„"A person is obligated to become intoxicated on Purim"”

"'until he does not know' - until he rises above knowledge, above the sin of the Tree of Knowledge, until he reaches the radiance of Adam, until he returns to the level of Adam before the sin, before the sin of the Tree of Knowledge" (Mo'adei Re'iyah 258)

The obligation of "until he does not know" is an obligation to rise above the sin of knowledge, to rise above the place that blocks us. The moment Adam and Eve ate from the Tree of Knowledge, they discovered that they were naked. This discovery is seemingly progress and development on their part; behold, they know more, they understand, and from this they draw conclusions and cover themselves.

But Judaism does not see knowledge as everything. The sin of knowledge caused the world to become confused, to become brutish, to divide the world between good and evil, between strong and weak, to become separated.

On Purim we stop. We do not distinguish between "cursed is Haman" and "blessed is Mordechai"; we do not scrutinize the poor person to whom we give charity ("whoever extends a hand, we give to him"); we love and embrace and seek to connect with everyone ("go and gather all the Jews").

A person's obligation to become intoxicated until he reaches the level of "he does not know" is an obligation to connect to the place before this terrible sin, the sin of the serpent, on account of which man was expelled from the Garden of Eden.

A pleasant day to all!

For the recovery of Yaakov Aryeh ben Rachel.