The Yanuka in the shelter during sirens

2:34 Today too, right? Did you hear? The Jews in Shushan HaBirah - the Jewish people who truly were in Shushan HaBirah - for those Jews who gave their lives for the whole Jewish people, to be in that place, in that pain of the Jewish people, and were with them in all the pain and in everything the Jewish people went through. And therefore: "In all their distress, He is distressed, and the angel of His presence saved them." The Holy One, blessed be He, loves when a person is with the Jewish people in its pain, and "in all their distress, He is distressed"; he strengthens the Jewish people, he is with the Jewish people in their pain.

3:05 And this is the thing that is very, very, very important. The Temple was not one single thing; it was made up of the whole Jewish people, all the history of the Jewish people. It was made up of each and every one of the Jewish people. Every Jew is a stone that was built into the Temple. The Sfas Emes of Gur says - what is it? Shushan HaBirah - do you learn it at all?

3:31 Some learn it today, some don't... Yes, go ahead. The Sfas Emes of Gur writes, in fact, that when Tisha B'Av falls on Shabbos, we push it off. Why? The great concern is, the great concern is - what is the great concern? It is Mashiach. Lest there be the melachah of boneh, of building, through the tefillos of the Jewish people on Shabbos for the Temple.

3:59 They would weep, and the tears and the tefillos of the Jewish people could cause the Temple to be built on Shabbos. What does that mean? Then they would transgress the melachah of building. The tefillos and the tears of the Jewish people on the holy day of Shabbos for the Temple could bring about the melachah of building. Why the entire Jewish people? The Temple is composed entirely for the sake of the Jewish people. That is also why the Holy One, blessed be He, destroyed the Temple and poured out His wrath on wood and stones, and did not bring His wrath upon the Jewish people.

4:27 The makeup of the Temple is part of the people. So, regarding the Temple: the Chamber of Beis HaParvah, called Parvah; Shushan HaBirah, the Gate of Shushan HaBirah in Tractate Keilim - all these names were given for the history, and for what the Jewish people went through in all their exiles. And the Temple unites the whole Jewish people and gives the Jewish people the ability to cling to the Holy One, blessed be He.

4:56 The Temple is our clinging to the Holy One, blessed be He. Today, when we have no Temple through which to cling to the Holy One, blessed be He, what is left to us? "Let us pay with our lips in place of bulls." We have tefillah, we have the Sefer Torah, we have the shul, inside the shul we have the place of the Heichal, the holy Ark, whose level is very high. Right after it, the bimah of the chazzan, where the level of kedushah is the second highest, and we have the tefillin.

5:25 These are the things on which the Shechinah truly rests. Today, when the Temple is destroyed and a person wants a way to cling to Hashem, he needs the Sefer Torah, he needs the holy Ark, and the chazzan's bimah in second place. We have the tefillin that we put on in order to cling to the Holy One, blessed be He, and to feel Him, to be close to Him. These are the signs, the sparks, the last holy ones left to us from the destruction of the Temple. So Rebbe Nachman, in Likutei Moharan, in Part I, Torah 38, writes that the sign of deveikus, of clinging to Hashem, is the tefillin.

5:55 A person wants to know the hint, to know his sign: the tefillin are a person's bond, to see whether he is clinging to the Holy One, blessed be He - when he sees that the Name of Hashem is upon him, and he clings to the Holy One, blessed be He, and nothing of all that he is going through troubles him. Tefillin are to subjugate his heart, his mind and all that is his to Hashem, blessed be He, and not to be alarmed by anything in the world. One needs a very settled mind to pass through this world in peace.

6:20 One must not be alarmed by anything, and one must always be composed, and rely on Hashem, blessed be He, that everything Hashem, blessed be He, does is for our good, and attach our thoughts to Hashem, blessed be He. This is the purpose and this is the way to pass through this whole world in peace. So whoever wants to pass through this world in peace, this is the way: always to remember the Temple, and to know that we and our history are engraved in the stones of the Temple.

6:45 And what is the greatest way by which the Jewish people prevailed through all the years? Hope. "For there is hope for your future." "And Elkanah her husband said to her: Chanah, why do you weep? And why do you not eat? And why is your heart grieved? Am I not better to you than ten sons?" The meaning is that the Holy One, blessed be He, comforts and gives strength in the hearts of all the broken, for "to this one I will look: to the poor and broken in spirit." All the broken and all the downtrodden, all who suffer bitterness, all who are alarmed and afraid, all who are going through all kinds of troubles and ordeals, must know that the Holy One, blessed be He, is with them and close to them, and all the brokenness they go through,

7:21 and all of "this stumbling block is under your hand" - for a person does not truly grasp words of Torah unless he has first stumbled in them. One must be strong and mighty, and know that all these stumbling blocks, and everything you are going through, and all the hardships piled upon you, are only in order to intensify the greatness of the soul that lies hidden in each and every one of us. And in this one must strengthen himself. It is not for nothing that the Jewish people were compared to an olive. For the olive - the more it is crushed, the more oil it gives.

7:49 So the Jewish people - even when you go through so many hardships, and they try to make us despair, to break us and crush us, from within and from without, with everything we are going through - with all that, the Jewish people give forth much oil. Look - with all that, see how many Jews are packing the shelter. How much tefillah, how much kedushah is here. Everyone came into the shelter. Wellsprings of Jews. Wellsprings of Jews. Bursting forth, because they want to hear the word of Hashem. Everyone wants to come close to Hashem, blessed be He.

8:15 They just want to cling to the Holy One, blessed be He. So always remind yourselves never to despair and never to break. And one must know that it is possible to come out of any situation, and when suffering comes and hardships come, one must use them to leap, through them, to Hashem, blessed be He. One must know: when a test comes to a person, a hardship, bitterness, something to break you - it is not in order to push you away.

8:40 It is so that you stand up to it, and you will be many, many times closer to Hashem, blessed be He. Therefore a person must always strengthen himself, always, without breaking, Heaven forbid. He should be strong and firm in his mind, and know that everything he goes through, and everything that was withheld from him - all kinds of good things he was hoping for, and all kinds of things he wanted that for now have not happened - let him not despair over it and not break over it, saying, Heaven forbid, "if he had done this, if he had done that" - for everything is by the decree of the Creator, what Hashem willed, and so Hashem, blessed be He, set it for him in His understanding and wisdom, and it would not be possible to give him even one more day like this.

9:13 When the moment comes for a person to have his kingship, his salvation and his redemption, then Hashem will bring him that moment. In one moment he will no longer remain where he is. But to bring that time closer and to receive it, one must be strong and firm in his mind, never to break from anything in the world, and to be the strongest and happiest in the world. And this is the secret of Purim, when the sword was already at the neck. Rabbi Yochanan and Rabbi Elazar both said, in Tractate Berachos, page 10, at the end of the page: "Even if a sharp sword rests on a person's neck, he should not hold himself back from mercy, as it says: 'Though He slay me, I will hope in Him'" - for Him I will hope.

9:51 So even when such hardships are piled upon them - the Jewish people, in the time of Mordechai and Esther, were in Shushan HaBirah, shut in and closed off, and it seemed to them there was nothing - how could there be an opening for salvation? Mordechai says: How? It is impossible to come near the king. Queen Esther - they prepare her for half a year and another half a year before she goes in to him; it is not a matter of a few days. There is a preparation; she has to anoint herself and prepare herself, her body, so that she would even be fit to approach and come in to the king.

10:22 What work! Mordechai says: who am I, that I could go in at all? How can decrees be annulled? What is going to happen here? Who knows what will become of us? They understood that there was trouble, that something was not good. But the Holy One, blessed be He, turned everything around for them, for the good. Why? Because Mordechai the Jew was great. He always thought of the kindness of Hashem, blessed be He. He did not say: I think it is all harsh judgments, all troubles, that's it, it's over, there is nothing to be done. He always set his mind to know what the true purpose is.

10:49 And where does one hear the true purpose? Where Malchus is, where the Shechinah is, the holy Shechinah. And where is the Shechinah? With the women. So where did Mordechai walk about? In the courtyard of the women's house. He wanted "to know how Esther was faring." How are things? How is she feeling, Esther? Esther is the holy Shechinah. Esther is the whole Jewish people, the daughters of Israel, the righteous women, the whole Jewish people.

11:16 She is the woman, she is Malchus, she is the one who receives. One wants to know how the receiving vessel is, how the vessels of the Jewish people are. Do they have the vessels to face something so great? Do they still have the vessels? He wanted to hear what was being said, what the talk was. But when he saw that Queen Esther wanted to fast - "I and my maidens will fast likewise" - He will be filled with mercy, Hashem, blessed be He. He said: look - Mordechai the Jew says: even those who want to receive, even Malchus - she wants to give, for "dalo dalah lanu," he drew up for us; she wants to give to us. It is exactly as I taught you on Shabbos, whoever remembers.

11:50 Right? "Dalyei," lift it up - Tractate Berachos, page 18a, where he said to Rabbi Yonasan - "Rabbi Yonasan's techeiles was trailing. Rabbi Chiya said to him: Lift it up, so that they not say: tomorrow they are coming to us, and now..." Techeiles - that is the secret of the tachlis, the purpose. We said: lift it up, lift the purpose up high for us; we want to remember the purpose. So Mordechai the Jew lifted the Jewish people up to the purpose, so that they could come out of this decree of Achashverosh and the wicked Haman.

12:15 For Achashverosh, too, was wicked. That is why one who reads the Megillah out of order has not fulfilled his obligation - because it would come out as though he were a tzaddik, Achashverosh. That is why we read it in order. Not only that in the end they gave greatness to Mordechai and all that - one who reads the Megillah backwards has not fulfilled his obligation, so that it not detract from the honor - as if, look, Achashverosh was some kind of tzaddik. That "tzaddik" wanted to kill Israel more than Haman did. So says the Midrash. And it was in his power and in his authority to carry out so many pogroms.

12:42 He was an adulterer, a man of lusts, all of it. "A slave when he becomes king... and a maidservant when she inherits her mistress." But the true greatness of Mordechai the Jew was that he knew how to place in the Jewish people the lights and the hope, and in the merit of the hope he placed in them - strength and hope - the Jewish people were able to come out of it all. This is the greatest secret to know - the secret of hope. So when Purim comes we must rejoice so, so much; the Rambam says a person should drink until he falls asleep from his drunkenness.

13:09 The meaning of falling asleep from drunkenness is so that a person reach such a revelation of awareness that he does not see the reality of evil; that he understands that everything is Hashem, blessed be He, standing behind everything there is. Therefore Yaakov Avinu - this is the secret of Yaakov Avinu: when Yaakov Avinu went to sleep, he said: "Indeed, Hashem is in this place, and I did not know." What is this matter of "achein," indeed? The revelation of the ox of the Merkavah, the Divine Chariot, was not there. The lion - "achein" has aryeh, the lion; kaf is keruvim, that is the face of the man; nun is nesher, the eagle.

13:38 And what was missing there? Shor, the ox. The secret of the animal nature. The animal nature is the will to receive. That was not there. On Purim the Jewish people have the receiving that is given to the animal soul, for Purim is the closest to the animal soul: on Purim we feast much, we drink much wine, we give the animal soul to eat. So Yaakov Avinu made do with sleep. He said: now I fall asleep, I have arrived - from this drunkenness one can come to sleep - I say only "Indeed, Hashem is in this place, and I did not know." But I did not know that there is also revelation in the ox, in the animal nature, in such an animal feast - that in it, too, there is a revelation of G-dliness.

14:15 That is why it is said of Yosef: "His firstborn ox, majesty is his." Precisely when Yosef HaTzaddik was curling his hair, precisely when Yosef HaTzaddik was in the house of Pharaoh, in the house of Potiphar, precisely he was the one who could draw out all the animal nature and raise it back up to kedushah. Yaakov Avinu did not understand how one can go down below and rise up above. That is why he had learned with him the eglah arufah, the calf whose neck is broken; when he sent him the agalos, the wagons, he saw that he remembered. "And the spirit of Yaakov came alive" - "Yosef is still alive." He heard that Yosef lives.

14:43 He did not only understand that Yosef is alive - he's alive, here, my son is alive. He understood that his son is alive in his spirituality. From this came vitality and hope - for there is hope. Yosef HaTzaddik's spirit did not break. So much had passed over him. That he was in Egypt - that he knew; but he said: the fact that he still remembers the learning at all - he is living the Torah? He still has hope. He never let go of the Torah. He never broke.

15:08 That is "and the spirit of Yaakov came alive." And so Serach bas Asher brought him the news, and in that merit she is alive to this day. This is the special quality and the power of Yosef HaTzaddik - this contemplation, to see the reality and the revelation of G-dliness, that everything - even what has animal nature in it - must also be raised up. Therefore on Purim, which is this secret, that we go down, lower and lower, precisely at this time we drink wine "until one does not know," and get drunk, and eat a meat meal, and - according to the Raavyah - make a meal at night as well; as the Rema says: we add a little. We do not make the meal at night; we only add a little, with light, small things, so as to do it. It is better not to eat meat on the night of Purim, because the meal is by day.

15:50 But it is still good to take the view of the Raavyah into account as well, and make some small thing in the evening too, at night. That is a very great merit. A little something, and to learn, to hold a conversation, a tefillah to the Holy One, blessed be He. How's that? But in the morning is the main meal. On Purim itself we don't say "Save me from the kelipah of the Erev Rav," right? - You may say it. I think all year one needs to be saved from the kelipah of the Erev Rav. As if one has to go down to Haman or something. But the contemplation is that we reach such a level, that we eat and drink wine and touch actual animal nature, meat and wine - the Rambam says it is important to eat the Purim meal with meat and wine;

16:26 of course it is not an obligation; if a person wants to eat something else, he may, but it is important to put emphasis on this meal on Purim, because this meal is important. That is, we reach the animal nature, and reach such a level that we raise it to the head - "if he merits, he becomes the head." We reach such a level that we reveal such G-dliness that there is no evil in the world at all, and we reveal that even within this animal nature, even in the aspect of the ox, of the animal nature, of the animal soul, even in it tremendous lights and wondrous vessels are revealed. This comes to tell us that even the most flawed and darkest person, who has fallen to the darkest places, who does not think he can rise from there -

17:08 this is "Indeed, Hashem is in this place, and I did not know" - that even Yaakov Avinu, in his sleep, did not grasp the secret that G-dliness is revealed in the ox, in the animal nature. He did not see it; he said only "achein" - there is. There is the lion, the cherub and the eagle. That is, only those who are in heaven: the mighty lion, the one who overcame; the keruvim, those in the Holy of Holies; the eagle, the one who soars in the upper worlds. But the ox? How can that be? "Indeed, there is" - but "and I"? "I did not know." I did not know that there is also this aspect, of the great contemplation, this deepest one of all. It cannot be at all, no eye will see it - "No eye has seen it, G-d, but You."

17:41 Therefore Yosef HaTzaddik - right? That is what I said. That is why he saw the wagons, too. What comes with the wagons is the animal nature. The animal nature came with the wagons. He hinted to Yaakov Avinu: these wagons - even the animal nature that brought these wagons - I rule over this animal nature. You think I fell into the animal nature? I am not in the animal nature; I do not chase after the animals. I am above the animals; the animals chase after me.

18:08 That is the one in the story of the King's Son and the Maidservant's Son who were exchanged, how he was chasing after the animals. He was not chasing the animals; the animals were chasing him. It only seemed, to one looking on, that he was chasing the animals. The animals are chasing him, and one thinks he was chasing the animals. So this is the secret of revealing such G-dliness: to see that one can come out of any place, and hope is never lost, and there is a bond between all the souls of Israel. And precisely for this we give much mishloach manos, each man to his fellow, precisely to those who are far, to give much precisely to the very farthest - which was a dispute between the Manos HaLevi and the Terumas HaDeshen.

18:40 One could even give objects; something that brings closeness - according to the Manos HaLevi that is possible, but according to the Terumas HaDeshen, no: one must give a meal, something that brings him to eating; one gives meat, fish, something to bring him close. If a person gave mishloach manos anonymously - according to the Terumas HaDeshen that is fine, he has fulfilled it, according to the Terumas HaDeshen; according to the Manos HaLevi he has not fulfilled it. One must give much, each man to his fellow; one must bring close, so that there be closeness between them.

19:05 In halachah, of course, you must let the one you are giving to know. The whole aim of Purim is to reveal it precisely in those who are far, to reveal it in those we are not in touch with, to see that there is no dispute at all, to see that there is no reality of evil at all, for all of them are holy and pure. And even in the one who is farthest, who seems to us the most so - precisely there one must reveal G-dliness, and see the good and the pure that bursts forth from the farthest of the far. With the will of Hashem, blessed be He, may He grant us this, may we merit good tidings, to be strengthened, to say my tefillah for the Jewish people, that there be salvations for everyone, good tidings, a good life - and Havdalah.