Community Magazine March 2019

26 Community Magazine Home&Stone FIXTURES FAUCETS HARDWARE ACCESSORIES 1663 Coney Island Ave Brooklyn NY 11230 Valet Parking Appointments Welcome 718.787.1000 homeandstone.com @homeandstone things fit into place. This broad perspective was one of the advantages of long life. He was able to tie the knot on many episodes that looked very perplexing to younger people. That is the same underlying principle of Megillat Esther . Rabbi Shlomo Kluger said a hiddush that is very dear to me. The Rabbis tell us that when the angels saw the body of Rabbi Akiva being tortured to death, they complained to Gd, “Is this the reward for Torah?” The Creator responds to them, “If you want, I’ll turn the world back to tohu vavohu (primordial chaos) ,” meaning, if you want to understand this tragedy, I’ll have to revert the world back to its original chaos.” Rabbi Kluger asks how would that explain anything to the angels, and he gave a mashal (parable): There was a king who went to the royal tailor and gave him the finest fabrics and luxurious golden threads to fashion him a new royal robe. The tailor performed his duty to perfection and presented the new garment to the king. Now there were a lot of court tailors who were jealous of this fellow, so they went to the king and told him, “Yes, he made a nice suit, but he didn’t use all the materials. He kept some for himself to sell. He’s a thief.” The king hastily summoned the tailor with the accusation. “Is it true?” he bellowed. “I paid you all this money and this is what you do!?” The tailor responded, “There’s only one way I can prove to you that my hands are clean and that I fully utilized all the raw material.” “How?” asked the king. “I can take apart the robe and show you every string and button and fabric.” That’s what Gd was telling the angels. “If you want to make sense of Rabbi Akiva’s suffering, I can show you the answer, but I would have to unravel the whole world from the beginning of time to show you that every piece was in the right place leading to the final perfect outcome.” This story, as well as the story of Megillat Esther, is the story of our lives. That is why Esther insisted it be part of Tanakh . It is the lens through which we understand the inner workings of our own stories. We don’t live with the open miracles recorded in the Torah, so we need training to see the hidden hand of Heaven in all our life events. Because we can relate to Megillat Esther even more than the sefer Torah, we pay such meticulous attention to its reading and its missva overrides almost any other. That is also why it is written like a sefer Torah. Bring Your Sunglasses So, when you go to Bet Knesset to hear the megillah, remember to bring your sunglasses with you - not as a costume, but because of the tremendous light that emanates from the megillah as soon as we open it. It is the light of seeing our lives in His light. לעילוי נשמתם של משה בן עליזה, יצחק הלל בן עליזה, והנרייט לאה בת עליזה, דוד בן גילה, רבקה בת גילה, יהושע בן גילה, משה בן גילה, שרה בת גילה, יעקב בן גילה, ואליאנה בת גילה. ולרפואה שלמה ליוסף בן אהובה מסעודה, שילת אהובה בת עליזה, ודניאל בן עליזה.