Musar su Ester 9:78

Resh Lakish would go over a law forty times before he came before Rabbi Johanan (Ta'anith 8a), and so did they all do in the days of the Sages of the Talmud, for the essence of their study was constant review. And they said (Megillah 7b) : Rabbi Ashi was sitting before Rabbi Kahana; it grew late, and still the rabbis did not arrive. He said to him, "Why have the rabbis not come?" "Perhaps they are busy with the Purim feast," he said to him. "Could they not have held it last night?" He replied, "Is your honour not acquainted with the teaching of Raba? If one eats his Purim feast on the night (of the 14th of Adar) he does not thereby fulfill his obligation. What is the reason for this? For it is written (Esther 9:22), 'Days of feasting and gladness'." He said to him, "Did Raba really say so?" He replied, "Yes." He then repeated it forty times, until it was safely stored in his mind.

The second period: During the period of the Persian and Median empires, the lifetime of Mordechai, the redemption under the aegis of the domain חקיקה commenced. The period is characterised by רוח הקודש, holy spirit which is rooted in that domain, just as Moses' prophecy was rooted in the domain רשימו. That this indeed is so, is alluded to in Midrash Rabbah on Mordechai and Esther, which describes the Holy Spirit available at that time as "below," compared to the Holy Spirit avaiable at the time of Moses which is called "above." The Midrash expresses this in connection with Esther 9,27: קימו וקבלו היהודים עליהם ועל זרעם, "The Jews confirmed and undertook upon themselves and their future generations to observe the days of Purim, etc." The Midrash interprets the words קימו וקבלו to mean "they preserved above what they had accepted below." How do we know that Mordechai himself possessed רוח הקודש? Our sages said that the whole Book of Esther was composed under the influence of the Holy Spirit. (Megillah 7a).

When the Talmud explains that the word שמחה in the Book of Esther refers to יום טוב, a holiday, festival, this is obviously a reference to the holiday of Purim which was established as part of the Jewish calendar as a result of the Haman episode. Our sages have stated that this holiday is such a fixture in our calendar that even if all the other holidays were to be cancelled Purim would never be cancelled (Esther 9,28). It follows that the kind of holiday the Jews received as a result of the cancellation of Haman's decree was on a higher spiritual plateau than the previously existing holidays.

We are told in 28,12 that Aaron was to wear the two gemstones on which the names of the twelve tribes were engraved on the shoulder-pieces of the ephod לפני ה' על שתי כתיפיו לזכרון, "on the two shoulder-pieces for remembrance before the Lord." This is an allusion to the events surrounding Purim of which we read in Esther 9,28 that "these days will be remembered and celebrated." This is a clear reference to the commandment to remember and never to forget what Amalek did to the Jewish people after they had crossed the sea and found themselves in the desert. The reason that the verse speaks both about נזכרים and נעשים is that the commemoration must precede the celebration. Even when Purim, i.e. the 14th of Adar, occurs on a Friday, so that the cities such as Jerusalem who celebrate Purim on the 15th of Adar celebrate it on the Sabbath, we cannot read פרשת זכות on that day, but must read it on the Sabbath preceding the 14th of Adar in order to comply with the sequence indicated in the Book of Esther. There is a dispute about this in Megillah 30 between Rav and Shmuel. The former holds that the paragraph commemorating the attack of Amalek on the Jewish people must be read in the Synagogue on the Sabbath prior to Purim, whereas Shmuel is of the opinion that it may be read even after Purim (i.e. the 14th). He reasons that since there are people who observe Purim on the 15th of Adar, in such an event the remembrance and celebration would coincide. In view of the fact that we accept the view of Rav, we need to understand why it is important to read פרשת זכור before the 14th of Adar.

In this connection I find the words of Rabbi Yitzchak Arama, the author of עקדת יצחק, most astonishing. The author of this book [chapter 90, see my translation. Ed.] questions how the Torah can command us to remember something at all; after all, man is subject to lapses of memory, and therefore such a commandment is beyond his control to observe! How can the Torah command us to perform acts beyond our control? Torah precepts involving vision do not apply to the blind because they cannot see, neither do Torah precepts involving hearing apply to the deaf since they cannot hear! The same rule should apply to precepts involving memory. Rabbi Arama answers this question saying that every remembrance has been preceded by an actual happening. It is the happening which triggers one's memory, and therefore the Torah is entitled to command us to use our memory. He quotes as an example the remembrance of the Sabbath legislation in the Kiddush. The mere fact that one observes the commandment of שמירת שבת, abstains from work, etc., acts as a memory jogger. It is therefore not true to say that the Torah commands only our memory. When we put on the phylacteries, that very act helps us to remember what the phylacteries stand for, as demanded by the Torah (Deut. 6,8); the same is true when we wear the ציצית, another commandment which the Torah has linked to memory (Numbers 15,39-40). The sages of the Great Assembly acted in consonance with this principle when they wanted to insure that the miracle which occurred in the days of Mordechai and Esther should be commemorated for all times. Since the Torah had not fixed a specific day for remembering Amalek, they decided to anchor this remembrance by some easily recognisable act and they instituted the reading of פרשת זכור in conjunction with the holiday of Purim. As long as the commandment was not connected with the anniversary of an anti-Jewish act committed by a descendant of Amalek, the commandment itself was in danger of being forgotten. According to the explanation by the Baal Akeydah the question is why the sages of the Great Assembly did not arrange to have the reading of פרשת זכור after Purim, after we had all remembered what the evil Haman had planned?

You could counter that when the Jews left Egypt they found themselves beholden only to G–d and to no other political power. They therefore had every reason to accept the Torah without any mental reservation! They were not in exile as were the Jews of Persia even after Mordechai's becoming Prime Minister. In fact the very fact that we do not recite the Hallel prayer on Purim is proof that we remained in exile. The remarkable thing about the political reversal during the Purim episode was that although the Jews were subjects of a foreign nation, G–d demonstrated that He did not forsake His people even in exile, and that even the mightiest king who ruled over the greatest empire was forced against his will to appoint Mordechai and reverse the decree against the Jews he himself had signed. While Ahasverus was worried about how many more antisemites the Jews had killed in various provinces of his Empire (Esther 9,16), he was forced to acceed to Esther's request to allow the Jews of Shushan to seek out their enemies and kill them on the morrow of the 13th of Adar.

You could counter that when the Jews left Egypt they found themselves beholden only to G–d and to no other political power. They therefore had every reason to accept the Torah without any mental reservation! They were not in exile as were the Jews of Persia even after Mordechai's becoming Prime Minister. In fact the very fact that we do not recite the Hallel prayer on Purim is proof that we remained in exile. The remarkable thing about the political reversal during the Purim episode was that although the Jews were subjects of a foreign nation, G–d demonstrated that He did not forsake His people even in exile, and that even the mightiest king who ruled over the greatest empire was forced against his will to appoint Mordechai and reverse the decree against the Jews he himself had signed. While Ahasverus was worried about how many more antisemites the Jews had killed in various provinces of his Empire (Esther 9,16), he was forced to acceed to Esther's request to allow the Jews of Shushan to seek out their enemies and kill them on the morrow of the 13th of Adar.