#145 The Purim Story / Freedom and Danger / Prototypes in Biblical Characters

0:01 Welcome to another episode of Come Together. We are back another episode. Crazy day. It is Monday, March 2nd. War broke out over the weekend. It feels like there has been non-stop news to just keep track of and be terrified of God and just, you know, I mean, like you really got to just at a certain point just put your phone, social media aside and just it's too overwhelming.

0:45 It's too much. We're not meant for it. We're not meant for it. It's too much, man. It's way too much. Yeah, we, we have Perm coming up and I want to talk about Perm because Perm is actually one of my favorite philosophically. It's my favorite. It's probably my favorite Jewish holiday and my favorite day of the year. And I think I, I mean, I, I've been doing the podcast for a year and a half now, almost two years. And I believe I spoke about it in passing a little bit and I kind of wanted to give it a little bit more attention. But I did want to also give a couple of of a couple of disclaimers and I think important ones, which is that I'm just me. I'm just a dude that loves his stuff.

1:27 And I've been learning this my whole life. Does not mean I am an expert on it does I mean I know it backwards and forward a lot of times, lots of times in my experience, my I thought I knew something and it turns out that I had just often reviewed my very fundamental or superficial understanding of it, my very youthful understanding of a lot of biblical stories, Torah stories, Jewish holidays and history, reality, whatever. I mean, I'm just finding out more and more that the more I read and the more I learn and, you know, even though I think I know something I don't really, so I want to. Just begin by saying even before I talk about anything with the holiday at all, that whatever I'm saying, the I guess the premise will be grounded.

2:20 In material where I will speculate, I will say that I'm speculating where I am saying that this is something that I thought of or came up with or put the dots together to. That is also it's something I'm going to say and something that you definitely do not need to consider, even if and you know, if it's interesting to you. The whole goal of this is really just to make just to make us think a little bit, just to open our minds a little bit. And whether we choose to accept or accept this information, information or these thoughts or not is totally up to you. Oh man, where to begin. So Perm is a relatively obscure Jewish holiday.

3:02 It is one the one one of the reasons why it's so obscure is actually, in my opinion, one of the reasons why I like it the most. Perm is perm along with Hanukkah. Hanukkah is the Jewish is it is it rabbinically decreed Jewish holiday. That does not mean that it's not a holiday. That's not mean it's not real. It is rabbinically decreed and there are not a lot not there are not lots of rabbinically decreed holidays in general and nor are there many that last until today. And, and, and we say, and, you know, and, and, and there are Jewish commentators, Khazal, what I'll refer to them as. Which were which?

3:47 Is an acronym actually. For. Khazal stands for Hakamim are are wise ones. The the the the wise leaders Zika namala Vacha should be remembered in memory. So just some context there. That's so this so these are talking about the sages, the early stages that had been the early receivers of a lot of these ideals are actually many times, especially with the perm contest context and story may or may not have actually been alive around that time period themselves, just a generation or two removed. Which is really interesting because the Perm story takes place at the destruction towards the sorry, towards the end of the first exile of Jerusalem, right before the second one. And actually the Perm story leads directly into the Second Temple time period, which I believe was in the year 70, but or maybe it was destroyed in the year 70, but again, not positive.

4:46 I have to check that anyway. The point is. That there are a lot of leaders, a lot of thoughts. There's a lot of opinions on what the story on, on, on the on the holiday. But one thing that's interesting about the holiday is that there doesn't seem to be many prerequisites. Typically speaking, in a lot of Jewish holidays, which is very popular in pop culture or at least relatively commonly known throughout the country that there's there's several holidays. Shabbat is one of them. Shomer Shabbos, Big Lebowski, all these fun. Different cultural references where you don't use electricity, you don't work, you don't do what's called malacha, which is extraneous effort or or creative acts. And then there's different degrees of nuance based on the holidays.

5:36 But that's why Jews will often be walking in the streets on holidays. That's why on Saturdays, that's why they won't be getting in the car. That's why if anyone ever asked you, I've had a conversation with people that are like, why do people ask me to come in and turn off the AC or turn on the oven or something like that? And part of the reason why is because it's one of the holidays that we don't do anything or most a lot of things. There's a whole bunch of there's actually. I mean, the truth is that as far as what you're allowed to and not allowed to do is extremely, extremely complicated and extremely, extremely nuanced. And it's not anything that I'm even close to an expert on, which is the value of having to have a spiritual leader or a rabbi in your life, is that a lot of the material is just really complicated and nuanced for an everyday person to pick up and figure out by themselves.

6:31 Sometimes you can, but I'm definitely not confident enough myself that I feel like I could just determine exactly what the nuance is for myself. I hope I'm not rambling. I'm getting to the point, which is that perm doesn't seem to have a lot of prerequisites. Same thing with Hanukkah, right? You think about the your association with the days are typically candles, typically with doughnuts or latkes, the the fried potatoes or with Purim. It's kind of dress up and you read from a scroll and there's a lot of drinking going on and there's a lot of costumes going on. And but there doesn't seem to be on any kind of real formal religious behavior necessarily associated with it, especially typically the behaviors that are typical in Jewish holidays. So one of the reasons why is the same reason I mentioned earlier that it's rabbinically decreed holiday. And the rabbi's or the sages that would have decreed it may not have been comfortable being giving us commandments like God would and telling us, hey, you know, don't do this, don't do that.

7:53 Instead, what you could do is, hey, this is a day that ordinarily might be an ordinary day, but let's do XY and Z particular things to actually elevate the day. We can't tell you what not to do, but we could tell you extra things to do to make it special and to to make it mean something to you. And that actually kind of gets down to the first point. So perm to me is the holiday of freedom. And I'm going to explain exactly what that means because pay sock or Passover is typically associated with freedom. And it is, I don't, I don't mean to take that away, but this is a little bit more philosophical freedom and this is a little bit more what I would call relevant to today's world. And the sages actually say that the perm is the holiday that is the light of the dawn of the time without miracles. I think I've said this before, and if I have, I apologize. But what that means is right like that, that, that, that until the perm story.

8:48 And actually there's many different examples in different Talmudic sources for stories about people that were alive for the first Temple and the second one and the one. And, and when they saw this, the second temple being constructed, they were crying because it was just so mundane relative to the beauty and the magnificence and, and the godliness of the first one. And there's actually something to that, that the idea on the holiday of the poem embodies. When we believe that, you know, we believe that, you know, we have individual identities, obviously, and then we have national identities and we have individual stories where I could experienced something in my life.

9:36 High school, for example, was really difficult. Or towards the end of high school, beginning of college, I was really not confident to myself. I was really unsure of myself. I would generally depend on other people to validate me rather than me validating myself. And actually, it's funny, I went to an event this weekend that I saw a lot of people from that time period of my life and it really, really threw me through emotional loop, especially because it was a drinking beer pong type of event. So I so alcohol, I'm sure just blunts that kind of experience. But my point being that I have, you know, that, that, that was a particular part of my life that I can't say I was. I, I, looking back, I was particularly fond of, I don't think I was, I was actually very, very happy senior year of high school, you know, my year abroad, my year in Israel and, and my, in the, in the beginning of my college experience, I would tell you I was very happy.

10:40 I recall those experiences very fondly. But where I am today relative to where I was, I, I sense that I'm an evolved person. I, I sense that I'm a more mature and sophisticated and responsible and dependable person and more with the, with the sense of self, more the sense of awareness of who I am and not necessarily needing other people to validate what I'm doing or who or the way I'm doing it in order for me to be confident in the way that I'm pursuing what I think is valuable. Then I have those moments in my early 20s, early to mid 20s where I was living in Seattle and I really didn't know what my life was going to end up looking like.

11:21 And I was trying to make a lot of big decisions that the consequences were going to be enormous, like who I'm going to marry, where I'm going to move, what kind of family do I want to raise? What kind of community do I want to surround myself with? To what, how, how, how strict, how strictly observant or religious should I be? A lot of these questions come up in your mid 20s because a lot of these questions in this particular point in your life meet, you know, mean something and, and, and the decisions you make based on these ideas impact our futures. They really do. And there are, and there comes a time, I think in really everyone's life.

12:03 And actually, I have a very good friend of a very close friend going through this right now. I'm going to keep everything completely anonymous except for the fact that his father's I'll at the moment. And I was talking to my mom and my mom had lost both of her parents, has lost both of her parents already. She lost her brother. And you know, one thing that I was saying was there's always this dynamic, I feel like in life and part of the reason why it's take why. I mean, there's a million reasons. Of course, I'm sure that it's hard to my hard to my friend. I'm sure one of the psychological reasons why is because, you know, even though I'm an adult and even though I'm a 30 year old working man with kids and a wife and a home, I don't look at myself like that.

12:47 I look like I, I, I'm still a kid. Like, I, I talk to my, I work with my dad. I talk to my dad 100 times a day. I count on my mom for, for advice and for our relationship. And I'm extremely, extremely close with her. And like, I look at myself like a kid still, you know, and, but I don't know that a certain, I don't want to face this. And the day that this happens is going to be an extremely, extremely painful one and one that I can't even really think about. But there's going to be a day where I'm not going to be able to say that I'm a kid anymore, that I, you know, that I'm a kid to parents now like that. That's not going to be a relationship that that manifests in my life. And instead, and there's a comfort to being a kid and there's a comfort to knowing that I could call a dad, I could call a mom, I could call, you know, my friend to send me a meme.

13:37 And it was, you know, when you're in stealing and you're in debt, you know, and you're just hoping that this dead uncle somewhere that just, you know, that, that, that, that you, that the, you know, the government's looking to pass on his, his estate to you. There's something comforting about having that safety, that safety net of being a kid. And there's something extremely, extremely scary and extremely uncomfortable and extremely unpleasant about losing that. And then you could, you know, and, and, and this doesn't necessarily even mean, you know, financial, this could, I mean, this is emotional. This is just knowing that you're, you know, I think that as long as people have parents alive, they kind of have a hope that the parents are going to take care of them. I think it's just so biologically and evolutionarily deep and so foundational.

14:23 I don't think that I can't, I, I think that as, as long as a parent, a kid has a parent alive, there's a hope that they could still be a kid, you know, and the reason why and, and this and this whole entire thing is the metaphor, what I like to say for what could also happen on a national level, right? America, for example, is a very, very young country. And we're going to, you know, and, and, and relative to Europe, relative to Asia, relative to Africa, relative to South America, you know, I mean, the, the American culture, the American country, the American establishment is very, very, very young. Only, you know, 250 years old is, is nothing is a drop in the bucket, you know, and so we're taking time. We got to figure out this whole democracy thing, this whole freedom thing, this whole having such a huge country with such enormous influence in the way to balance everything. It takes time to do this and it's a growing process and it's painful and it's just as painful as all the unpainful, unpleasant, you know, high school, growing up, coming of age experiences that you've ever had in your entire life that I've ever had in my entire life.

15:42 We're going through this on a national level because that's what happens. You know, I mean that that because we're because we're a country going through, you know, going through the growing up process. And this, the perm story is actually a story of a nation that goes through this process as well and individuals that go through this process. And it's really a story of be of the fruit kind of blossoming and then becoming mature enough that it is now. No, it's, it's no longer able to be supported by the tree and it falls off. And that's the perm story. It's a really, really interesting. And that, that that's just your metaphor, of course, but that's really, but that, that's really what the story's about. Because and I, I love this argument. I love this conversation in general. I love the philosophy talk.

16:31 I love the conversations about God and whether or not he exists and how you can prove or not prove it. And, and what is provable and what is not provable. And, and, and, and, and it's fun. I honestly like it's, you know, I don't know how much it dictates how much my behavior changes, but it's a lot of fun to think about. And then of course, I do think that when certain ideas culminate and really build up, and especially when they have time to sit and settle in our heads and in our in our consciousnesses and subconsciousness for long enough, it really does lead inevitably to change and hopefully good change. You hope so philosophically, just for a minute, that this was all kind of background to the context of the poem story, which is that we have this first temple, like I mentioned, which seems to be full of open miracles, God's glory.

17:26 And for some reason, whatever reason that it is, the Jewish people do not maintain their moral ways and their relationship to God and their relationship to the values that God encouraged the Jewish people to pursue vis a vis the Torah and the Bible. The the five books of Moses and those are just categories and extensions, obviously include the Talmud and everything else. And you can really make a very strong argument. I would say that when God, you know, when God, if every, if every time that anyone did something wrong, everyone was struck down by a lightning bolt, you got, you get an authoritarian God, you got, you got this, you got this Palantir minority report person existence being where everyone is kind of afraid to do anything wrong because if they do anything wrong and they're going to get struck down by God's hand. And God's, you know, and, and, and, and lightning is coming out of the sky and you're bringing these, you know, these sacrifices and these animals that represent different aspects of, of, of our animalistic behaviors that we, that we're trying to rectify and we're sacrificing, we're trying to burn and to get rid of particular animalistic traits and replace them with something more spiritual and something more group consciousness oriented, which is the root of a lot of the korbanot, which are

18:57 the sacrifices that are brought. It's hard to say that all that could be done completely of free will and in a completely wholesome way because it's not being done wholesome. You're being, you know, you got miracles going on around you. You got things going on that are far beyond your control. You feel like if you step out of line, you're, you know, the big man is going to come get you. And while people, while that might encourage people to behave, we certainly can't say that that's free. That's a free society. That's a free world. You know, that's the that's the issue that we're that that's the issue that we're really dealing with today. And I mean, we're talking about, we're talking about the idea of, and you know, we have this right now in happening in China. It's actually being taken from an idea into practice. And it's been going on for many, many years now, this idea of social credit scores, the idea of mass surveillance in order to uphold the laws and to maintain order and. People know that they have to behave because if not Big Brother's watching, and while that is safe, that's not free. Purim is the story, is the holiday that represents God saying, you know what, you guys, if you guys really want to have a real relationship with me, then I can't be so imposing on you.

20:30 Then I can't be there breathing down your neck every single time that you think that you want to do something right or you want to do something wrong and you're not sure what to do. And then you and then, and then you turn around and you see me right there or then like a little, a little ball of fire or just sizzle up next to you and you'll be like, OK, OK, I know the right thing I'm going to do. And God understood. And God and God told us in the perm story, not actually told us. He did not actually literally tell us this. But this is what I deduce from the fact that miracles stop happening and that we call that and that their sages call that a golden age God saying I'm giving you the freedom to choose to see me and to participate with me and to participate in my way of life or not.

21:17 And the way that I know that you know that I that that I exist and that you know that I'm real and that you want something to do with me is if you in an entire world where all of God's existence could be denied, in an entire society that is telling us over and over and over again that there's no way that God's real and there's no way that God exists. And you can't. Never. Prove it. All you got to do is. You got to just open your eyes and you open your heart a little bit and you'll see me. You'll see me everywhere. And, and this is actually an enormous, this is actual textual theme. There's a literary theme in the Megillah as well, which is the Megillah. I'm sorry, is Hebrew for the story the, the, the story or the scroll, Miguel Esther is the scroll of Esther, the telling of Esther, the story, you know, the what's it called?

22:09 The not fairy tale, but the story of Esther and God's name is not mentioned in that story one time. It's obvious that God participates in it, or it's kind of obvious. It's obvious to the people that want to see him in it. And it's obvious by the Jewish people's reaction in the story that they see God in it because they say because, because after the whole story takes place towards the end of the counting of the actual magilla. And I'm just going to refer to as the magilla for context, by the way, because I'm not going back and forth to all these terms. If I talk about Megillah, it just means the actual whole story of Esther in the text.

22:58 Towards the end of the actual text, there's passages about how the Jews were decided to receive and take upon themselves God. And they use the same terminology as when the Jews accepted the original 10 commandments and the original Torah, Bible Torah at Harcenai at Mount Sinai. He uses the same language. So the sages draw a parable, they say, just like over there, the first time we were that the Jewish people accepted God's word and accepted responsibility of the life of additional responsibility and moral weight. The Jews accepted it also on the Perm story, at the Perm story.

23:42 But we did it in a new way. We did it in a world that didn't have miracles. We did it in a world where we didn't feel like we were coerced into it, where we didn't feel like we absolutely had to. Because if we didn't do it, Big Brother was going to come. The big guy in the sky was going to get mad. We participate in it because we actually, we God pulled himself back and even though he pulled himself back, we still found him. And we said, that's the kind of relationship we want. And I mean, I think that like this, that, you know, even you, I mean, you might laugh and you might scoff and you, and this might not be a good enough idea. I would, you know, and I totally, totally hear you, but think for yourself to think to yourself why we don't like to be pushed or forced into relationships with people and why we want, we like to pick our own friends. Why we treat our friends better than we treat our family, who we know that we have to have a relationship with, who we know that like, like the way I treat a lot of my friends is a heck of a lot better.

24:38 The way that I treat my sisters and brothers, my biology, my, my immediate siblings. And part of the reason why is because I know at the end of the day that if I don't talk to my brother for a month and then I call him, I could say, dude, I'm so sorry. It's been crazy. I missed you, how you been? And I he'll be like, he's OK, I'm his brother. If I have friends that I don't call for a month and I don't hear from them, like, dude, I'm so sorry. I've been so busy. I missed you. They're like, yeah, well, you know, I've been busy too. And I got to talk to you later, you know. And so there's one relationship that doesn't necessarily need to exist. And those are the ones that we feel are the ones that are worth fighting for. And then they're the ones that we know that will always be there. And those are the ones that we tend to take for granted.

25:18 And when God pulls himself out of the picture, it gives us opportunity. It gives us an opportunity to not take him for granted because we do know from all the biblical stories and all the times in the day throughout the books of the, you know, throughout, throughout the, the, the Bible. We know through all the Torah that just because God is revealing himself does not mean that it convinces anyone of everything of anything. Does not guarantee good behavior. Does not guarantee that we are not going to rebel. Does not guarantee that we act morally in any kind of way whatsoever. Doesn't mean that we listen to pay attention to him that we even want to participate with him. It's crazy. So having so so we know that a forced relationship, a coerced relationship, while it might be scary, while it might be might might create some of the most incredible stories that we could ever imagine.

26:10 It's not conducive to a relationship that both participants feel like they are getting something out of it. And we felt, we felt and people felt that, hey, if we don't have the right to choose to rebel, then like, what does our service mean? What does that have to do? Like what, what, what, what, what kind of value could that possibly have to any kind of God? So just the premise of the actual day to me is really, really cool because. So we have this idea.

26:51 We have these ideas that were all, you know, that number one, relationships cannot be forced. As we get mature parents and, you know, kids stop being kids, eventually we become parents. And when we lose our parents, we really lose our identity as kids. And this happens on a personal level. This happens on a national level. I think that obviously, you know, when America became its own country, or like, I would even, I mean, even the entire westward expansion, you could say was like our freaking puberty process is crazy, you know, or I mean, the Civil War. Yeah. I mean, like, like we had a lot of, we had a lot of growing pains that came from what you would call like teenagehood.

27:36 And now we're like trying to be mature adults or that we're trying to be mature adults in the room. And it's almost working. But sometimes it works better than sometimes it's sometimes it's a little harder to do. We also have God's name missing from the actual story. And so we have this constant theme of like what makes a real relationship or not. And then we also have the same terminology that's used by the So the holiday represents actually accepting, you know, God's Torah, God's Bible, God's word to us, God's commandments and instructions and ways of life. And, and it does and, and, and perm means it in a very sophisticated sense.

28:18 It means in a very, very mature sense, because it means that you're growing up and me. And it's what and what and part of what I think in the same theme of that idea of growing up and choosing to do this way that you want to do this and choosing to have the type as deep of a relationship as you want to have or not. Perm's not a day that requires anyone does anything either, right? I don't work on perm. I take off. I don't answer the phone. I don't deal with work calls. I don't deal with customers. I'll tell customers that I'm working that day. I'll tell them I'm so sorry I have to call you back. I'm not. I'm out of the office today, but I don't work and I try to treat the day like a holiday even though I don't have to and I'm not doing anything that is required.

29:10 I don't say that I don't feel like I'm being better than anyone else. I'm not saying that I'm keeping the holiday better than anyone else. But for me, I want the holiday to reflect what I feel like my relationship with God is, and that is that it's not the bare minimum. It's not the middle of the ground. This is a hey, I never had to do, you know, I mean, since I became an adult, since I was dating, since I chose the person that's going to be my partner and raising my family and the and the way that I'm raising my kids, I haven't had, I haven't had to do anything. I wanted to do anything I've done and I've done everything I've done because it was I, I felt like it was right and I felt like it was important and I felt like it was real.

29:57 Yeah. And, and I think that's really why, why, why perm is so valuable to me is just because of the way that the holiday is observed, because of the way that that what we the, the holiday is intellectually given over in that kind of sense with the story and with that storyline and with these ideas that, and you know, we call these ideas divertora, words of Torah that come from different ideas that tend to reflect on what the potential spirit of the holiday is. And I think that these ideas exist to bring forward the idea of the holiday and to emphasize it. But I actually want to get a little bit into the story too, because the story is a fascinating, fascinating combination of politics.

30:43 It's a religious story. It's a story that about philosophy. It's a story about war. It kind of embodies really, really everything. And there are different personalities, prototypes, I guess that we can call them. And we're going to go over them pretty, pretty vaguely for now, only because they're already half an hour into the podcast. And I like to cap these around 45 minutes to an hour. But they're a bunch of different characters and a lot of them are very are very famous. Esther the queen is very famous. Esther the queen is a really, really interesting character because she's the person that goes through the actual growing up in the story, and that's why the story is named after McGill at Ester is the story of Esther.

31:31 That's why the holiday is always associated very, very strongly with her. The texts say that the only reason why the holiday was actually ever implemented and why the story and why there's an obligation to read the story every year, the night of the holiday and the day of the holiday is because of Esther and because she personally called for it. And she's the person that goes through this growing up process because Esther doesn't have parents. Esther was born according to the story. Mordechai, who is the other protagonist in the story and the other sage leader, the kind of figure, the the role that he plays, the prototype role that he plays is of educator and the educator and teacher, really spiritual leader. He raises her.

32:20 There's a question and a debate as to what his relationship with her was. He might have been her uncle. He could have been her husband. He was definitely her caretaker. And the story goes that he took care that that that, that during the exile from Jerusalem. And the story takes place in Shushan, which is the capital, which was the capital at the time of Persia, modern day Iran. And so we know how close Iran is to Israel. And then we know how how, how ostensibly, you know, and I mean, it's very easy for one Kingdom to take place under one rule at one point at that point. And and so Jerusalem fell Mordecai and Esther, the Jewish people that fell to Akash Virosh, who was these this this king, a new king that potentially vis a vis military coup had risen to power in the Persian Empire in rural the 127 provinces. He was married to Nabukhanetzar, who is a historical character, Babylonian, I believe, king and he is married to either her grand, his grand Nabukhanetzar's granddaughter or great granddaughter.

33:38 And through some, so either through military coup or through coup or through marriage, this new king is now to start the story in place. So the story opens with Esther, who is a orphan who is being taken care of by a spiritual leader from Jerusalem. They were both banished from Jerusalem and ended up in the capital city where a new king sits on in the ruling the Persian Empire. And this new king, not only was he a new king, the actual capital was a new capital. And there is so many cool political maneuvers that are elaborated on in this story, the whole story that, you know, even though the story revolves around Esther, of course, Esther's not really brought up until about halfway through the 2nd, 2nd, 2nd chapter.

34:38 And the whole first chapter is really pretty much setting up the stage and explaining how Akashviros rules. And he seems to be an enormously populist type ruler. He rules over 127 provinces, but he does not kind of force any amalgamation of culture. He allows every. He throws an enormous party for 180 days and goes out of his way to basically say come with your traditions, come with your rules, come with your language, come with whatever way that you guys party and the way that you guys live. I want you all to come the way that you are to my new capital and we're all going to get to know each other.

35:18 We're all going to hang out for 180 days and party. He seems incredibly so. So that alone, you know, I mean, when you want to exert power over people, one of the things that you do is you, I imagine, make them want to be like you. And the things that could potentially keep people from from from from breaking apart from separating from you would be in the things that you don't understand about them or the ways that you guys are different from one another. So a lot of times if someone's trying to roll over over another people, they force them to take on their customs, their language, their tradition, marry their marry their women or their or intermarry into their into their communities.

35:59 And part of the reason why is because that way you guys are going to completely. Dominated by us? But Akashvarish does not seem to have any of those goals at the moment. Instead, he just seems happy enough to just have everyone like him. And Akashvarish's prototype is going to be the person that searches for power to the extent that he ends up completely losing any sense of self in order to maintain his power and king and position of authority. He actually ends up never having an identity. And it's so fascinating because a man that works so hard to be king over such a huge collection of countries, 127 provinces, this entire middle, you know, over I, I, I think, and, and it says it's from Hodu, from from Hodu to Kush. And I don't know modern day, but typically Kush is typically northern Africa or northern central Africa. And, and Hodu is Turkey, which is like the Middle East. Generally speaking, that's modern day. I'm only guessing.

37:11 I have I'm not confirming this for sure, but generally but but but it gives you a general idea that it was a pretty big Kingdom that this guy was ruling one way or the other and he didn't seem and he seemed more focused on people liking him. And after all that, the stages Khazal again debate about whether the most about the most primitive and fundamental aspects of this guy. Was this guy brilliant? Was this guy a moron? Was he evil? Was he completely benevolent? Did he ultimately hate Jews and want to extinguish them with Haman, who will get to, or was he just a guy that was kind of talked into it by one of his political appointees? And there's a lot of textual, there's a lot of textual evidence to back up the fact that Akashviros, the king, when he told Haman, who is the antagonist of the story, that he can go ahead and kill all the Jews. There's a lot of there's a lot of text to back up the fact that he may really not have known that what he was actually getting himself into.

38:20 For example, Hama doesn't ever actually mention that the Jews are the Jews. He says that there is a nation in your Kingdom that has their own laws, that has their own rules and seems to not really be obeying your way of, of thinking. And so give me, you know, give me 10,000 coins, give me $10,000, give me whatever amount of money that it, you know, that it would take. And I'll organize a task force and I'll take care of it. By the way, doesn't seem too unreasonable, right? I mean, Akashvirosh, especially in the context again, of the first of the first chapter of the story. So Akashvirosh, I'm sorry to go back to it, is throwing this whole party. And he wants and and, and and he feels as a new ruler, a little insecure in his ability to in his in, in his legitimacy, you know, and, and, and really, hey, am I really the king? And so he says, you know what, I'm going to go call my wife Vashti, who is a guy in the Vukhanetzar, the Babylonian King's granddaughter, a great granddaughter. And I'm going to emphasize, I'm going to give a bring forward a physical manifestation of my link to the Kingdom. But she does not want any part of his party. She does not want any part of talking to him or participating in this populist event.

39:33 And she actually has her own separate party, completely separate from him and ignores his request for her to join him. And he gets so mad he doesn't know what to do. But he gets mad. And he's granted he's been drunk for half a year, granted he's drunk for 180 days and and he doesn't know what to do. So he calls a bunch of about a half dozen or more advisors and asked them what to do. And already this is another political, very politically interesting maneuver, right? You're the new king who's trying to establish his legitimacy. The queen who is your Direct Line to the legitimacy, just said, I want nothing to do with you. He calls forward one group of people. Says what do I do?

40:29 Doesn't like your answer. Actually, they say get rid of her. They say you got to get rid of her because right now you're setting a precedent that people won't be that, that that women are going to talk back to the husbands, that women are not going to value their husbands traditions and their values. You got to get rid of her. Got rid of her in this 100 in this half a year long drunken stupor, gets rid of to of his home. His only line to limit legitimacy. Excuse me. And once he wakes up from his probably unbearable hangover, he realizes what he did and he goes nuts and he's like, what did I do?

41:16 And you know that he probably wasn't happy with that original crew because he calls forward a whole nother group of advisors now. But this time these are advisors. And the text emphasizes that know the that know the laws of oh, sorry, the first advisors knew the laws of of of Persia. The second ones knew the law of the times. And he asked the second people, what do I do now? And they say, listen, you already got rid of her. Looks terrible. Can't get you can't take her back if she's alive. If you killed her, there's no going back anyway. You got to find yourself a new queen, and that is Akashvaros for now. So the man, so just to establish the story, this man's, this man is the man that does not that that does not want to give up his power so much so that he is not that we cannot determine whether he's smart or dumb, evil or or or or incredibly moral. We cannot determine he not he can't determine what type of advisors to get to answer the question of his legitimacy. Doesn't know how to go about selecting a new wife. Ends up having this enormous, massive, disgusting beauty pageant.

42:45 Misogynistic. I mean, complete this beauty pageant. These women would spend half a year or more, I think between half a year and a year, preparing, soaking in oils and salts and perfumes and getting themselves ready to be with the king for one day and one night. And if the king? Decides that she's not going to be his queen. Then she's she's been with the queen, with the king. She's she's a special woman now and now she can't go back to her husband, whether she was married or not. Now she can't go back to her family now because she has now she's property of the king. She gets locked away, excuse me, for a whole life, for the rest of her life. And this went on for years.

43:32 This went on for years and until, until it came to Esther. We also have God's name missing from the actual story. And so we have this constant theme of like what makes a real relationship or not. And then we also have the same terminology that's used by the So the holiday represents actually accepting, you know, God's Torah, God's Bible, God's word to us, God's commandments and instructions and ways of life. And and it does and and and and perim means it in a very sophisticated sense. It means in a very, very mature sense, because it means that you're growing up and me and and it's what and what and part of what I think in the same theme of that idea of growing up and choosing to do this way that you want to do this and choosing to have the tip as deep of a relationship as you want to have or not perms on a day that requires that anyone does anything either, right. I don't work on perm.

44:30 I take off. I don't answer the phone. I don't deal with work calls. I don't deal with customers. I'll tell customers that I'm working that day. I'll tell them I'm so sorry I have to call you back. I'm not. I'm out of the office today, but I don't work and I try to treat the day like a holiday even though I don't have to and I'm not doing anything that is required. I don't say that I don't feel like I'm being better than anyone else. I'm not saying that I'm keeping the holiday better than anyone else. But for me, I want the holiday to reflect what I feel like my relationship with God is, and that is that it's not the bare minimum.

45:15 It's not the middle of the ground. This is a hey, I never had to do, you know, I mean, since I became an adult, since I was dating, since I chose the person that's going to be my partner and raising my family and the and the way that I'm raising my kids, I haven't had, I haven't had to do anything. I wanted to do anything I've done and I've done everything I've done because it was I I felt like it was right and I felt like it was important and I felt like it was real. Yeah. And, and I think that's really why, why, why perm is so valuable to me is just because of the way that the holiday is observed, because of the way that that what we the, the holiday is intellectually given over in that kind of sense with the story and with that storyline and with these ideas that, and you know, we call these ideas diver Torah, words of Torah that come from different ideas that tend to reflect on what the potential spirit of the holiday is.

46:14 And I think that these ideas exist to bring forward the idea of the holiday and to emphasize it. But I actually want to get a little bit into the story too, because the story is a fascinating, fascinating combination of politics. It's a religious story. It's a story that about philosophy. It's a story about war. It kind of embodies really, really everything. And there are different personalities, prototypes, I guess that we can call them. And we're going to go over them pretty, pretty vaguely for now, only because they're already half an hour into the podcast. And I like to cap these around 45 minutes to an hour.

46:57 But they're a bunch of different characters and a lot of them are very are very famous. Esther the queen is very famous. Esther the queen is a really, really interesting character because she's the person that goes through the actual growing up in the story. And that's why the story is named after McGill at Ester is the story of Ester. That's why the holiday is always associated very, very strongly with her. The texts say that the only reason why the holiday was actually ever implemented and why the story and why there's an obligation to read the story every year the night of the holiday and the day of the holiday is because of Esther and because she personally called for it. And she's the person that goes through this growing up process because Esther doesn't have parents. Esther was born, according to the story, Mordecai, who is the other protagonist in the story and the other sage leader, the kind of figure, the the role that he plays, the prototype role that he plays is an educator and the educator and teacher, really spiritual leader. He raises her.

48:06 There's a question and a debate as to what his relationship with her was. He might have been her uncle. He could have been her husband. He was definitely her caretaker. And the story goes that he took care of that, that, that, that during the exile from Jerusalem. And the story takes place in Shushan, which is the capital, which was the capital at the time of Persia, modern day Iran. And so we know how close our own is to Israel. And we know how how, how ostensibly, you know, And I mean, it's very easy for one Kingdom to take place under one rule at one point at that point. And and so Jerusalem fell, Mordecai and Esther, the Jewish people that fell. To.

48:52 Akashvirosh, Who was these this this king, a new king that potentially vis A vis military coup had risen to power in the Persian Empire, enrolled 127 provinces. He was married to Nabukhanetzar who is a a historical character Babylonian I believe, king and he is married to either her grand, his grand Nabukhaneto's granddaughter or great granddaughter and through some. So either through a military coup or through coup or through marriage. This new king is now to start the story in place.

49:34 So the story opens with Esther who is a orphan who is being taken care of by a spiritual leader from Jerusalem. They were both banished from Jerusalem and ended up in the capital city where a new king sits on in the ruling the Persian Empire and his new king. She's living, excuse me, in the Kings, she's living with the king. And during this time, a guy named Haman comes along and Haman is indicative of the prototype of a Malik. Whether it's by blood, whether or not whether that is philosophically, I'm not sure. I believe it's by maybe both, probably, but I'm not sure. I don't, I, I'm not going to say one way or another for sure, but he certainly embodies their philosophy. And Malik, as far as we know today, does not exist. It might exist as a philosophy, might exist, exist as a concept. And that concept is a concept of it's, there's a couple of different approaches.

50:48 It's a cynicism of a big picture and greater meaning. And it's the desire for the most pleasure and positive, the most that you can get out of out of any particular given moment. Adam's root, Amalek's roots come from Adam, or Asaf, who is a biblical character. Asaf was Jacob Yaakov's twin brother. And there's actually a very interesting relationship there because Jacob Yaakov embodies the spirit of making long term decisions that even though in the short term are really painful, long term are really beneficial. And Asaf, his twin brother, hates that philosophy and spends his life accumulating the most power that he can grab in any particular moment.

52:03 And their philosophies actually reach a philosophical head when Ace of comes in hunting from the field he was just out for after a long day of hunting, Jacob Yaakov is sitting hanging out at the kitchen. He just cooked up a meal just in the last couple hours. Making a soup, which by definition requires a lot of thought process and planning. You have to let it sit for several hours. You have to collect the ingredients, cut them up. Soup. You like soup that the soup is almost like the opposite of what you do when you're starving. When you're starving, you grab rice, you grab bread, you grab some wheat, you grab some carbs. You just shove whatever you want in your mouth. Soup is something that you make when you're trying to be intentional about something, when you are sick and you want to recover, when you have a bunch of hours and you know that you're going to that, that you're planning for something in the long term.

53:01 And Asaph sees Yaakov soup and he wants it. And Yaakov says, you can't have it. You can. I'll trade it to you. I'll trade it to you for the first born for the first born, right? And Asaph says, sure, what the and I'm starving. I'm so hungry, I'm used to eating bread because I don't really typically think long term enough to ever make a soup. And if I don't eat now, I'm going to die. And if I die, then what's the point of even having a being the eldest to being the the having the first born, right? So, yeah, sure, go ahead and take it. I, you know, I need it. And he gives it to him. Fast forward a couple of 1000 years and you have Haman. Now, Haman is extremely successful by every, almost literally every measure I think that you could think about. He has a big family.

54:04 He has a lot of kids. He has an enormous amount of political and financial wealth and pull. He has an enormous amount of respect, everyone. It's part of the King's decree that everyone that sees him, the street has to bow to him and treat him so socially. He's above everyone else. And Mordecai is the only person that based on like this principle that he has, this philosophy, this ideal that he has. I'm not, I don't bow down to people and I just don't, I don't do it and I'm not into it. You know, it's a little weird. You, you seem like a little power, like a, like a little psychopathy and those a little psycho, a little crazy.

54:45 I'm not going to bow down to you. And Haman comes home and it tells his family everything that I have is, is for nothing, means absolutely nothing because Mordechai does not bow down to me. I think that's human nature to a certain extent too, I think. That. Human nature, and this is actually a conversation that comes up quite a bit when we talk about or we think about what's going to happen when there's universal basic income, or as Elon optimistically puts it, universal high income is human beings on a very fundamental primitive level. Don't know how to be happy with themselves? We're comparative animals.

55:40 We compare ourselves to other people around us. The way that we know we're happy or that we're doing well is because someone else has it worse, not because we feel good about what we have a lot of the time. And if you feel good about your life or feel happy about things because someone else has it worse and not because you're happy to have what you have, then. I would. Probably ask you to spend some time to think about that a little bit and what that means. Just for you. You know, and if it doesn't mean anything, then it doesn't mean anything. And if it means something, then then. Perhaps it will cause you to. Make some changes, at least in the way that you think. Haman represents the idea that as long as it doesn't even matter what yesterday has, doesn't matter what tomorrow holds, it doesn't matter what an hour what happened an hour ago. If what happened right now makes me feel like I am not relatively greater than everyone else around me, every single person around me, then I just can't.

56:56 Then nothing means anything to me. I think that this, I think that a lot of us hope, myself included, that this idea is a lot more foreign than it might actually be. And and that's OK, not OK because it's something to become, to be accepting of. I think that's OK because I think that if you're on, if we're honest about with ourselves, about where we are, and we're honest with ourselves about why we feel the way we feel and we observe our what, what motivates us and what drives us in an honest way. It gives us the ability to grow.

57:47 Just like when we don't admit in a conversation when someone says something, someone asks you, do you know what this is? Or do you know how that works? And we're always tempted to say, yeah, we know. Exactly how it works. And if we say and we say, yeah, no one elaborates. We never know how it works. And if we say no, we risk feeling like an idiot. But at least we can learn something new. If we can never admit that we have that kind of side to us, then we can never admit that we have to grow past it. You can never admit that it's work. We have to do that. That's that there. That there is a way to that. There is a way to conquer that. There is a way to conquer that perspective and that mentality. I'm going to have to cut to the chase as far as Esther now. And so the basic.

58:34 So now again, we didn't get into why Esther represents freedom yet, but we represent what we talked about that she, the fact that she does, Haman represents this idea, this cynicism, this denial of a big picture meaning, this desire for relative power and greatness over everyone else around you to the point that you absolutely self destruct no matter what you have. And this philosophy, and by the way, hummus philosophy works for a while. And the way you know it works for a while is because he was really successful politically, financially, he was able to, he was able to get married. He had a big family. He was able to do all these things. I mean again.

59:17 It it did, that philosophy does not necessarily automatically destroy you, but it will down the line. It will eventually cause eventually there's going to be someone that you were not relatively better. That or eventually as time goes on and we atrophy, we have to accept that we're not that, that, that we're, that we're atrophy and, and we have to, and then we can age with grace and then we can age and develop with magnificence and splendor. We really can't. And all you have to do is just accept that we are where we are instead of holding ourselves relative to everything else around us.

1:00:06 So. Haman, in this fury that Mordecai is not bowing down to him, encourages Akash Viros to kill the Jews again. He might have swindled him into it. He might have been outright with it. We don't know. That's actually part of the the political part of it. That's part of the fun and relatable part to today's world is that there's so much that goes on to the story that we could only kind of like piece together and explain like it's how this, this is the only way it makes sense because there's no one that's going to confirm nor deny that, you know, And you have a lot of current events that are probably pretty similar in that kind of capacity. And he convinces Akash Varos one way or another, to get rid of the Jews.

1:00:53 And Mordecai hears about this degree again. He's one of the educated people. He's one of the people that speaks 70 languages. He probably he probably heard about this relatively faster. Than most of the other people. And especially because it takes time for word to spread to 127 provinces. He immediately opens up a correlation with Esther and says, well actually, first he panics, he mourns, and then he opens up a. Correlation with Esther and says you got to do something and Esther says I can't do anything and Mordecai sends her a message that changes her and changes her forever.

1:01:35 I'm actually going to pause while I go get it so I could find and I could quote it directly. I don't want to make this up. She's living, excuse me, in the Kings, she's living with the king. And during this time a guy named Haman comes along, and Haman is indicative. Of the prototype of a Malik, whether it's by blood, whether or not whether that is philosophically, I'm not sure. I believe it's five, maybe both, probably, but I'm not sure. I don't I, I'm not going to say one way or another for sure, but he certainly embodies their philosophy. And Malik, as far as we know today, does not exist. It might exist as a philosophy, might exist, exist as a concept, and that concept is a concept of it's there. There's a couple of different approaches. It's a cynicism of a big picture and greater meaning, and it's the desire for the most pleasure and positive, the most that you can get out of out of any particular given moment. Adam's root, Amalek's roots come from. Adam, or Asaf, who is a biblical character. Asaf was Jacob Yaakov's twin brother, and there's actually a very interesting relationship

1:03:10 there because Jacob Yaakov embodies the spirit of making long term decisions that even though in the short term are really painful, long term are really beneficial. And Asav, his twin brother, hates that philosophy and spends his life accumulating the most power that he can grab in any particular moment. And their philosophies actually reach a philosophical head when Asav comes in hunting from the field he was just out for after a long day of hunting, Jacob Yaakov is sitting hanging out at the kitchen.

1:04:05 He just cooked up a meal just in the last couple hours. Making a soup, which by definition requires a lot of thought process and planning. You have to let it sit for several hours. You have to collect the ingredients, cut them up. Soup. You like soup that the soup is almost like the opposite of what you do when you're starving. When you're starving, you grab rice, you grab bread, you grab some wheat, you grab some carbs, you just shove whatever you want in your mouth. Soup is something that you make when you're trying to be intentional about something, when you are sick and you want to recover, when you have a bunch of hours and you know that you're going to that, that you're planning for something in the long term. And Asaph sees Yaakov soup and he wants it. And Yaakov says you can't have it you. I'll trade it to you.

1:04:47 I'll trade it to you for the first born for the first born, Right. And he subsides. Sure. What the and I'm starving. I'm so hungry. I'm used to eating bread because I don't really typically think long term enough to ever make a soup. And if I don't eat now, I'm going to die. And if I die, then what's the point of even having a being the eldest to being the the having the first born, right? So, yeah, sure, go ahead and take it. I, you know, I need it. And he gives it to him. Fast forward a couple of 1000 years and you have Haman. Now, Haman is extremely successful by every, almost literally every measure I think that you could think about. He has a big family.

1:05:45 He has a lot of kids. He has an enormous amount of political and financial. Wealth and pull. He has an enormous amount of respect, everyone. It's part of the King's decree that everyone that sees him, the street has to bow to him and treat him so socially. He's above everyone else. And Mordecai is the only person that based on like this principle that he has, this philosophy, this ideal that he has. I'm not, I don't bow down to people and I just don't, I don't do it. And I'm not into, you know, it's a little weird. You, you, you seem like a little power, like a, like a little psychopathy, little, a little sicko, a little crazy. I'm not going to bow down to you. And Haman comes home and it tells his family everything. That I have.

1:06:34 Is is for nothing means absolutely nothing because Mordechai does not bow down to me. I think that's human nature to a certain extent too. I think that. Human nature, and this is actually a conversation that comes up quite a bit when we talk about or we think about what's going to happen when there's universal basic income, or as Elon optimistically puts it, universal high income is human beings on a very fundamental primitive level. Don't know how to be happy with themselves? We're comparative animals.

1:07:21 We compare ourselves to other people around us. The way that we know we're happy or that we're doing well is because someone else has it worse, not because we feel good about what we have a lot of the time. And if you feel good about your life or feel happy about things because someone else has it worse and not because you're happy to have what you have, then I would probably ask you to spend some time to think about that a little bit and what that means. Just for you. You. Know and if it doesn't mean anything, then it doesn't mean anything. And if it means something, then then. Perhaps it will cause you to. Make some changes, at least in the way that you think. Haman represents the idea that as long as it doesn't even matter what yesterday has, doesn't matter what tomorrow holds, it doesn't matter what an hour, what happened an hour ago, if what happened right now makes me feel like I am not relatively greater than everyone else around.