Great session I put together for a group of college students. Enjoy!

1. Purim/Passover Common Themes

2. One must juxtapose [months of] salvations; The redemption of Purim with the redemption of Passover. Megillah 6b

3. Purim: Concealed Miracles Passover: Revealed Miracles

4. Common Theme: That which the Jews thought made sense was turned upside down.

5. They participated in the king’s lavish feast. They thought this would curry favor.

7. Queen Esther fasted and prayed for 3 days. People thought this would weaken and drain her when she needed most to please the King.

8. But instead… It was the prayers and repentance of Esther and the people kept them safe.

9. They thought Mordechai not bowing to Haman caused him and the Jews to be hated.

10. But instead… Mordechai was honored and made viceroy of Persia in the end.

11. They thought the Egyptians would hate Moses and the Jews because of the plagues.

12. But instead… They feared the Jews and Moshe and gave the Jewish people their gold and silver. And G-d gave the Jews favor in the eyes of the Egyptians

13. And the man Moshe was very great in the eyes of all the Egyptians –Exodus 11:3

14. After Yosef’s death, the Jews reversed their circumcisions to enamour themselves with their Egyptian neighbors. –Shmos Raba Parsha 1:10

15. But instead… G-d turned their love into hatred. Shmos Raba Parsha 1:10

16. Shabbat Yarmulke Kashrut

17. So how do we know when what’s sensible to us is the right thing???

18. If things usually turn out the opposite?!

19. How did Mordechai know not to go to the feast of King Achashvairosh?

20. How did Esther know that spending three days fasting, and not spending three days at the salon would make her succeed?

21. How should the Jews have know that becoming more like the gentiles around them wouldn’t help decrease anti-semitism?

22. He has learned the language of the host people to such an extent that he now thinks he can venture in future to emphasize his Judaism less and place his ‘Germanism’ more in the foreground… Race, however, does not lie in the language but exclusively in the blood. -Adolf Hitler, Mein Kampf, 1925 Page 312

23. If people’s logic coincides with the will of G-d in the Torah, then it will work out. If not, then no matter how much worldly sense it makes, there is a greater reality.