Purim 5785: Do you talk the talk or just dress the part?

I know that Purim is still more than a month away, but I was inspired to say something after seeing a certain post and follow-up comment on LinkedIn. That platform includes quite a number of people who look very frum with beards and peyos. But they are there just for business and seem to compartmentalize a Jewish soul from a businessman's head. 

This particular person who calls himself a fractional CFO was bemoaning the fact that Trump's proposed tariffs could harm his business and the businesses of various partners. My response to that was "Lev melachim beyad Hashem. In truth, there issues that matter to me a great deal more than inflation and domestic production."


As so often happens on LinkedIn when people don't expect to be challenged in any way, he played dumb about what I meant. So I clarified: "You really have to ask after that has happened since Shmini Atzeret 5783?" 

His response was to twist my words thus: " I ask what's the logic of tariffs and you say, neh, after Oct 7 nothing matters. "

I responded: "I didn't say nothing matters. Read my first comment again. It's a matter of priorities and perspective, as well as bitachon."

Oh, he didn't like that at all and tried to twist my words again ending with the lie that he's really trying to understand. Realizing that he is not and suspecting that the same person attempted to correct me before for a term that I was using correctly, as many citation proved, but who never had the grace to apologize, I decided to stop following him or responding to him and to write my blog here instead:  

Purim is he holiday of masks and costumes. There are a number of reasons for the custom of dressing up.

One is, obviously, a nod to the hidden quality of the miracle in the Purim story. Esther herself had to remain

disguised for years as she hid her identity from Achashverosh.

But today we have a flipside to this. There are Jews who appear as Jews with Jewish names and Hasidic garb.

But they compartmentalize their identity in thinking their business is distinct from everything the Torah teaches

us about faith and practice. Any Jew who has not felt the pain of our people when our collective heart

was shattered on October 7, 2023 has a serious problem of not being noseh beol im chavero.

The megillah poignantly reminds us that anyone who thinks that their own position is secure and that they can

focus on just what pertains to them directly is not just delusional but doomed.

What Mordechai tells Esther is a reminder about priorities. Jewish survival trumps individual security.

In fact, there is no individual survival for the Jews who is not willing to put it all all (including your

business branding and concerns about economic fallout) on the line for the sake o our people:

כִּ֣י אִם־הַֽחֲרֵ֣שׁ תַּֽחֲרִ֘ישִׁי֘ בָּעֵ֣ת הַזֹּאת֒ רֶ֣וַח וְהַצָּלָ֞ה יַֽעֲמ֤וֹד לַיְּהוּדִים֙ מִמָּק֣וֹם אַחֵ֔ר וְאַ֥תְּ בֵֽית־אָבִ֖יךְ תֹּאבֵ֑דוּ For if you remain silent at this time, relief and rescue will arise for the Jews from elsewhere, and you and your father's household will perish.

Perhaps this is yet another reason for the custom of wielding a raashan [grogger] during the Megillah reading on Purim. Esther was very good at keeping quiet. But she had to break her natural inclination to make noise -- to speak up -- when necessary. During the Holocaust the Jews in America were repeatedly told to keep quiet about the genocide against their people in Europe. But it is the crying out in tefillos and in appeals to those who were in a position to help that is what is required of us. 

The cries of our people is what spurred on the redemption from Egypt. and the gates of tears are never closed. If you don't say a peep about that but do cry about what you think tariffs will do to your business, you're klopping at the wrong time in the megillah.  all you can cry about is tariffs, you're not echoing Esther but the ungreateful people in the midbar who disdained the mann and complained זָכַ֨רְנוּ֙ אֶת־הַדָּגָ֔ה אֲשֶׁר־נֹאכַ֥ל בְּמִצְרַ֖יִם חִנָּ֑ם אֵ֣ת הַקִּשֻּׁאִ֗ים וְאֵת֙ הָֽאֲבַטִּחִ֔ים וְאֶת־הֶֽחָצִ֥יר וְאֶת־הַבְּצָלִ֖ים וְאֶת־הַשּׁוּמִֽים:

What does that say about your priorities and what you use your voice for? 

Related:
http://kallahmagazine.blogspot.com/2018/02/on-second-thought-doubling-of-purim.html



http://kallahmagazine.blogspot.com/2020/02/hoisted-by-their-own-petard.html


http://kallahmagazine.blogspot.com/2016/02/the-power-of-half-shekel.html


http://kallahmagazine.blogspot.com/2016/03/purim-countering-confusion-of.html


http://kallahmagazine.blogspot.com/2015/03/good-will-and-good-works-on-purim.html

http://kallahmagazine.blogspot.com/2016/04/word-association.html


http://kallahmagazine.blogspot.com/2010/02/thoughts-on-purim-and-unexpected.html


http://kallahmagazine.blogspot.com/2008/03/thoughts-on-mishloach-manos.html


http://kallahmagazine.blogspot.com/2015/03/purim-when-we-were-all-heroes.html


http://kallahmagazine.blogspot.com/2010/02/poetic-justice-as-sign-of-divine.html

https://kallahmagazine.blogspot.com/2023/03/shabbos-parshas-zachor-and-purim.html

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