Parshas Yisro
By Rabbi Dovid Zauderer
Since this week’s Torah portion talks about the Ten Commandments that G-d spoke to the Jewish people at Mount Sinai – plus the holiday of Purim is just around the corner (this year Purim begins on Thursday evening, February 25th) – I would like to share with you a Torah insight that connects the two. Enjoy!
As we will soon read in the Book of Esther, when Queen Esther first heard that Mordechai went out into the midst of the city donning sackcloth and ashes and crying out bitterly, she sent garments to clothe him, but he would not accept them. She then summoned Hasach and ordered him to go to Mordechai to learn “mah zeh v’al mah zeh, what this was and why†(Esther 4:5). This expression of Esther is a curious one and has an implicit meaning.
Indeed the Talmud in Megillah 15b tells us that Esther was really asking, “Perhaps the Jews violated the Ten Commandments which were inscribed on the Luchos (Tablets of Testimony) about which it says ‘mizeh umizeh heim kesuvim – they (the Luchos) were inscribed on one side and the other’†(see commentary of Rashi to Exodus 32:15), i.e., the Luchos were engraved through and through, yet the commandments that were inscribed in them could miraculously be read the same from both sides.
This is hard to understand. Why would Esther articulate the Jewish people’s transgressions in this particular manner? And if the writing would only be readable on one side, would that lighten the severity of their transgressions?
Perhaps we can better appreciate Queen Esther’s strangely worded reproach with the help of the following story:
A merchant once hired a “ba’al agalah†(wagon driver) for a three-day’s journey to the fair in Leipzig at a cost of ten rubles one way. As it turned out, the weather was horrible, and the heavy drifting snow forced the ba’al agalah to drive slower than usual. When they finally reached Leipzig, the fair was already over. The ba’al agalah asked the merchant to pay him the ten rubles. The merchant refused, claiming that he only agreed to pay the ba’al agalah if he would get him to the fair on time, but now that he missed the entire fair, he was not obligated to pay anything. For his part, the ba’al agalah claimed that he should still be paid the ten rubles - after all, it was not his fault that the snowfall was heavy and slowed them down considerably. Seeing that they couldn’t agree on a price, the merchant and the ba’al agalah decided to take their dispute to the local rabbi, who could clarify for them the Halachah (“Torah lawâ€) in this case. The rabbi pulled a sefer (book) off the shelf, looked into it for a few minutes, and then proclaimed that the merchant was right and had no obligation to pay the ba’al agalah anything. He explained that even though it wasn’t the wagon driver’s fault that the weather was so bad, the bottom line is that the merchant only agreed to pay for the service of being transported to the fair, and since he never received that service, he had no obligation to pay the ba’al agalah. Needless to say, the ba’al agalah was very upset with the rabbi’s Halachic ruling. He thus challenged the rabbi, asking him during which time of the year was the Torah given. Not knowing exactly where the unlearned ba’al agalah was going with that question, the rabbi answered that the Torah was given to the Jewish people in the Hebrew month of Sivan, in the beginning of the summer. “I knew it!â€, shouted the ba’al agalah, “the Torah was given in the summertime when there is no snow. That’s why the rabbi ruled like the merchant! Had the Torah been given in the wintertime when there is a lot of snow on the ground, then the Halachah would follow me!
Of course, we can all appreciate the foolishness of the ba’al agalah in thinking that G-d only gave the Torah to the Jewish people for them to live by during the summer months and not for when it snows. After all, G-d is All-Knowing and All-Caring, so He surely meant for His Torah to be applied equally and observed by the entire Jewish nation – at all times and in all places - and, yes, even during the winter months.
Which brings us back to the Jews in the Purim story. The Talmud in Megillah 12a teaches that the Jewish people at that time were nearly annihilated because “they attended King Achashveirosh’s banquet “.
The Bible commentators explain that the Jewish people felt that the Torah and Mitzvos didn’t apply to them the same way now that they were in exile in Persia as they did when they still lived in the Land of Israel. That was then, they said, and now is different (you’ve heard that line before) so we had better go join the King’s banquet with everybody else – even though as Jews who follow the Torah it wasn’t appropriate for them at all.
“Today is different, and the Torah that was given to the Jewish people was for an earlier time†– this is the grave mistake that the Jews in the Purim story were making. For as we saw in the Ba’al Agalah story, it is the height of foolishness to think that G-d only gave His beloved Torah for the Jewish people to live by in the Land of Israel but not in the Diaspora. If the Jewish people are meant to live by the Torah as an instruction book for life, then surely G-d gave it to the entire Jewish nation to live by at all times and in all seasons!
This then was the critical message that Queen Esther was sending to Mordechai regarding the Jewish people: “Perhaps the Jews violated the Ten Commandments which were inscribed on the Luchos about which it says “mizeh umizeh heim kesuvim – they were inscribed on one side and the other†– i.e., the commandments that were inscribed in them could be read the same from both sides. This open miracle in the engraving of the Tablets teaches us that the Torah talks to us and has a relevant message for us - from every vantage point in history, at every time, and in every place.
As Purim approaches and we soon read the Book of Esther, let us remember the lesson of the miraculous Luchos – and let us celebrate the wonderful and timeless Torah that G-d gave to all of us equally.
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