The Purim holiday symbolizes the future complete correction of all of humanity.
2,500 years ago, there was already a partial correction in the spiritual roots, but this was only a preparation because all that happens in the correction of human society must go through two stages.
The first stage was realized in a small group of people that Abraham took out from Babylon and guided until the destruction of the First Temple (Beit ha Mikdash). In fact, this group went through all of the stages of correction, and one of the stages was a state called Purim. Purim is from the word “Pur -Lot,” and today all of us must return to this together with the entire world.
As is told in the Scroll of Esther, Ahasuerus, the king of Babylon, made a big feast during which he discovered that two of his helpers were trying to depose him from his throne.
The one who exposed this plot was Mordechai, a Kabbalist, who was on the level of Hassadim (Mercy) or on the level of Bina in which a person doesn’t need anything for himself. He can correct himself only to this level and continue to ascend only if he attracts other people and transmits the Light of Hochma (Wisdom) through himself, meaning that he carries out the role of Bina.
Bina is divided into two parts. The upper part GAR de Bina (Galgalta ve Eynaim de Bina) operates only with bestowal without wanting anything for itself, and the lower part ZAT de Bina receives the Light from above, from Hochma, to transmit it to the Tachtonim (Lower Ones) if they require it.
If no one needs this, then it is said allegorically that “Mordecai was sitting in the king’s gate” (Esther 2:19) at the entrance to the city of Shushan. This is because he understood that if it was necessary to get something from the king—meaning from the Creator—in order to transmit it to others, it is possible to do this only by way of His characteristics, transmitting everything through Bina, the attribute of bestowal, and then the Ohr Hochma clothed in the Ohr Bina would pass to all of the creatures and would be a blessing for them.
However, when Mordechai exposed the plot of the two traitors and they were taken out to be executed, the king did not promote him and did not give him gifts fit for a king. Why was that? This is what is told in the Megilla (from the word “Gilui – Revelation/Discovery.”
The advisor of the King Haman was against Mordechai. In his opinion, the main thing was to draw the Ohr Hochma into the desire to receive, which means to attract the pleasures into the egoistic desires and become filled by them.
Mordechai understood that this was impossible because if the Light is inserted into the desire to receive, there would be a Shevira (Breaking). So there is an obligation to clothe the Ohr Hochma in the Ohr Hassadim, and only in this case can these two Lights be received within the desire to receive. So they disagreed.
Mordechai is the Kav Yamin (Right Line), only Hassadim. The main thing is the Hassadim, and the Ohr Hochma can be received only to the degree that it can be clothed in the Ohr Hassadim and complement it. The Kav Smol (Left Line) is Haman who wanted to receive Ohr Hochma directly.
The result was something interesting. Instead of giving Mordechai a reward for his rescue, he compensated Haman, raising him to a higher, honored, and very exalted position. Mordechai didn’t know what to do, but in spite of it all, he sat by the city gate and convinced everyone that it was impossible to behave like Haman.
Imagine a person who is found in an internal split. On the one hand, he wants to receive Ohr Hochma very much, and he can do this because everything that is derived from the Creator, meaning from the king, comes to him. However, on the other hand, Mordechai claimed that this was impossible, and one must act only according to the Ohr Hassadim, the attribute of bestowal. To the same degree that you acquire the attribute of bestowal, you can receive the Ohr Hochma.
Queen Esther, Mordechai’s niece, plays a big role in this story. She was taken to the palace of the king so that later she could be the linking factor between Mordechai and the king. This means that Esther is Malchut, a feminine desire that can attract the Upper Light. Then the Light is sure to pass through Mordechai, and after that Haman would be integrated in it, but only in the case where this would be accompanied by the correct reception of the Ohr Hochma.
So Queen Esther told the king about the plot of the two servants who wanted to kill him and that Mordechai exposed it. These servants symbolize the Klipa (Shell) of the Kav Yamin and Kav Smol, meaning the egoistic desires that wanted to exploit both the Ohr Hochma and the Ohr Hassadim for themselves only. The king hung them and, after that favored Esther even more.
The question can be asked, why did the king elevate Haman? After all, he should have compensated Mordechai for saving him.
However, Mordechai was a Tzadik (Righteous One). A Tzadik is a person who has no desire to receive for himself because he doesn’t want anything for himself. So, it is impossible to compensate him in any manner or form. In addition to this, it is impossible to use this characteristic as, with its help, it is impossible to attract the Light and rise from level to level. In a person, it is very passive.
So, when the king elevated Haman, he gave Mordechai a reason to ascend. In other words, when more egoistic desires arise in us, we begin to understand that we require correction, and then it is up to us to develop the characteristic of the Kav Yamin, the characteristic of Mordechai, within us, above the characteristic of the Kav Smol that is continuing to grow.
Even though we don’t agree with this, it is difficult for us to overcome it. However, our entire way is by performing good deeds. We come to conventions, study, disseminate, and then suddenly feel that we have fallen. The desire for spiritual work disappears from us. We are attracted to all kinds of things. We begin to quarrel among ourselves. The ego rises. So, what can be done? This is the elevation of Haman.
We must understand that all of this is done for our benefit, to elevate us so that we feel that, as much as the ego arises in us, it is up to us to complement it with the Kav Yamin, the attribute of bestowal. So, despite the events, it is up to us to be on guard all of the time and know how to fight against them.
Spiritual advancement is based upon treading on two legs, right – left, right – left, and so forth. That is, it is up to us to be both in opposing states between us and attempts to rise and connect above these states. It is very important not to forget in the male part, and especially in the female part, of the group that there must be a clear understanding that the group is always to be advancing, despite the attitudes that are revealed in it.
The main thing for us is to yearn constantly for connection, and under this connection, different currents are formed, egoistic leaps. All of this is correct and good. In this case, we see through the actions of Esther, the feminine part, how good it is that there is a strong woman in the group who is connected to the Creator—meaning that she understands advancement correctly, that she can help relax and balance the two forces of Haman and Mordechai. So, the book is called the Scroll of Esther in her name.
Esther doesn’t just work like that. She dresses in a special way. She goes out and sits in the king’s path. This means that when the Light arrives from above, she, the Malchut, sits in that place and attracts the Light through her desire. In this way, she builds the connection between the king (Keter), the Light (the source of Hochma) and Mordechai (the attribute of Bina).
That same small Light that passes from the king to her is called the “golden scepter” (Esther 4:11). As it is written, “And it came to pass when the king saw Queen Esther standing in the court, that she won favor in his eyes, and the king extended to Esther the golden scepter that was in his hand, and Esther approached and touched the end of the scepter” (Esther 5:2). So, a little of the Ohr Hochma passed to Bina, and Mordechai began to work.
To the question of the king, “What concerns you, Queen Esther” (Esther 5:3), Esther answers, “If it pleases the king, let the king and Haman come today to the banquet that I have prepared for him” (Esther 5:4), and the king and Haman go to her together.
There, Esther explains to the king that, if Haman uses his desires, then all of the Light will pass to the Klipot of Haman, the ruined desires, and then the king will have nothing left. This means that all of the servants of the king, meaning all of the desires, will not work to bestow to the Creator, but on the contrary, they will fall below. Then, Haman will rise above everything, including the king himself.
The king shouts angrily at Haman, how could he have thought such a thing? From great fear, Haman falls on the bed of Esther, and the king becomes angry at Haman, accusing him of wanting to lie on the bed, instead of himself! Since Haman wants to receive all of the Light that comes from above, this symbolizes a situation in which it is as if he would ravish Esther, take all of her desires, and fulfill them. So, Haman now expects a serious punishment.
It must be pointed out that the characteristics of Mordechai, the attribute of Bina, are dispersed all over the kingdom of Ahasuerus, the kingdom of Babylon, which includes 127 nations. Babylon symbolizes all of humanity since all of us came from ancient Babylon.
The king sends emissaries to all of the nations with the message that the day will come when it will be necessary to rise up and kill those whom he will order, but the first message doesn’t say exactly whom it is necessary to kill. Only in the second letter is it said that it is necessary to kill those who cannot connect with each other—meaning to kill the egoistic characteristics that are revealed in this gigantic desire.
So, the king shrewdly asks Haman, “What should be done to a man whom the king wishes to honor?” (Esther 6:6). Haman replies that he should seat him on a horse, clothe him in royal garments, and lead him throughout the city so that everyone would see his greatness. This is because Haman thinks that he will merit all of this himself since Ohr Hochma will be inserted into the Kelim de Kabbalah (vessels of reception) and not the Kelim de Hashpa’a (the vessels of bestowal) as Mordechai needs nothing.
Now, it is revealed that it is impossible to receive the Light within the vessels of reception directly because it would disappear immediately as a result of Tzimtzum Aleph (First Restriction). So, the king commands Haman, “Hurry, take the raiment and the horse as you have spoken and do so to Mordecai the Jew, who sits in the king’s gate; let nothing fail of all that you have spoken.” (Esther 6:10).
Haman goes through terrible suffering, yet nothing is left for him to do but carry out the orders of the king. That is how Mordechai realizes the necessary conditions by which the Upper Light comes from the king through Mordechai to all of the inhabitants of Babylon and ultimately to Esther.
Subsequently, a son was born to Esther who became the king of Babylon. He helped the people of Israel to return from the Babylonian exile to the land of Israel and build the Second Temple (Beit ha Mikdash). This is known to us from history since the Megillat Esther (Scroll of Esther) doesn’t talk about it. This allegorical story ends with Mordechai becoming the assistant of the king, meaning that all of the Light passes through him from above to below and extends to the entire large kingdom.
The events that are talked about in Scroll of Esther happened around 2,500 years ago between the destruction of the First Temple and the construction of the Second Temple. They belong to the end of the second period of exile in Babylon.
Today, we are at the end of the last exile of 2,000 years and are ascending to the building of the Third Temple.
The Temple is the general global Kli of receiving that was planned in ancient Babylon 3,500 years ago when Abraham began to explain to the Babylonians that they must all connect. However, no one would listen to him, except for a handful of a few thousand people. Ultimately, all of the inhabitants of Babylon became scattered all over the world.
In fact, today, we are in the same situation of Shevira (Breaking) as in ancient Babylon in the time of Abraham, and what happened to Abraham and his group in the time of Mordechai and Esther a thousand years after they left Babylon must now happen with us again.
It is up to us to understand that the revelation must happen, but only to the degree of the integration between us (that is what Mordechai was talking about). First, this will be accompanied by the rise of big egos, and these will be very serious obstacles. Second, the ascent must be realized with the help of the active participation of the serious feminine part.
No source talks about the importance of the feminine part in the completion of correction of all of humanity, except the Scroll of Esther The name Esther indicates Hastera (Concealment), and what this indicates is that, even though the work of the feminine part is apparently in concealment, it has a very great importance in correction.
There is no need to fear the revelation of the ego. Rather, it must be understood that it is revealed in order to be able to use it correctly. So, it makes no difference that it wants to rise up and dominate us, causing all kinds of disagreements among us. It is up to us to stop it in time.
So, it is clear to us that we can find a connection with the Creator, with the king, and with the help of Esther and Mordechai (the attributes of bestowal) that are found in us, we can adjust and correct everything so that we unite all of the desires together, including the most egoistic desires of Haman, and ultimately, we will bring the entire world to one shared Kli full of Light.
That is what is talked about in Scroll of Esther. The Purim holiday is dedicated to this.
Purim is from the word “Pur,” the lots that apparently are arranged between Mordechai and Haman because it is not clear with whom it is necessary to advance. A person is found in such a great internal split that sometimes he doesn’t know what to do.
Purim is preceded by another spiritual action, embodied in our world under the name Yom Kippurim (a day like Purim – Ke Purim) when we discover empty desires that we are able to fulfill because of a lack of Ohr Hassadim. So, on Yom Kippur (the Day of Atonement), we don’t eat and don’t drink as a symbol that our desires cannot be fulfilled because they lack the correction of the Ohr Hassadim, desire for the purpose of bestowal, intention for the sake of bestowal.
Between Yom Kippurim and Purim, there is another holiday, the Hanukkah holiday. On those days, we light a Menorah, and this activity symbolizes the Ohr Hassadim that rises from below to above in order to bestow. This means that the desires that we discovered on Yom Kippurim we correct on Hanukkah through Ohr Hassadim and prepare them for Purim when they still will become filled with Ohr Hochma. These three events continue one after the other and symbolize the discovery of the empty Kli, its filling through Ohr Hassadim, and after that, its filling through Ohr Hochma.
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From the Fundamentals Of Kabbalah 2/24/13
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Question: How can we feel happy when we receive disturbances that the Creator sends us?
