sh_ester
=sh_cnsI1.ein with sa-footnotes filed off to doc=sa_ester
R. SHLOMO CARLEBACH:  Re-typed input of Connections Vol I #1, "And
Esther Wrote"
Original date and place of teaching not given.
Transcriber of teaching not given.
Apparently lightly editted before publication.
Rivka Haut is the most likely to have been the editor.
Parenthetic remarks are most like interjections by her.
Interjections by inputter in braces   {     } {0}

The inputter resisted the temptation to edit, but was unable to resist the temptations of messing around
with the typography -- eg of the conventional-masculine pronoun {{1}}-- as much as possible, tossing in sub-
heads, and adding obscurantist translations and unsolicited comments; thosed have been tossed to 
a seperate document, sa_ester, which will be stored with sa, but not on JWitt C:\BOOK

Primary topics:
    Purim
    The role of women in contemporary Judaism


Secondary topics:

================================================================
================================================================

	One of the saddest things in the world, in my world, that
brks my hearts, is that on the one hand I would like our daughers,
our mothers, to be so Jewish and so holy, so exalted, and yet,
when you meet those women who really are so holy and so beautiful
and you start talking with them, you realize that they are so
empty inside.  Gevalt are they empty.  When I walk into a place,
the moment I start saying Divre Torah 
naturally the women take off, because they are not sitting
togerther with the men. {2} 
They are sitting seperate.  The men are listening.  The women are
already talking, about bagels, 
earrings.  When it comes to singing, our holy sisters don't join
us.  They just sit there and talk to each other.  It's
heartbreaking.  You know what we need, abosolutely need, we need
to cry and beg our holy, so-to-speak frum, 
mothers and frum sisters, please, please don't put us to shame. 
Plese don't put us to shame before those holy young women who are
coming back to Yiddishkeit, who are so sensitive to what's going
on in life.  
	I'll tell you something somethign heartbreakng.  You know
what happens to {Jewish orthodox} religious girls who go to
college?  In every subject in the world they are very deep.  You
can talk to them about anything in the world.  Yet, when it comes
to Torah, they are so shallow.  It's not fair.  It isn't fair.
	Our generation has to fix two things.  We have not fixed the
relationship between Adam and Eve, and we have not fixed the
relationship between Cain and Abel, between Jews and non-Jews.


  Basically the same people who don't know how to relate to women
also don't know how to relate to non-Jews.
	There was a time when men and women didn't live in the same
world.  It's not true anymore.  We are living in the same world.  		In 1959 when I came to Eretz Yisrael
for the first time, I was a bachelor, wlking into a Beis Midrash
 in Mea Shearim, 
and someone asked if I was married.  I said no.  He said, "I have
a wonderful shidduch (match) 
for you.  Come back next Monday."  I came back Monday, and he
asked me, "Do you speak Hungarian?"  I said, "No."  He said, "The
girl I want you to marry only speaks Hungarian."  I said, "Ok, no
more shidduch."  He looked me and said, "Why?  What do you have to
talk to her about?"  Unbelievable. {3}
	Maybe there was a time when a man sat at the table alone, and
his wife sat in the ktichen, Friday night, and this was holy.{4}  
Today, if a person dones't sit with is wife and children, with his
daughters, at the table, it's a crimnal offense.  The girl who
eats in the kitchen, the moment she is old enough to get our from
her father's stupidity, might very well leave Yiddishkeit.{5}
	The deepest secret of life is that everything is the same,
and yet, every thing has to become better.  I keep everything my
bubba did, and yet I am one step ahead.  One step ahead.  Rav
Nachman said that G-d cannot stand the same thing twice.  People
can't either.
	Yentas, we have plenty of.  The women who stand all day in
the kitchen, we have had this for a few generations.  The Rabbino 
shel Olam
needs now strong women who stand on their feet, and learn.  Who
know what Yiddishkeit is all abut.  Who can give it over to their
children.  The most heartbreaking thing in the world is that the
Rabbis, who think they have to guard the old tradition, actually
refuse to realize that you only guard the old tradition if you are
aware of what's going on today -- if you add.  The new doesn't
have to conflict with old; it can enrich it. {6}

Aliyot for women

	What about giving aliyot (being called to the Torah) to
women?  
	I'll tell you an unbelieveable story.  I gave a conert in
Paris.  After the concert, a beautiful young lady came up to me
and said, "I antn to tellyou my story:  
I come from a Chassidic home in Boston. {7}
I like to paint, to draw.  I managed to get to college,
despite my father, and I got a scholarship to Paris.  I left
and didn't write to my parents.  I had no money, so when a
non-Jew asked me to move into his house -- I did.  I lived
with him for four years, and he asked me to marry him.  This
non-Jew asked me to marry him, and I was overjoyed.  Sunday
moring, I was supposed to be baptized, and Sunday night, the
wedding.  For me, Shabbos didn't exist anymore, so the
Shabbos before, I went shoppping.  Crazily enough, I passed
by the Reform Synagogue, the same Reform Synagogue that,
three years ago, was bombed by the PLO.  I passed by the
synagogue and,I don't know why, I walked in.  They were just
reading the Torahh.  Suddenly, the shammos (beadle) 
came to me and offered me an aliyah.  I want you to know, I
was religious when I was young.  Nobody ever gave me an
aliyah.  When they called up my name to the Torah, it was
claear to me that G-d was calling me.  When I made the bracha
(blessing) over the Torah, I swore to G-d that I'll be a
Jewish daughter again.  I came out from shul, I called up my
boyfriend, and I told him that I was just in shul, and I
heard a voice from heaven tell me that I shouldn't do it. 
And I didn't."
	
	It's all very beautiful to say that we should not give women
aliyot.  The Satmar {8} Rebbitzen
 doesn't need an aliyah.  But, there a lot of holy women today who
need an aliyah.

	I want to tell you one more story.  I was on a plane from
London to Tel Aviv.  I saw a Rosh Yeshiva 
of one of the biggest yeshivot, and next to  him was a very
beautfiul non-religious girl, and next to her was her mother.  The
Rosh Yeshiva was talking to her.  I said, "Rebbe, I want to talk
to you straight.  Tell me the sad truth.  If you would sit next to
a girl who was educated by you, would you have something to talk
to her about?  Why do you talk to that girl?  Sadly enough, the
sad truth is, because she is not a religious girl."  Isn't that
heatrbreakng?  Does a girl have to be non-religious in order for
you to be able to talk to her?  Don't you want your daughter to be
a little bit like her?"

	I was sitting on a train, going from Tel Aviv to Haifa, and
there were a hundred little kids from a religious school on the
train.  The kids knew me and said, "Hey, sing something for us." 
Little kids, they are so sweet their eyes were shining, they were
glowing.  I took out my guitar and started singing, one niggun
after another.  I asked them, "Where is your teacher?"  She was 
sitting ther by the window looking out.  I walked up to her and
said "I envy you, to have such children to teach."  
She would't look at me, wouldn't talk to me.  I thought, this is
crazy.  Is this called frum?"  Those kids were so happy, and she
would not be a part of it.

	Two weeks ago, I was someplace where there were only religous
people.  I was singing and then I told two stories.  Three
religious women came up and said to me, "Why do you talk so much? 
Why don't you just sing?"  They didn't understand a word I was
saying.  The stories didn't touch them. {9}

PURIM TEACHING


All the redeemers of Israel were men, with the exception of Purim,
where we have a man and a woman.  Obviously, Esther must have had
some class.  She was educated by Mordechai.  To be a queen of the
world, of 127 medinot (lands).  She had to have some class.

The Midrash* 
*Footnote {Editor of Connections}:  
Midrash Ra-bah 58:3 -- Rabbi Akiva was sitting and teaching
and his students were dozing.  He wanted to rouse them.  He
said, "Why was Esther Queen of 127 lands?  Since Esther was
descended from Sarah who lived 127 years, she (Esther) ruled
over 127 lands.

says that Rabbi Akiva was saying Torah on every letter, on every
tag (crown) of the Torah.  Some of his students said, "Why must
you bother with all that?  The letters, the tagin, what do we need
it for?"  Rabbi Akiva wa master of the Torah sh-beal-Peh (the oral
Torah).  
	There aRe Torahs that you need in life so much.  What is the
Tree of Knowledge?  The Tree of Knowledge is where I know what to
do about everything, but there is some kind of inner knowlege that
is beyond words, deeper than words.  This is what kingdom
{malchut?} is all about.  A king has some inside stuff, deep, deep
stuff.  
	Everybody knows that Sarah is even deeper than Avraham.  G-d
told Avraham, "Listen to whatever Sarah tells you." {Genesis:    
}.  Why then is the prophecy of Sarah not written in the Torah? 
We get just a little glimpse of her prophecy, that she said to
send Yishmael out.  {Genesis:   }  Her prophecy wasn't written
down.  The prophecy of Avraham was in words.  The prophecy of
Sarah was in letters, the Torah of Rabbi Akiva, the Torah She-
Beal-Peh.
	What are the letters all about?  When I get a business
letter, the words are important, the letters aren't.  When I get a
love letter, everything is important.  I look at every letter 1000
times.
	Maybe our fathers teach us the Torah.  {Cf. Pirke haAvot   } 
But, to love the Torah so much, that every letter is read 100
times, this comes from our mothers.  So, Rabbi Akiva said, "Do you
know why Esther was the queen of 127 lands?"  She must have known
something.  What did she know?  She knew the Torah of our mother,
Sarah.  
	Rashi says that tzaddikim are "tamim," complete.  We live in
the world and we don't know if we did what we have to do.  The
tzaddikim live exactly to finish the product.  When they leave
this world, they are a finished product.  Avraham was in the world
exactly to finish Avraham.  And, it says that it took exactly 127
years to finish Sarah.  (Sarah lived 127 years.)  And her Torah
she gave over to Esther.
	Everybody knows, the megillah is based on letters.  G-d's
name is not mentioned there on the level of words.  'His' name is
mentioned only in Rashei Teviot (abbreviations).  One word begins
with 'yod', one with 'heh' and so on.  Megillat Esther is based on
letters.  The Torah sh'b'peh is letters.  Why is it letters?  One
sits and looks at the letters, until the letters begin to reveal
the deepest secrets.
	Reabbi Akiva was sitting and saying Torah on the letters and
even on the tagin.  His students said to him, 'Who needs this? 
You can be a Jew without it.'  He answered, 'Yes, you can be a Jew
without it, but you cannot be Esther HaMalka (the queen) without
it.'  On Purim we are told that many people became Jews. {Megillat
Esther:    }   Mordechai and Esther took over the world.  The
world knew then that Jews are holy, that G-d is holy.
	And the way we teach the world is not with words.  It has to
be deeper than that.  Non-Jews also have the written Torah, but
they are still non-Jews.  Torah sh'b'peh is the deepest knowlege
of G-d.  It is the knowlege of every letter of every word.

Purim as re-unification of men and women

	The utmost redemption of the world can only be Adam and Eve
together.  Our downfall was that Adam and Eve split.  The real
redemption of Purim is that Mordechai and Esther were doing
something together.
	I want to tell you something so heartbreaking.  Today, in our
religous circles, the husband goes to shul, the wife stays home. 
He does this, she does something else.  It may be beautiful, but
it is not Purim, it is not the redemption of the world.  It is not
what brings Messiach.  Today, thank G-d, in the non-religious
world, women get stronger and stronger.  We have to get behind the
wheel and step on the gas a little bit.  We have already lost 80%
of our daughters.  We will lose, G-d forbid, 100%, if we don't do
something about it.  Yes, we'll always have some frum {strictly
observant} girls, but they will be like the woman in Toronto who
told me that unless you talk about something like kashrut, my
learning won't be popular.

Shelach Manos

	You know what is so special about Purim?  On Purim we don't
have time to learn.  We send shalach manos, 
we get drunk.  The revelation that G-d reveals to us on Purim is
so deep.

The Ostrovitzer's ruling on kashrut of shalach manos  

	Someone wrote a sheilah {question on interpretation of
religious law}  to the holy Ostrovitzer.  He said that he got
shalch maonos from a person who was not so religious, and he asked
if he was permitted to eat it.  The Rebbe answered something very
beautiful.  What is the whole idea of shalach manos, he asked? 
The whole story of Esther began because the Jews ate at the feast
of Achashverosh.  Every Jew accused every other Jew of eating
treif {foodstuffs not permitted by Jewish law}.  So Esther said to
Mordechai, "Go and gather all the Jews."  Forget what we ate
yesterday.  From now on, all the Jews will be together.  The idea
of Purim is that from now on, every Jews says to every other Jew,
"I trust you that you are kosher.  I trust you."  By that we bring
Mashiach.
	Woe unto those who don't each shalch monos because they don't
think they are kosher.

(Teaching cont.)  

	On Purim, the most important thing is for Jews to be
together.  The Megillah says "and Esther wrote."  Today, if a a
woman wrote a book, and a rabbi would say that book should become
part of the Torah, all the rabbis would write teshuvot 
against it.  Yet, Esther was the editor, the author of the
Megillah.  Today, a woman cannot even decide if a bakery is
kosher.  This is what keeps Mashiach from coming.

	A lady once told me: 

"I stopped going to shul.  The women asked the rabbi if they
could hold the Torah, and he said no.  I watched the men. 
They were talking, sleeping -- there was no kavanah (meaning)
If we women would have held the Torah, it would have been so
holy, so exalted.  Who is the rabbi, to keep us from serving
G-d?"{10}

	We are so concerned with the words.  Where is Rabbi Akiva's
Torah, the Torah of Esther, the queen {10} of the world?


Hesed vs. din:  liberalized neo-Hasidic orthodoxy vs. assimilation

	We are living in a world where 65% of our young people inter-
marry.  When I was in San Francisco, in 1959, I felt right now is
the time to create a different kind of yeshiva, to get our kids
back.  I had two responses.  One great rabbi told me to forget it. 
The other said I was being stupid, a comedian.  What was I talking
about.  That man is now the head of a well-known yeshiva for
Baalei Teshuva.

 We need Chunakah and Purim together.  We need to add.  We must
stop being afraid of adding.  What is so terrible if our sisters
want to add Torah?  Torah sh'b'peh is "the Torah of your mother.
{Refernce, Pirke ha'Avot, "                    "}.  Adding is not
changing. {11} 
We need Chanukah, and we need Purim also.  We need "And Esther
wrote."  Give Esther a chance.

	In my shul, we have four Sifrei Torah.  
On Simchat Torah, 

we give one to the women.  One year, a man said to me, 'What's
going on here?  This is apikorsut (heresy) {translation presumably
by transcriber, not by R. Shlomo}
to allow women to carry a Torah."  I said to him, "If our women
are good enough to carry our children for 9 months, they are good
enough to carry a Sefer Torah for a few minutes."

	When you love somebody very much, you think about them even
when they are not there.  This is shalch manos; it is telling
somebody that you are sending them your love, your thoughts, even
when they are not there.
	The gemara say, "Esther is hester panim {Kaballah?} (The
hiding of the Presence of G-d.  G-d's name is not mentioned in the
Megillah.)  Purim is when we don't see G-d.  Do we know how much
G-d thinks of us, especially when 'He' is not looking?  Do you
know that G-d is not mentioened in the Megillah?   The Megillah
teaches us how much G-d loves us, even when 'He' is not showing it
at the moemvent. when 'He' seems to be hiding.
	When you love a person, the real test of the love is how much
do you think about them when you don't see them.  The test of a
Jew in exile is how much G-d thinks about us, and we think about
Him even when we are not clsoe.

'	Why is the Torah of Purim even deeper than the Torah of Mount
Sinai?  The Torah of Mount Sinai is face-to-Face.  G-d talks to
us.  He looks at us.  Deeper than this this the Torrah of Purim. 
It gives us a taste of how much G-d is thinking about us, even
when we don't directly feel it.  The Torah of face-to-Face can be
given over by a Rebbe.  The Torah of Purim can only be truly
taught by men and women together.
	At the begining of a wedding, the groom covers his bride's
face.  All day long they are on the level of Yom Kippur.  When he
covers her face, they reach the level of Purim. The groom is
saying to the bride, I am giving over to you all of my love, even
when I don't see you.
	Do you know why children keep their eyes closed when they are
born?  They want to taste how much their parents love them when
they don't see them.

	I want to tell everyone please, send shalach manos to your
wives, to your husbands, to your children.  Sometimes we forget to
send shalach manos to the people closest to us. 

	I want to tell you one more thing.  I would like to see in
the religious world, a man saying Torah at the table, and a woman
sayign Torah.  I would like to see, "And Esther wrote," -- a
woman's Torah.  I would like to see a man and a woman, both saying
Torah, Friday night at the table. {12}

	There are two holdiays where basically everyone can do their
own thing.  On Chanuakah there are many different customs about
lighting candles.  The Sephardim have different customs than the
Ashkenazim.  This is considered beautiful.  On Purim, there are
diferent days possible for Megillah reading -- the 12th, the 13th,
14th, days of Adar, or the 15th, Shushan Purim
, depending on where a person lives. {{13}}

	So you now the diference beween a restaurant and a hosipital? 
IN a restaurant, there is one menu, and eveyrbody eats the same
food.  In a hospital, everybody gets diferent medicine made
especially for them.  torah is the same.  The Torah She-bechtav
(written Torah) is the same for everyone.  The Torah She-Beal-Peh
{{14}}
has to be differnt for every person.  We are living in a sick
world.  The gemarra says that, on Yom Kippur, if a doctor says you
are well, and you say ou are sick, you are permitted to eat. 
Eveyrbody knows themselves best. {15}
	The Torah of hester panim (the hiding of G-d's face) is when,
G-d forbid, things are hidden. Give Jews a chance to have their
own connections with the Torah.  In most shulus, women cannot kiss
the Torah. {15a} 
I know than in those shuls that do allow women to kiss the Torah,
for some women, their whole Yiddishket began when they first
kissed the Torah.  It's so important. {16}
	The story of Esther teaches that someitmes there is a kind of
Torah in which G-d's name is not even mentioned, it's hidden, but
it's there.  Everybody has his own connection to Yiddushkeit.  I'm
afraid to tell anybody else, this is my connection, this is what I
like the most. {17} 

That is why I send shalach monos; I do not deliver it face-to-
face.  I say, I want you to know, whatever your connection to
Yiddushkeit is, you don't have to tell me, but I want you to know
that I am connected to the same thing .  We are all connected to
the same place.{17}
	At the House of Love and Prayer, in {18}
California, as a rule I did not give aliyot to women.  But, when
girls asked for an aliya, I give {19}

it to them.  I saved many girls from the abyss {20} of
assimilation 
because I was strong enough to give them aliyot.

	Purim is when we realize that Torah is not only food.  Torah
is medicine.  On Purim I am getting drunk with the Torah. {{21}} 

The difference between food and wine is very simple.  When you eat
food, you dn't have to be happy.  But, when you drink wine, you
glow ith it.  On Purim you glow.
	All year long, I learn Torah.  It gives me life; like food,
it keeps me going.  On Purim I want different Torah.  I want Torah
that touches every secret in my heart.  I want Torah that connects
me to every Jew.  I want Torah that strengthens my friendships, my
relationships with every Jew.  "Go and gather together all the
Jews."  {Megillah:     }  That is the essence of Purim.
	My dearest friends, I hope you understand what I said to you. 
In order to keep Yiddishkeit alive, we desperately need synagogues
that do not give aliyos to women and we also desperately need
synagogues that do give aliyos to women.
	Everybody knows {22} that the downfall of the world is Loshon
Hora.  

The Gemora says Haman is the master of Loshon Hora.  Mordechai and
Esther are masters of non-Losohn Hora.  On Purim, we do not send
shelach monos fact to face; we are telling each other "even behind
your back, I will not speak evil about you."
	G-d is opening so many gates.  When will wew have enought
courage to help each other find the right gates?  Gevald,
brothers, and sisters, we need so much for ourselves but we need
so much more for our beautiful children.  On Purim it says,
whoever holds out his hand, should receive something.  So, this
Purim, let it be that all we need is given to us and let a great
miracle happen to us -- that as G-d sees us holding out our hands
and begging, so should we see G-d's hand to give to him who needs. 
For us, for Israel, and for the world, Good Purim everyone!  Good
Purim!
END CONNECTIONS ARTICLE "AND ESTHER WROTE", Connections Vol I #1,
Feb.-March/Shevat-Adar 1985 
ALL PRECEDING MATERIAL COPY-RIGHT BY R. SHLOMO CARLEBACH, NOT TO
BE PUBLISHED, NOR CIRCULATED OUTSIDE THE HEVRE, WITHOUT EXPLICIT
ASSENT FROM R. SHLOMO CARLEBACH.  COPY-RIGHT ALSO HELD BY
CONNECTIONS MAGAZINE, AND LITERARY TRUSTEES THEREOF.
FOR FURTHER INFORMATION , PLEASE CONTACT R. JOSHUA WITT, 14
HAMISHKANOT, JERUSLAM; 972-2-248620, to whom the inputter assigns
any claims which he might have to this material, in particular the
right to delete anything the inputter input.

Proofed against original journal article by (Nobody)________ on
(10th of Never) __________.

sa, HaOn, 12 Adar 5774, with 7440 bytes was in this doc, being as
close as a Model XT horse is apt to get to Purim, with Einstein
Wriding.