העורך Editor
Don’t Say This Vort on Purim
In Megillas Esther (3:6) it says:
וירא המן כי אין מרדכי כרע ומשתחוה לו וימלא המן חמה. ויבז בעיניו לשלח יד במרדכי לבדו כי הגידו לו את עם מרדכי ויבקש המן להשמיד את כל היהודים…
There is a famous homily on this which sees “Haman” as a symbol of the Yetzer Hara who is ignored by the righteous leader of the Jewish people: אין מרדכי כרע ומשתחוה לו. But the Evil Inclination sees no point in leading the leader astray: ויבז בעיניו לשלח יד במרדכי לבדו. It’s too much work. Besides, what’s the point? The Jewish majority won’t follow their leader to the depths, anyway: כי הגידו לו את עם מרדכי. They will say: שלמה ואלף כיוצא בו אובדין מן העולם ואות אחת ממך אינה בטלה לעולם and stay loyal to the Torah. No matter how great the leader, they will abandon him. So the Yetzer Hara must, instead, focus his efforts on each and every Jew individually: ויבקש המן להשמיד את כל היהודים.
(Kochvei Ohr by Rabbi Itzeleh of Petersburg?)
Acher’s students don’t themselves become Acher. Indeed, with Eliezer Berland and Shabtai Tzvi, yemach shemam, half their followers deny/denied anything happened and the other half generally still refuse to permit themselves the same liberties, as we explained earlier (see too Murray Rothbard’s explanation of glaringly conflicting esoteric and exoteric creeds in crazy cults).
רוצים ‘פורים תורה’? הנה קונטרס תכלא דפזלון
תגובה סאטירית לגרעין הקשה של מתנגדי התכלת:
Reprinted with permission from Techeiles.org, here.
A Simple Introduction to the Wig-Avoda Zara Scandal
I was going to write a short book review, but my time is up (it’s past time, actually!), so I will simply say this:
Most Seforim on this topic, aside from being shallow and deceptive, as explained within, are not written with the beginner in mind. If you want to get into the sugya, start with the new Sefer published on Hyehudi.org here, by our newest contributor, Yissachar Dov Kramer.
Mazel Tov to the author, and may he merit writing many more Torah works!
P.S. For the modesty aspects, I recommend this.