 We're back, we're live, we're doing Community Matters with Rabbi Itchel Krasynjansky, the leader of Chabad of Hawaii, and it's very important that we have him here so we can understand, that we can develop a depth of understanding about Chabad and about the Jewish religion and about the holidays, and have some loving kindness in the process, Rabbi. Thank you for coming. Thank you for inviting me and it's always a pleasure to be here. So, we entitled this Purim Reconsidered, because you have to consider Purim again and again. There are layers and levels of Purim. We talked about exactly what's in the Megillah and the story of Esther and Haman and Achos Vairos and Murachi, in fact I saw something in one of the Jewish newspapers a couple of days ago about the special relationship between the two queens, the two queens. Queen Esther and Queen Vashti? Yeah. And I mean there's a psychological examination of how things must have gone between the two of them. They were not friends, I would say, no. Well actually Esther, the Jewish queen, entered onto the scene after the first queen was beheaded by her husband, so she must have, she heard of her. That's not done anymore. Well, not done anymore. In Iran? In that part of the world. Maybe it's still gone in Iran, you know, it's the same country. So let me just tell you an interesting tidbit that hopefully will start the conversation. In the Megillah, the scroll, the book of Esther, there is, when things turned around and a great miracle happened and Esther pleaded for the Jewish people and Achos Vairos, the king granted her wish, the Jewish people can defend themselves after, from any attack. And Haman was put to death, it says that Haman was hung on the very same tree that he wanted Mordechai to be hung from. And all of his 10 children were also killed and hung. Oh my goodness. Oh my goodness. The Talmud says that, actually it was an 11th child, Haman had an 11th child, she was a young girl at the time and she saw the turn of events, how things started going against her father and she couldn't bear it. She committed suicide, there were only 10 left. That's what the Talmud says. Now, fast forward, in 1946 there were the Nuremberg Trials or the Nazis were put on, those who were captured were put on trial. You know about that movie, the story of Ben Lorenz, he was the prosecutor and played at the Jewish Film Festival last week at the museum and it's actually, believe it or not, this is actually on Amazon now or possibly on Netflix now, for a few bucks you can watch this wonderful movie, it's a documentary and it's about the Nuremberg Trials, it's about Ben Lorenz, last week he was 99 years old and what a man, I don't want to digress too much. So this is a man who comes to his family every evening at dinner time and he asks them the same question every evening, for his whole life, the life of his family, he asks them this question, what have you done to make the world better? Wow. That's, what a man. Sorry I interrupted. No, no, no, thank you, that's beautiful. So an interesting tidbit, so in the Nuremberg Trials there were 11 Nazis, high ranking Nazi officials that went on trial and all 11 of them were, the verdict was death by hanging. The 11th person was Goring, the famous Nazi general, Goring, the morning when they were all led out to be hung, when they entered the cell of Goring, they found him dead, he committed suicide, so there were no 11 Nazis hung, there were 10 and when this gentleman in his name was Julius Streicher, he was the Nazi propaganda chief, when he was sent to the gallows, his last words was he cried out, he shouted out, Purimfest, Purimfest. He knew the comparison. One second this gets more interesting, his private estate was turned into a transitory camp for survivors as they were taken away from Europe and Germany, Israel or other places. So many Jewish people stayed there, survivors of the camps. They found in his house a Bible that he had that he underlined, everywhere in the Bible where it talked about Amen, the whole book of Esther, he had these comments and it turns out he believed that the origins of the Aryan race were in Persia, from Persia. Very interesting, we're not talking about the Mordecai and Esther side of the equation either, are we? No, so this is like part of this whole big jigsaw puzzle, many centuries after the story of Purim, where 11 Nazis were convicted to be hung, 10 in fact worked because one committed suicide and then if you press replay, that was the exact same thing happened at Haman, where 11 were going to be hung but only 10 in fact were because the 11th one was committed suicide. So that's very, very fascinating. We're going to take a short break, we're going to answer that call, and who knows where that call came from? It's Rabbi Itchel Krasynchansky of Chabad, Hawaii and the title of our show is Purim Reconsidered. We'll be right back. Aloha, my name is Andrew Lanning, I'm the host of Security Matters Hawaii, airing every Wednesday here on Think Tech Hawaii, live from the studios. I'll bring you guests, I'll bring you information about the things in security that matter to keeping you safe, your co-workers safe, your family safe, to keep our community safe. We want to teach you about those things in our industry that may be a little outside of your experience, so please join me because Security Matters, Aloha. Aloha, this is Winston Welch. I am your host of Out and About, where every other week, Mondays at 3, we explore a variety of topics in our city, state, nation and world, and events, organizations, the people that fuel them. It's a really interesting show. We welcome you to tune in, and we welcome your suggestions for shows. You got a lot of them out there, and we have an awesome studio here where we can get your ideas out as well. So I look forward to you tuning in every other week where we've got some great guests and great topics. You're going to learn a lot. You're going to come away inspired like I do. So I'll see you every other week here at 3 o'clock on Monday afternoon. Aloha. Okay. We're back. We're live with Rabbi Itzhel Krasnijanski talking about quorum, quorum reconsidered, finding new levels and layers and interpretations and remarkable mystical things about quorum. I told you that back in 1978, I went to Israel, and my brother and my wife and I, we stumbled into a synagogue there in Tel Aviv, and it was quorum. They were reading the Megillah, and I've never seen this before, and I grew up in a Jewish neighborhood in New York. I've never seen this before. The whole congregation was there. It was so crowded and tumultuous. It was like a brogol painting. Everybody animated, and they were reading the Megillah, and the kids were doing with the noisemakers, and people were singing and chanting and making fun. It was such a fun holiday. Yeah. Quorum is a very, very fun holiday. It's a joyous and fun holiday, especially for the kids. The whole plot of quorum is that everything was shrouded in mystery. In fact, the sages tell us that Esther, the name of the Jewish Queen Esther, in Hebrew has the root of the word Esther is hester, to conceal, where God says in the Bible in the exile, God says, I will conceal my face. Esther concealed her identity to the king when she first went into the king's palace. She didn't reveal that she was Jewish. Why? Well, because Mordechai, her uncle, the Jewish leader, who was the head of the Jewish Supreme Court, he told her not to reveal her identity, because he perhaps sensed that she would be able to use it in a useful way at the right time for her to reveal her identity, which is, in fact, what happened. So the whole story of the Megillah takes place over a very long period of time, maybe a 20-year period. So from when the king Achashverj becomes king, and until the whole story unfolds, the opening of the Megillah opens up with Achashverj throwing a big, big feast at the third year from when he was king. So sages tell us that the reason why he threw this big feast was he wanted to celebrate a victory of sorts. That is, there was a prophecy by Jeremiah that after the whole story of Purim takes place after the destruction of the first temple when the Jews were exiled into Babylon, Babylonia. There was a prophecy by Jeremiah that in 70 years the Jews would be called back to Israel. The exile would be only for 70 years. And the kings and the rulers were very, very cognizant of that prophecy, and were afraid that if that's what happens, it would be a brain drain of the Jews in that country. So Achashverj watched it very closely, and when the 70-year day came, or the year came, and nothing happened, Achashverj was relieved and felt that, okay, well, if it didn't happen, then the prophecy probably is not going to happen, and it's not true. So he could be more confident in his reign. As the Talmud says little, that he realized that he miscalculated the 70 years. So it opens up with Achashverj's song, The Party. And then in the story of The Party is that he invites his queen, his wife Vashti, to parade herself in front of all the people. She refused, and it was off with her head, and then they had to find a new queen. And then 12... It was a problem when you take the queen's head off, you always have to find a new one. And 12 years later, he elevates this minister, Haman, to the highest position of the land. That happened 12 years later. And so Hashem, God orchestrated that even before the potential problem should be a solution in place, that the queen, who was now Queen Esther, she was now very well in the king's... Perfectly positioned. Exactly. And that's true for every part of the story of Purim. Because Esther is now the queen, so her uncle Mordechai hangs around the royal palace. And because she's the head of the Supreme Court, he knows, understands all the languages, so he picks up on two employees who want to poison the king. He immediately alerts Esther, who alerts the king, and saves his life. And when the king one evening couldn't sleep, and he asked his bedtime storytellers to read him a story of the Chronicles of the King, they read how Mordechai saved the king's life. And at that moment, so they said, there's nowhere in the book where it says that they repaid Mordechai for his favor. And at that moment, Haman comes knocking on the palace's door. He wants to consult with the king about hanging Mordechai. And this happens right on the heels of Achashrera hearing about what Mordechai did to him. So everything happened in such a way that we clearly see it was orchestrated by Achashrera. So when we say, for this title of the show, Purim reconsidered. If you look at Purim from various different points of view, if you review the story and review the elements of the story, and if you compare the story to things that have happened in more recent times, there's a special quality about this. Exactly. So tonight is Purim. Yes, tonight is Purim. What's going to happen as far as Chabad is concerned? We have a Maghila reading. We read like in your experience in Tel Aviv, we'll be reading the Maghila at the temple at the Chabad house tonight. Everyone's invited. And there will be a lot of people there, hopefully, and it's always a very joyous time. And then afterwards, today was called the fast of Esther. When Mordechai asked Esther to plead on behalf of the Jewish people, she said, okay, but firstly, she asked that Mordechai should let everyone out to fast. Fasting is one of the ways of penitence where we ask God for his help. It's a way of asking God for something, or expressing atonement. Exactly. So, till today, the day before Purim is called the fast of Esther. So after the Maghila reading tonight, we break our fast. And then we have party number one, there's a very large Israeli community here in Hawaii. So they're going to come in and they're going to have a big party tonight at Chabad. And they know how to party, these young Israeli kids. And then tomorrow we have a big community Purim party where people get dressed up and... Oh, sure. And the costumes. The costumes. Yes, those Esther, some as Mordechai, some as Haman, some as Akash Vairos. Yes, exactly. How about Vashti? Vashti, yes. Vashti, they dress up as Vashti, too. Yeah. Sounds like fun. Right. But the message of Purim is a very, very powerful and very relevant message. And basically is that very often things in life, the way God set this world up, things are hidden from our view. We don't see. We don't see how what happened today will help us with something potentially problem down the road. It's all connected. We're not able to connect the dots. The story of Purim is like the Torah's perspective on the unfolding of events. If someone lived through that time, they would not be able to connect the dots and see that this party led to the Ashvashis being beheaded and needing a new queen so that she can be there when Haman, all that kind of stuff, rest assured it's happening and it's happening on a micro level as well as on a macro level. On a historic level, I mean in the sense that, I mean we have a lot of history discussions here and it's all connected, it's all a continuum. And I suppose that at the historical level, that's what Purim teaches us. Exactly. And what's interesting is and frightening, what's interesting is that the modern day Persia, which is Iran, is the only country in the world today that loudly proclaims its aim to destroy the Jewish people, to destroy Israel. It's the only country. Let's talk about that. Okay, so how many years ago did the story of the Megillah happen? 500 BC. 500 BC. Oh, well. And so obviously there were issues for the Jews in those times and I suppose you could try to make the case that those issues have continued and been exacerbated because for some reason now here, 2019, Iran is the rogue of the whole neighborhood. The rogue is not only the rogue for Israel, but for other countries too, making trouble. It's an advanced country in many ways. I mean they can build nuclear reactors and this sort of thing, make bombs. But they're not advanced socially. There's a lot of repression, a lot of inappropriate punishment. Right. But human rights issues. Right. But also it's really almost all the Jewish holidays that we celebrate is the clash of different cultures or right and wrong, good and evil, these forces that still we find today in the world today. So this is a repeat. We haven't vanquished evil from this world yet. But studying Purim, I mean I'm just throwing this out for your consideration. Studying this Purim makes us perhaps more aware that there are some regimes that are repressive, there are some regimes that are unacceptable and doing unacceptable things and we have to see them clearly for that. We have to see, you know, Purim makes us see clearly what Iran, what Persia really is today. It's not a pretty picture, but you have to have the comparison so you can see clearly. Right. And what's frightening is that, you know, the modern day Iran has its roots way back in old Persia. It's the same story. They've got to get over that already. Yeah, they should. They should. We have to thank them because they gave us the most joyous holiday that we have on the calendar. And that's the story of our existence. They tried to kill us, God saved us, and we're celebrating. Yeah, we're still around. Thank you so much, Rabbi. Thank you. Great to see you here and talk to you. Great to have you. Great to have discussions with you. Thank you. Happy Purim, everyone. Happy Purim, everyone. Aloha.