Eight years ago, I had the privilege of writing a dvar Torah presenting four different approaches as to the reason that Purim is the only holiday observed on different days depending on whether one lives in an unwalled or a walled city, even though both days are partially celebrated everywhere. Briefly summarizing: Ramban theorizes that the separate celebration on the fifteenth was meant to highlight that the Jews residing in all Jewish walled cities – who did not initially feel the need to celebrate since they felt protected by the walls of their city against Haman’s willing partners – erred, since without Divine protection, the wall would not help them. By contrast, Ran opines that there was a wish to commemorate the extra day of victory experienced by Shushan, a walled city. Both Shem Mishmuel and Pachad Yitzchak maintain that the two days of Purim highlight some unique aspect of the battle against Amalek manifested during the Purim salvation. Shem Mishmuel notes that in the times of Esther, even absent a Jewish king, a necessary unifying presence enabling battling Amalek, the Jewish unity caused by the decree of Haman allowed them to successfully battle this nation. Just as even if the Jews appear externally distinct and apart, internally they can still be united, so too, even though there are two separate days of Purim, essentially, they are part of one holiday. Alternatively, Pachad Yitzchak contrasts the first day of Purim’s defensive battle against Amalek and the second day’s offensive battle. Although when I initially presented these important concepts, it was on a theoretical plane, recent events have directly catapulted them into “halacha l’ma’aseh.”
The approximately seven and a half million strong Jewish yishuv in the Holy Land (kein yirbu!) is once again living under daily, deadly, missile attacks, now from two fronts: from Iran in the East and from Hezbollah in the North, modern-day Amalekites sharing Haman’s visceral hatred of the Jewish people, seeking to destroy them for “refusing to bow” to Moslem dhimmi-hood and for daring to reclaim sovereignty of their Divinely promised land. However, this latest threat comes in a fundamentally different context from the past. This past Shabbos, when we read Parshas Zechiras Amalek,[1] after months, if not years, of precise intelligence gathering, the Israeli Air Force obliterated much of the top-tier leadership of the terror-sponsoring state of Iran, the modern-day Persia, with thousands of pounds of bombs without a single plane being lost in the operation! This included its monstrous “religious” leader, Ali Khamenei (osiyos Haman!) yimach shmo – one responsible for the creation of a network of proxies terrorizing the Jews in Israel and elsewhere for over thirty years through multifaceted, nefarious methods, one responsible for thousands of deaths worldwide. Arur Haman, Baruch Mordechai! The relatively weak response of Iran compared to the past is reflective of the enormous Divine Providence the Jewish people have witnessed over the past two and half years through so many Divine agents in weakening the Iranian regime, both by destroying its terror proxies and directly harming Iranian capabilities. Among these are the IDF, the various missile defense systems, a right-wing government and a philosemitic, pro-Israel president at the helm of the United States who is actively partnering with Israel to neutralize the Iranian threat once and for all.
All of the above-mentioned reasons for the two days of Purim are eerily relevant to the current situation. The lesson of Shushan Purim according to Ramban is not to attribute the salvation to the physical causes but to reflect on the sibas hasiba, the One who is the Cause of causes before Whom the natural and the supernatural are one and the same, merely agents of His specific Providential intervention. Inculcating this message – so pointedly relevant to this current war – in our mindsets remains a constant challenge. While recognizing the mesirus nefesh or our brave pilots, our soldiers fighting in Lebanon and those manning the anti-missile batteries and having sufficient gratitude toward them, we must simultaneously reflect on the true Master Planner who caused all of this to happen in perfect synchrony to be ready for the right moment in history and feel profound gratitude and closeness to Him. The recent tragic casualties of a direct missile strike in the heart of a largely populated city, so close to home, serve as an open reminder to never take physical, earthly protection as a given, and to fully realize that we are always dependent on Divine mercy, regardless of whatever tools Hashem Yisbarach chooses to utilize.
Ran’s teaching that an extra salvation – seemingly only relevant to a specific segment of the Jewish people – should also be celebrated by all is also relevant to the present reality. Whereas at first glance, the current distress and constant, miraculous salvations are only relevant to the yishuv in Eretz Yisrael, all of world Jewry has its eyes and ears peeled toward the East, pouring out their hearts to Avinu Shebashamayim to protect all of the Jewish people as well as celebrating its salvations.
In the lead-up to and during the last two and a half years of difficult war and many losses, many internecine, conceptual battles have been taking place among the Jewish people. Among them are right-wing versus left-wing views of running the State of Israel, religious and secular divides, intense disputes over the role of Yeshiva students in Israel’s army and the arrests of significant numbers of them, in turn touching upon debates over secular versus religious values and viewing Torah scholars as central pillars in Jewish society or worthless pariahs (chas v’shalom). Even though these disputes are not easily resolvable, as Mori v’Rabi Rav Mayer Twersky shlit”a recently noted, the first step in resolution, or at least détente, is reflecting deeply on the feelings and vantage point of one’s opponents. Shem Mishmuel’s impactful statement of the power of Jewish unity in defeating Amalek is extremely pertinent now. We hope that the current lull in internal Jewish fighting, uniting around the urgent battle against our enemies – who do not distinguish between religious and secular or right-wing or left-wing – will be counted in Heaven as a display of achdus adding sources of merit in the battle against conceptual, modern-day Amalekites.
Finally, Rav Hutner’s distinction between defensive and offensive battles against Amalek is directly relevant to the various rounds of attacks against Iran in the past months. Even offensive battles in these contexts are really just assuring that our enemies do not threaten us in the future. The total eradication of the Biblical Amalek assures that this nation would no longer serve as either a physical or a spiritual threat to the Jewish people. We hope and pray that those taking up the role of the Biblical Amalekites will be similarly totally defeated soon.
While realizing that Jewish history is constantly being written before our eyes and that Hashem did not reveal His ultimate game plan to us, we hope and pray that by the end of this epic battle, the Jewish people will be safer and that we will be ever closer to the Final Redemption!
[1] Notably, this fell on the 11th of Adar, the earliest day of the “z’maneihem” (Esther 9:31) – the multiple authorized times for reading the megilla. (See Mishna Megilla 2a.) A recent news report indicated that this operation was backed up by several months; the timing seems of Biblical significance!