Purim
Feb 23, 2013 ~ Adar 13, 5773
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Traditional Parashah:
Tetzaveh – you are to order
Torah - Sh’mot (Exodus) 27:20 – 30:10
Haftarah – Yechezke’el (Ezekiel) 43:10-27; I Sam 15:2-34
B’rit Chadashah – Philippians 4:10-20; Mark 4:35- 5:43
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Sh’ma
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Purim
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Torah – Sh’mot 17: 8-16 cjb p 79
Haftarah – none
B’rit Hadashah – Matt 10:16-42; Acts 16; 11-40
The Megillah (scroll) of Esther cjb p 1089
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Read: Torah – Sh’mot 17: 8-16 cjb p 79
Amalek = “doubt”
= the grandson of Esav – B’resheet (Gen) 36:15
It was on Shabbat that Amalek attacked.
“hands stayed steady” – in verse 12…
“stayed steady” = emunah = firmness…. NO DOUBT.
B’rit Hadashah –
Matt 10:16-42 cjb p 1235
Acts 16; 11-40 cjb p 1383
= times YHWH saved His people
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Play…. download click here to watch video from Aish.com
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Purim
Yochanan (John) 5:1-13
“this day was Shabbat”…. But the beginning starts with …
“there was a Judean festival…”
What festival?
A man named Lambert Dolphin wanted to know what festival this was… so he did some research… He looked at every single feast day that fell on the Shabbat from 25 AD – 35 AD
And there was only one… Purim on 28 AD.
Daniel Rendelman says:
“There's even a hidden connection between the feast of Purim, or the celebration of Purim, and the Day of Atonement.
Now you may think, "What in the world do these two holy days have to do with each other?" You've got the Day of Atonement; it's a day of seriousness, a day of fasting, a day of repentance, and a day of prayer. It's a day of sitting in the synagogue all day long and saying, "I'm sorry, I did this, I did that." The Bible calls it a day of affliction Leviticus 23. Yom Kippur is a time of introspection, confession and quiet.
Purim is much the opposite. It's a party! If you've ever celebrated Purim you know that this feast is fun. You show up in a Bible costume. You have your grogger; you have your noise maker. You take the flowers out of the synagogue and you bring balloons in! It is a joyous day. It is a day of laughter. Many synagogues even have joke telling contests on Purim. It's so much fun. It's loud. It's joyous, and there's feasting.
On Yom Kippur you have fasting. You don't eat for 25 hours. But on Purim you're feasting, and you're even sending food to other people. How strange.
How could two opposites be alike? How could these two holidays that are so dissimilar be similar? How could they be connected?
Now you may think, "What in the world do these two holy days have to do with each other?" You've got the Day of Atonement; it's a day of seriousness, a day of fasting, a day of repentance, and a day of prayer. It's a day of sitting in the synagogue all day long and saying, "I'm sorry, I did this, I did that." The Bible calls it a day of affliction Leviticus 23. Yom Kippur is a time of introspection, confession and quiet.
Purim is much the opposite. It's a party! If you've ever celebrated Purim you know that this feast is fun. You show up in a Bible costume. You have your grogger; you have your noise maker. You take the flowers out of the synagogue and you bring balloons in! It is a joyous day. It is a day of laughter. Many synagogues even have joke telling contests on Purim. It's so much fun. It's loud. It's joyous, and there's feasting.
On Yom Kippur you have fasting. You don't eat for 25 hours. But on Purim you're feasting, and you're even sending food to other people. How strange.
How could two opposites be alike? How could these two holidays that are so dissimilar be similar? How could they be connected?
Well Purim is the Feast of Lots. Remember that.
They called it Purim because of the lots that were thrown by Haman to choose the day.
We also know that on Yom Kippur that the high priest would take lots, he would take a set of dice - a set of pur - and he would roll those to see which of the two goats was going to be sacrificed for the sins of the people. The pur where thrown to determine which of the two goats was going to be let free as a scapegoat.
Do you see the connection?
Truth be told, Yom Kippur is not an accurate name for the day.
Truth be told, Yom Kippur is not an accurate name for the day.
Yom Kippur literally means "day of atonement."
The word "Yom" means "day" and the word "Kippur" means "atonement or covering."
But in the Torah, it's actually called Yom HaKippurim.
Yom Hakippurim.
Spell it out… Hakippurim…
Yom Hakippurim. (Do you see "purim" in the word?)
It's actually called the Day of Atonements,
because there was atonement made for the priest,
there was atonement made for the priesthood.
There was atonement made for the sins.
There was atonement made for the Tabernacle.
There was atonement made for the nation for the many sins they had committed.
It was a day of many atonements.
Do you see the name Purim in Yom Hakippurim? Another truth is hidden in the Torah scrolls.
Do you see the name Purim in Yom Hakippurim? Another truth is hidden in the Torah scrolls.
In the Torah scrolls there are no vowel points to the Hebrew words.
The word could be read "Yom Hakeepurim."
This phrase "Yom Keepurim" actually means in Hebrew "a day like Purim."
Yom Keepurim means a day like Purim. Yom Kipurim means a day of atonements.
How in the world is the Day of Atonement like Purim?
How in the world is the Day of Atonement like Purim?
How is it hidden?
In reality, Purim, or the festival of Esther, the joyous time is a result and an actualization of Yom Kipurim.
The rejoicing that we do on Purim is because of what has occurred on the Day of Atonement.
You could say it this way, that Purim is the flesh on the soul of Yom Hakippurim..
….that the feast of Esther, that the joyous celebration of YHWH's deliverance is the flesh on the soul of the Day of Atonement.”
*** The book of Esther… cjb p 1089
King Achashverosh – gave a banquet…. It was to celebrate the destruction of the Temple!!
Haman – from Amalak!
Esther 4: 12-16 cjb p 1092
We were born today – not by accident…
But to live in and do HIS will and keep YHWH’s instruction/ Torah
IN THIS DAY…. For such a time as this!
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Now think about this story of Esther … in today ….
I want to share some things I got of AISH.com…..
2500 years after Haman tried to destroy Isra’el – Yah’s people… completely…..
We live in a world where…
Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and the mad mullahs of Iran, who have repeatedly declared that “Isra’el must be wiped off the map.”
His name is Mahumoud Ahmadinejad …. But he has the same agenda as Haman.
An article from United with Isra’el said…“According to the 'Meam Loez' commentary on the bible (Tanakh): "In every generation, Amelek rises to destroy us and each time he clothes himself in a different nation."
For our generation, Israeli President Shimon Peres has proclaimed, Ahmadinejad is the "modern day Haman,"
-- the Amalekite who sought to slaughter the Jewish people in
the Persian Empire (which in now modern day Iran). !!”
1000 years after the Purim story, Islam was born.
When the Jews refused to acknowledge Muhammad as a prophet, he lashed out and said…
-“Allah has cursed (the Jews) and transformed them into apes and pigs.” (Koran 5:60)
-“The Jews are covered with humiliation and poverty, and the anger of God is cast upon them.” (Sura 2:61)
-“Salvation will not come until Muslims kill all the Jews, hiding behind rocks and trees.” (Sahih Muslim 41:6985)
This is NOT mere rhetoric!
In the region of Mecca, Mohammed expelled, plundered and slaughtered the Jews.
Today these koranic statements encourage Ayatollah Ali Khamenei to declare : “The Zionist regime is a cancerous tumor and must be cut off.”
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Haman didn’t just go try to kill the Jews himself… he raised money – (Esther 3:9) even his own and had a decree signed by the King – so it was LEGAL.
Today – Iran’s leader has laid out the legal and religious license to attack and kill Jews around the world and to destroy the State of Isra’el - declaring…
“Jurisprudential justification to kill all the Jews and annihilate Isra’el, and in that, the Islamic government of Iran must take the helm.”
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Don’t we SEE what is REPEATING in history – right before our eyes??!!?
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With nuclear weapons, there is something called “Mutually Assured Destruction”…. Basically - nobody wins… so nobody dares launch a nuclear bomb against another country – because nobody will win….
BUT this is not true for Iran!
Remember their Koran says -“Salvation will not come until Muslims kill all the Jews, hiding behind rocks and trees.” (Sahih Muslim 41:6985)
Just as Muslim extremists have perpetrated hundreds of suicide bombings…
Iran advocates the ultimate suicide bomb:
“While a nuclear exchange with Isra’el would cost Iran 15 million people, Iranian leaders have said they regard that as a “small sacrifice” for wiping out Isra’el’s 6 million Jews. !!!
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All the while our nation’s president is giving weapons and fighter planes to the people that feed these people with the same weapons!!
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Just as Esther went around “the back door” – some will say Isra’el is doing the same thing …
Because Esther was chosen to be Queen… this gave Isra’el her people a huge advantage to survive….
It is interesting that Isra’el’s primary weapon against Iran’s nuclear program has been the mysteriously assassination of dozens of Iranian nuclear scientists…
And the Stuxnet computer virus…
Which destroyed 1,000 centrifuges at the Natanz nuclear facility.
The virus contained the code “MYRTUS”…
.. a possible reference to the myrtle tree – in Hebrew – Hadassah – the birth name of Queen Esther!!
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When Haman was seeking permission to destroy all the Jews, Haman said…”There is one nation scattered and split apart… whose laws are different from every other people’s”
Ie – they won’t eat our food, they keep Shabbat, and they don’t marry our daughters. – Esther 3:8
Haman charged the Jews with being a disloyal, foreign element who could not be trusted…
… a theme repeated throughout history…
- The medieval Crusaders and the Spanish inquisitors slaughtered Jews for not conforming to European religious norms;
- Alfred Dreyfus was convicted of treason, falsely portrayed by the French Government as representing a Jewish conspiracy
- The Russian secret police fabricated “The Protocols of the Elders of Zion,” depicting the Jews as plotting world domination!
- Today the State of Isra’el is the target of intense demonization –
- condemned by the United Nations (remember they are majority Islamic!)
- Placed under a magnifying glass by the media and delegitimized with a unique double-standard far out of proportion to its size.
- We know they are the only nation – to have land taken AWAY – after they win a war!!!
- And now – our country – wants them to stop building on land that is theirs!!
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The Jews of the Purim story were invited to the King’s party - a 180 day feast – and they chose to join the crowd… which is precisely then that Haman’s slander against Jewish distinctiveness was aroused.
The reality today is that it is when Isra’el – the Northern Kingdom – those who are Christian…. And the Southern Kingdom – those who are Jewish…
Falter in our mission to represent YHWH and His instructions/ TORAH in the world….
And embrace the teachings of man…
Remember – what is sin?
Torahlessness….
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amein