and wrapping (clearly learning from Achashverosh!), and spending oodles of money, time, and brainpower, you can simply do what every G-d fearing man would do.
Buy two beers.
Buy two rolls.
Buy a small package of cold cuts.
Make two sandwiches.
Give one sandwich and one beer to two different friends and/or enemies.
You give two, instead of one, because for the extra "effort," you'll get an extra one back from them as well.
That's it! Not only did you do the mitzvah, you did it in the most special way, because you know that these two recipients (assuming they were men), would really, REALLY appreciate it.
But no, every year, your gender raises the stakes, demanding more, demanding different, demanding that everybody be on your list.
You're only bringing it on yourselves, you know.
Wow! I feel better. Thanks. That should last until Pesach.
Last night, while working, I was listening to a former Israeli government official talk about the current war/political situation. The former official, who was born outside of Israel, and moved when he was older, attempted to describe the story of Purim and its significance to the Jewish people. It was so hard to hear, I nearly turned it off. He barely knew what he was talking about, and even with that, he got it wrong. I've heard him speak before. He's highly intelligent and has his head on his shoulders. But when it comes down to Judaism, he's unfortunately … lacking greatly.
But, you can write it off with: okay, he's not religious. He didn't grow up religious, he clearly never learned properly about Judaism. What are you going to do?
I have a friend, here in Israel, who had an older couple from America recently move in the neighborhood. They keep Shabbos and kashrus, but he can't eat in their house.
Not because they don't know about milk and meat, or they eat food without any hechsher. But there are a series of halachos regarding fruits and vegetables, that only apply to Israel. And they don't keep them on any level whatsoever. When they first moved, my friend tried to explain it to them, and even offered to help them take care of any fruits and vegetables that they privately grow. But for them, I don't know, they weren't interested in learning about it nor actually doing it.
After the sin with the Golden Calf, the Torah records:
"The people heard this evil thing and mourned, and no one put on his ornament. Hashem said to Moshe, "Tell the Children of Israel, 'You are a stiff-necked people. If for one minute, I were to go up in your midst, I would finish you off. Now take off your ornament and I will know what I will do to you" (Shemos 33: 4-5).
There are many interpretations on what these "ornaments" were. One of the most famous, headed by Rashi, was that these were crowns that they received at Mt. Sinai.
The Maskil L'Dovid, on Rashi, explains why we have one verse saying that they took off their crown, and in the next verse, Hashem telling them to take off their crown (which they already seemingly took off).
He explains that each Jew received two crowns. One was for "We will do" and one was for "We will listen," which was the nation's response to Hashem's offering of the Torah.
When they sinned, they believed that they failed in the "We will do" part of life, so they took that crown off. But they kept the "We will listen," since they still were learning Torah.
To this, Hashem said, "One does not go without the other. You cannot learn Torah, yet ignore mitzvah performance. And you cannot perform mitzvos while ignoring the study of Torah. Therefore, if you don't deserve one, you don't deserve the other."
When people don't learn Torah, even if they keep Shabbos, and wear a kippa, and do mitvos, they are very, VERY prone to coming out with wrong ideas about Judaism.
As we discussed before, look no further to the families who hold their weekly protests in Tel Aviv. They pride themselves on the super-most-important-mitzvah-in-the-world-more-than-anything-else, of Redeeming Captives. They LOVE to quote the Rambam/Shulchan Oruch (which most have never opened before) which talks about the great importance of redeeming captives. And if you disagree with them, like many, you are an evil, anti-Jewish value, cold-hearted person, who has abandoned the most sacred Jewish values. And yes, they actually go around the world giving interviews saying such things.
Yet, their "learning" did not take them to the halacha immediately following the one they always quote:
"Captives are not to be ransomed at an unreasonable cost, for the safety of society; otherwise, the enemies would exert every effort to capture victims."
Which makes this entire episode far more complicated, and far more painful than people think.
When I was thinking about this issue, my first thought was, "Listen, it's not just these non-religious or somewhat-religious, I too am guilty of not knowing things and making errors."
But then I realized that there's a difference. A person who is always learning (not meaning "all day in a kollel," but at least every day on some regular basis), is going to be much more open to hearing that they misunderstood something, than a person who never learns.
A person who never learns, or reads something here or there, is satisfied with their knowledge level and believe that they have a secure basis of Torah knowledge. That's why they don't need to put so much effort into learning.
A person who is always learning, will understand that he ALWAYS has what to learn and understands that he will always be lacking in some way in his learning. So, even if he errs, he will be more willing to correct that error, when proven wrong.
Therefore, even if we do mitzvos, we cannot abandon the "crown" of learning. If we do, we risk losing our own Judaism.
With that, I wish you all a successful and meaningful Purim and Shabbos!