What Can We Learn From Haman on Purim?

0:03there's a guy that I know, he made a hundred million dollars in his life. He thought he had everything. And then his 23 or 24-year-old son, who was my cousin, died on Rosh Hashanah. He went on a scooter, which is not allowed, by the way, on Rosh Hashanah, a motor scooter. But they weren't keeping mitzvot, and unfortunately, they didn't even believe in Hashem. And a 24-year-old kid Woke up one day and didn't wake up the next. He fell off the scooter. He hurt his head. The doctors told him everything’s okay. He went back to sleep and he never woke up. Now, how much do you think that $100 million is worth? Exactly zero. Exactly zero. $100 million is worth nothing if you don't have a life. It's worth nothing if you don’t have a life. I can tell you I made a ton of money in my life. Before I lost it, I made it. All of it became worthless in one day. Not because I lost it in one day, but because when you don't have your health and you realize that you don't have berachah, it all becomes worthless. We have a lot to learn from him, but we have a lot to learn from him. That's why the Megillat Esther is reminded to us every single year. Why? What's the moral of the story that we're obligated to learn? The moral of the story, rabotai, is what we learn towards the end of the Megillah.

1:31the end of the Megillah when all comes through, he tells his wife, "I have everything. I have the power from the king to run the world. I have money. I have kids. I have this, I have this, I have this. But I don't have one thing. I don't have this Jew bowing to me. And that makes everything worthless. But if you don't have one thing, if you don't have bracha..." Everything is worthless. Everything is worthless. All the parnasa tovah; you can make a lot of money, you can make 15 million a minute. But if there's no beracha because you have no Shabbat, or you have no kosher, or you have no shalom bayit, or, chas v'shalom, your kids are off the derech, or Torah is not even an obligation in your house, if there's no beracha in the money, you have nothing. The question is, how much are you going to pay for it? Are you going to wait like I did until you lose it all, and then Hashem obligates you to do it? Or are you smarter than I was? And you say, you know what? Before it gets dangerous, let me start doing teshuvah. Do we have teshuvah tomorrow morning?

2:45We have a shiur Torah in the morning. Why do we have a shiur Torah in the morning? Because we have to do teshuva. And the next day, and the next day, and the next day, every day you have to do teshuva. Every day you have to learn. Why? Unless you learn Torah, it's impossible for you to be a kosher Jew. It's impossible for you to be saved when Mashiach comes. It's impossible. That's what the Chachamim were trying to tell us all along. You have to learn the Megillah. Not just because of the story of Mordechai being the kiruv rabbi who told everybody not to go. Why? No one listened to him anyway. What do you have to learn from? Haman. Haman the Rasha. Why? Haman, the whole story is because he couldn't control his desire. He couldn't control his desire. He was willing to pay 334 million dollars cash to Achashverosh just to kill a bunch of people that didn't even affect him because one Jew didn't bow to him. But you have billions, you have trillions, you have everything in the world. It's all worthless. Why? He doesn't have bracha. If you don't have bracha, it's all meaningless. That's the moral of the story, Rabotai. I don't know what you have; I don't care. What I do want you to have is a blessing in your money. That's what parnasah tovah is. That's the moral of parnasah—it's not more money. It's whatever you have; to actually have a blessing in it. That way, at the end of every month, you're going to do exactly what this Mishnah in Avot says that we learned a few months ago in our series.

4:09It says, "Who's rich? Someone who's happy with his share." How can you be happy with your share if it's less than last year? How can you be happy with your share if it's less than last month? How can you be happy with your share before you even got it? You're happy with your share because it has a blessing. Once it has a blessing, you know where it comes from. Once you know where it comes from, how could it be any bad? How could it be any bad? And that way, when it comes to actually giving donations, when it comes to doing Maasim Tovim, when it comes to paying for yeshivot, when it comes to buying kosher mezuzot, when it comes to doing anything that's relevant to Hashem, you don't feel like it's an onus on you; it's a big thing. Why? All you're doing is fulfilling your obligation of the partnership. He gave you 100%, you give 10%, big deal. We don't want to be like Nakdimon Ben-Gurion. The Gemara says Nakdimon Ben-Gurion was so rich, he was the richest man in the land. So rich that he was one of three people who supplied food to all of Am Yisrael for three years. One day, Rabbi Yochanan sees his daughter searching for food. Where? Inside the, excuse me, the waste of the chamorim, the donkeys, in the poop of the donkeys.

5:30So Rabbi Yochanan says, who are you? What are you doing here? Why are you looking through the poop of donkeys? She replies, I'm looking for chita, I'm looking for some wheat, for some grains that the donkeys weren't able to digest so we could eat them. That level of poverty! He says, who are you? Who are you? What happened? How did it get to such a point? She says, I'm the daughter of Nakdimon ben Gurion. Rabbi Yochanan has almost a heart attack. How could it be? Your father is a tzaddik. Your father is an ashir gadol. Your father is a talmid chacham. Hashem stopped the sun for him in the sky. He's one of two people in history for whom Hashem stopped the sun in the sky. He's not a rasha. He's not just somebody with a lot of money who knows mitzvot. A tzaddik. How could it be? Your father gave a lot of tzedakah. He says tzedakah tatzil mimavet. He says, yes, but he didn't give enough. What do you mean? He gave to all the people of Israel. It wasn't enough. It wasn't enough. A lot of people think they gave enough. "I gave over a million dollars, Rabbi, it wasn't enough. Why?" If it was enough, you'd still have it. If it was enough, you'd have blessing in the money. If it was enough, you'd be happy, in part.

6:43You'd be happy with your share if you're giving enough. You feel a spiritual connection to your life, to the money that you're making. Your money becomes like your limud Torah. Someone that actually does kosher things with their money makes money and automatically gives their share to Hashem. Automatically, they give it towards Torah and mitzvot. Automatically, they do good things with it, not just sponsor Chanukah parties. Okay, chazak u'baruch for the doughnuts, but we need more Jews than doughnuts. Somebody that's connected to Hashem on a regular basis, not just when they're sick or when someone else is sick, but consistently. They make kosher money and operate like a kosher person. Why? Their parnassah is so good; it's such parnassah tova that Chazal say it’s as if they learned Torah all day. It's like they learned Torah all day. Why? He made X amount of money. He knows by default that part of that money must go to somebody learning Torah. It must go to somebody who's going to do teshuva. Why? If we continue the way we're doing and all we worry about is making more and building bigger houses and getting more cars and bigger watches and more diamonds and all the materialism, then all we're left with is materialism. But when the Mashiach comes,

8:05So this is the moral of the story. You want parnassat tova? It's not too difficult. It's not too difficult. The information is not too difficult. To do it takes a little time. But this Purim will help us all do teshuva, and this teshuva will start with our pockets. We are meant to be a light unto the nations, not to follow their misguided practices. Remember, every Jew has to remember. that he's a Jew and she's a Jew. We don't celebrate non-Jewish holidays, even if they seem harmless. It's a zilzul, a disrespect to the Torah, and could lead to chilul Hashem, desecration of God's name. Stick to our holy Torah and our own holidays. That's the path of a true Jew.