Purim Sicha of the Shluffener Rebbe

A Sicha of the Shluffener Rebbe,
Meir Moshe ben Yankev Yitschak Shnoozer,
also known as “the Shnoozer, Meir Moshe, hakodosh”,
or the ShMMuH”K

transcribed by thanbo b. simcha
for a refua shelema for simcha b. rivka

Purim, 5767

The megillah tells us to make “ymei simcha umishteh” Yemei, two days, implies a night between. Mishteh, drinking, must be an integral part of the “days”. As the Passaicker Maggid, R’ Micha Berger often says, 7, the days of the week, the lower sefiros, the nonzero digits of the Lubavitch headquarters, the speeds of an internally geared Shimano Nexus hub, the number seven, sheva, zibn, siete, sept, sju, pito implies the natural world, that which is normally accessible to Man and his technology. Eight, however, the lights of Chanukah, the day after Shabbos, the days before a Bris – this, this is the Supernatural, the Holy. Since the ideal amount of sleep is eight hours, therefore one’s sleep is itself an act of kedusha. To sleep properly is to revel in kedusha, immerse in kedusha, imbibe kedusha with every snore.

But where is the kedusha in the Megillah? There isn’t even a name of God, the Holy, blessed be He, the Eibershter, the Ein Sof, the King whose Name shall be praised forever, yeah, OK Dovidhamelech, we get the idea – none of His names appear in the Megillah. Yet, some consider the Megillah’s command of Purim to be almost on a D’oraisa level. It is a semi-Yom Tov, with some of the additional prayers, piyutim, and meals of Yom Tov, but there is no Name of God associated with it. There is no Kiddush on the Day. But Chazal did feel empowered to ordain a festive meal – why?

The Megillah may not contain a Name of God, but it does contain many many references to HaMelech, The King. Many take these to refer to Hashem obliquely, kaveyachol, kil’achar yad, as it were, backhand.*

*HG”H: With the frequency of the Hamelech references, we might almost say that they are volleying for serve. But we won’t.

Underlying this assumption of HaMelech being HaMelech HaElyon, is that God is the True King. Kingship is reserved to the HolyBlessedBeHe alone. How do we know this? Even though the Torah mandates that we elect a king, Shmuel Hanavi, who was the Eibishter’s Right-Sefira Man at the time, waxed wroth at the idea that the Jews wanted to elect a king, to be just like the goyim (yech, pfui, eww). If Shmuel said it, and he had a direct line to The Holy Office Upstairs, surely Hashem was not pleased with the idea of Jews having a king. The Heilige Siddur bears this out – so much of our tefilos on Rosh Hashanah, not to mention Birchos Krishme, (hare hare, krishme krishme, rama krishme – behold, the highest Krias Shma), emphasize the Malchus Hashem.

So how can that malchus extend to Our Rabbonim, and Our Neviim, not to mention Queen Esther*,who ordained the mitzvos and zichronos of the day.

HG”H: Queen Esther, in her modesty, always sat at the back of the mehadrin chariot, fulfilling Shlomo Hamelech’s dictum: kol kevudas bas melech acharonah.

I feel free to speculate, not having seen any reference to this in the Words of the Living God, the Chassidic literature, that we humans are “demigods”. The Torah tells us, we were created with Tzelem Elokim. What is tzelem elokim? The Image of God, kavyachol, not that there can be a visible Image of God, h”v. But a Tzelem can also be a Demus, a Face, a Character, a Form. It is the Form without the Substance of God, we have the Form of God, but the Substance of Gashmiyus. So we are half-divine, half-human – we are DemiGods.

The words themselves bear this out. The Gaon I___ M____, Linguist Extraordinare of Today, the Gimle”t, proposes the unity of all languages, based on the Original Antediluvian Language, which is Hebrew. All languages must be linked. Demus – which is half of the self, the Form without Substance, compares to the Greek “Demi-“ meaning half. So Tzelem Elokim, our Heilige Halb, makes us DemiGods.

To bring the ‘Snags into the fold, we take their understanding of the Beinoni, according to the Rambam who is the one who is balance, half good and half evil. The beinoni, the normal man, is half a tzadik. The tzadik is a memutza hamechaber, the intermediary who attaches, who allows us to see the Divine in the Tzadik which is also immanent in the twigs and stones. The Heilige Sokolovsky says that the Rebbe is God, a Tzadik is God, therefore we, as half-tzaddik-half-rasha, are half God, or DemiGods.

If Malchus is of Hashem, then, we humans partake of Malchus simply by existing, through our Divine Half.

Chazal had malchus through this, as they often said (as said in Shaarei Gan HaEiden I:2:1, of R’ Yaakov Kopel Lipschitz, zt”l) “We [Rabbis] are kings, ruling the body of Torah”. Therefore, they could mandate a Yom Tov, but not kiddush, as they were not the Kiddusha Brich Hu. They could, however, mandate human requirements, such as sleep. Sleep, as we have seen, is in the aspect of kodesh, if done for 8 hrs (if they are to be shaos zmanios is discussed elsewhere). And sleep is central to avodas hanofesh, as the admo”r c”k theAlter Shluffer ztvkll”h nbg”m zy”a tells us in Mitah Mikva uMimaalah, “az der rebe shlof, shloffen alle chasidim”

Why, if we are demigods, do we need so much sleep? We are half human as well. And that human half, the half tzadik, is half a mercavah for the Eibishter. The Lubavitcher says that the goal is to make a Dirah beTachtonim for the Kudsha Brich Hu. We hold that it suffices to make a Mechonit beTachtonim, as we do with the Holy Half-Measure. A car is a lot heavier than a chariot. Carrying around the Eibeshter all day is pretty tiring. As they say, s’iz shver tzu zein a Yid. As a consequence of our human half, which has to be at least half good, to be a Mechonit beTachtonim, we need to keep our energy up. This effort is the Avodas Hanofesh.

So too we celebrate Purim with food & wine, which lead to sleep, when we can’t recite Arur Haman uBaruch Mordechai.. May our avoda begashmius lead to avoda beruchnius, and all of us work towards perfecting the world, preparing for Bias haGoel, bimheiro vyomeinu, mamesh mamesh with all that that implies.

Bivrachah, Meir Moshe Shnoozer