Just before the climax of the Purim story, after King Achashverosh orders Haman to dress Mordecai in royal clothes and have him mount the royal horse, Haman returns to his wife Zeresh and his counselors (whom the Megillah sarcastically calls חכמים). He tells them of the reversal of his fortunes and how he now has been ordered to give honor to Mordecai, the man he wanted to execute by hanging. Zeresh and the advisors give him no encouragement at all. Instead, we read:ויאמרו לו חכמיו וזרש אשתו, אם מזרע היהודים מרדכי אשר החילות לנפול לפניו לא תוכל לו כי נפל תפול לפניו. "If Mordecai, before whom you have begun to fall, is of the seed of the Jews (by which they meant that he is of Jewish descent), you will not win over him, but you will surely fall before him". Now, that is a very strange thing to say. Didn't they know, from the very beginning, that Mordecai is a Jew? Wasn't that the very reason Haman hated him? Why, then, the word אם, "if" Mordecai is of the children or seed of the Jews? I heard of a wonderful answer that was given by a very great personality — Rabbi Meir Shapira, who was the founder and Rosh Yeshiva of the great ישיבת חכמי לובלין. He was especially important to our family, because in 1925, when he visited the United States and was in New York, my great-great-grandfather, Rabbi Yehoshua Baumol, זכר צדיק לברכה, invited him to be the מסדר קדושין and preside at the wedding ceremony of his oldest daughter and her husband. They were my great-grandparents, Zeide and Bobbe Lammעליהם השלום, whom I loved very much. Rabbi Shapira offered a very interesting and important answer. He pointed to a marvelous story recorded in the גמרא מגילה דף ט"ז עמוד א. The Gemara says: "ויקח המן את הלבוש ואת הסום" — Haman took the royal robes and the horse to Mordecai; אזל אשכחיה דיתבי רבנן קמיה ומחוי להו הלכות קמיצה לרבנן — He went and found Mordecai teachimg his students. He was in the middle of a שעור about how the כהן performs קמיצה, the taking of a fistful of flour for the מנ…

Today we conclude Adar I and usher in Adar II. I often wonder: is the principle of כשנכנס אדר מרבין בשמחה one that applies to Adar I, to Adar II, or to both Adars? I believe I found the answer in a passage I just recently encountered in the Sefat Emet. Why, he asks, is Adar a time for simḥah? His answer is that Elul, the month before Tishrei, which begins with Rosh Hashanah and is therefore the last month of the year, is set aside for teshuvah. But if that holds for the rabbinic calendar, it should hold as well for the biblical calendar, according to which Nisan is the first month – haḥodesh hazeh rosh ḥodashim hu lakhem – and the last month before Nisan is Adar. Hence, these two months, Elul and Adar, six months apart from each other, are both months dedicated to teshuvah. What is the difference between them? It is this: Elul is teshuvah mi-yirah, whereas Adar is teshuvah me-ahavah – and this kind of teshuvah is always an occasion of joy. So today is a double day of joy – the beginning of Adar, and the Bar Mitzvah of Bezalel Weinberg. Bezalel, we are all aware of your record as a superb student, as a young man chock full of talent. But you get no special credit for that, for such innate qualities are gifts of HaKadosh Barukh Hu – they are the cumulative consequences of the genes of a bright and competent mother and a brilliant father, of their parents – grandfathers who, each in his own way, have had major impact on all American Jewry – and their parents and grandparents before them, a line which includes some of the true gedolei Yisrael of their generation. But you add something precious of your own: you are also a gentle person, you possess a loving and warm heart; you are a young man of diverse qualities. Let me explain. “Mi zot ha-nishkafah ka-mo shahar, yafah ka-lavanah, barah ka-ḥammah, ayumah ke-nidgalot” – the Zohar comments: “Mi zot – razah de-trein alma’in mitḥabran ke-ḥada.” The Ḥiddushei ha-Rim says: “Mi” represents the hidden (nistar), “zot” the revea…