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Thought for the Day: T'fila is Powerful and Purim is Its Day

As I have mentioned more times than you'd care to remember, I have been learning Spanish for more than two years now. I am now able to offer my seat on the bus to a young mother to be able to sit with her two little boys. I am also able to ask the cleaning lady to please put the recyclable trash straight into the blue can and to not put it into a trash bag. This process has taken longer than I had imagined, so to not take time from my learning, I also now get Manantiales de Torà, divrei Torah from R' Biderman (Torah Wellsprings, gringo). That has been a challenge and I am usually hard pressed to really get anything from it. But I have hope.

I recently started a new chavrusa with a young man who is looking to improve his gemara skills. We are starting with Eilu Metzios and going carefully through the topics and each Rashi. Not just "getting the gist", but translating every word in the gemara and Rashi to really get a firm handle on both the topic and the skills that one needs for all gemara. (Which is why, of course, boys start their gemara learning with Eilu Metzios.) Rashi, as is common, explained a word in old French; I said that sometimes I pick up what Rashi means because I've been learning Spanish; my chavrusa answered me in fluent Spanish -- some of which I understood. We decided to dedicate Friday mornings to learning Manantiales de Torà; giving us both a chance to learn R' Biderman's beautiful divrei Torah and also giving us a chance to exchange the roles of mentor and intern. Pretty cool, no?

We started this morning. Sunday is Purim and this week's Manantiales de Torà is mostly on that topic. R' Biderman states that one of the fundamental lessons of Purim is to rely on the power of prayer. From where do we learn this? From Zeresh, wife of Haman. Yes, that's not a typo or braino. From where do we learn this incredible lesson?

Haman comes home, fuming and humiliated after leading Mordechai through the streets of Shushan -- showing and even exclaiming that this is how the king treats those he chooses to honor. Zeresh says to her husband, since Mordechai is a Jew: כִּֽי־נָפ֥וֹל תִּפּ֖וֹל לְפָנָיו/you will surely fall before him. What?! Zeresh believes the Jews are unbeatable? She is such a Jew lover? If so, then why did she wait till now to tell her husband that? This would seem to be a time for commiseration, at the least. Is it possible that Zeresh is telling her husband to despair and that he has no hope?

No, says R' Biderman emphatically, and he brings an incredible Malbim: Zeresh was not doing a "I told you so", she is quite crafty and she has a scheme: Haman should certainly fall before Mordechai in an act of contrition to get Mordechai to believe that Haman feels beaten. Why? Because then Mordechai will stop davening. That is Haman's only hope. But as long as Haman struggles to overcome Mordechai, he will continue to daven and HaShem will surely hearken to his prayers and save the Jewish people!

There is no power like t'fila and there is no day for t'fila like Purim!

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