Purim

Over shabbat I heard some of the aspects of this Purim drashah.
Two points I took away: 1 - the structure of Ahashverosh's palace is set out to parallel the mishkan/mikdash: it has increasingly restrictive access as you get closer to the king, no one can enter the innermost chamber without permission, etc...), and is called "birah" - a word only used to refer to the mikdash elsewhere in Tanakh. 2 - the midrash capitalizes on this, saying that Ahashverosh wore the clothing of the Kohen Gadol and served with the vessels of the Temple, etc.
Rabbi Liebtag (predictably), takes this in a Zionist direction, suggesting that the megillah is chastising the Jews for remaining in Persia and mistaking the false "temple" of Ahashverosh for the soon-to-be-rebuilt Temple in Jerusalem.
I wanted to take it in a slightly different direction, talking about the general questions of access to God in a mikdash-less, nevua-less, miracle-less world. (Esther is at the cusp of the transition from the Biblical world to the one I describe. many sources attest to this. I am too lazy to cite them all.)
This is where the Sfas Emes I posted before comes in.

שפת אמת ספר שמות - לפורים - שנת [תרל"ז]
כנוס כו' כל היהודים הנמצאים בשושן כו'. כי הבינו שהגזירה הי' ע"י החטא שנהנו מאותה סעודה של אחשורוש. ולכן נאמר לעיל עשה כו' לכל כו' הנמצאים בשושן כו' משתה כו'. וכן כאן הנמצאים. שזה קאי על בנ"י. כמו שדרשו חכמים בפסוק שתי בנותיך הנמצאות כו'. ובזה התענית תקנו זה החטא ושבו בתשובה שלימה. והוא פלא שבאותה המשתה עצמה נעשה ההצלה שנהרגה ושתי אז. וזהו כעין אמרם ז"ל בתשובה מאהבה. הזדונות נהפכו לזכיות. והקב"ה ראה שישובו בתשובה שלימה. ונראה שלכך תקנו זה היום למשתה. לאשר כי נהפך להם חטא המשתה על ידי התשובה כנ"ל. וי"ל זה פי' הפסוק ובכן אבוא אל המלך אשר לא כדת. פי' שהתקרבות אל הבורא ית' יהיה ע"י החטא עצמו. והוא שלא כדת ע"י תשובה כנ"ל

loosely translated/summarized: "...they understood that the decree was because the sin that they had taken pleasure in that feast of Ahashverosh...And with this fast they corrected this sin and they returned in complete teshuvah. and it is wondrous that in that very feast the salvation was made, for Vashti was killed then. And this is like what they (rabbis) ob"m say regarding teshuvah from love: the intentional sins turned to merits....And it seems that this is why they established this day for feasting. For the sin of feasting was switched/turned around for them via teshuvah, as above. and one might say that this is the explanation of the verse "and so I will come to the king as is not lawful, [and as I perish, I perish]," the explanation is that the closeness to the blessed Creator will be by way of the sin itself. and this is "as is not lawful" - via teshuvah, as above."

The SE is saying that one comes to God by teshuvah, but he phrases it as coming to God by sinning, as sinning is a prerequisite to teshuvah. as he phrases it, sounds pretty radical.

I am also tempted to connect this to "averah lishmah," (see Nazir 23b) since (the end of) the very pasuk he cites of "coming to the king (=King) as is not lawful" is interpreted elsewhere (Megillah 15a)) in the midrash as the moment where Esther forfeited her marriage with Mordechai by soliciting Ahashverosh actively. That whole idea needs more work.

But, my real interest was just the idea that the "palace" of evil is structurally the same as the palace of God, and, indeed, there is a direct path (teshuvah) between the two that cannot be accessed from elsewhere, it seems.

Purim is all about opposites, i suppose...

take my blood, please!

I never have much success giving blood. I think I've been dismissed for marginal anemia (of the "you're not sick but you can't give blood" variety) two or three times in a row. But, I'm O negative, so I keep trying...
At a blood drive on Tuesday, I finally registered at 12.8 for iron (12 is the cutoff. i'm usually 11.7 or so). And yet - the Man got me down. I arrived on time for my 11:15 appointment, but I was still waiting to get to a gurney where I could wait to get stuck with a needle at 12:55. Since class was at 1:05, and my prof is a stickler for, well, everything (he starts exactly when the second hand hits 12), I had to go.
However, for my time, I got two free passes to the Bronx Zoo, expiring at the end of March. Since I am one person, and my usual outing-companion is away, any takers?

the beginnings of a thought

שפת אמת ספר שמות - לפורים - שנת [תרל"ז]
כנוס כו' כל היהודים הנמצאים בשושן כו'. כי הבינו שהגזירה הי' ע"י החטא שנהנו מאותה סעודה של אחשורוש. ולכן נאמר לעיל עשה כו' לכל כו' הנמצאים בשושן כו' משתה כו'. וכן כאן הנמצאים. שזה קאי על בנ"י. כמו שדרשו חכמים בפסוק שתי בנותיך הנמצאות כו'. ובזה התענית תקנו זה החטא ושבו בתשובה שלימה. והוא פלא שבאותה המשתה עצמה נעשה ההצלה שנהרגה ושתי אז. וזהו כעין אמרם ז"ל בתשובה מאהבה. הזדונות נהפכו לזכיות. והקב"ה ראה שישובו בתשובה שלימה. ונראה שלכך תקנו זה היום למשתה. לאשר כי נהפך להם חטא המשתה על ידי התשובה כנ"ל. וי"ל זה פי' הפסוק ובכן אבוא אל המלך אשר לא כדת. פי' שהתקרבות אל הבורא ית' יהיה ע"י החטא עצמו. והוא שלא כדת ע"י תשובה כנ"ל:

af simchas

we went to a fantastically leibedik wedding tonight. the couple, and the rest of us, should have much nachat, simchah, etc, for a long time...
this probably doesn't reflect well on me, but the real reason i bring it up is not to gush about how lovely it was (which it really was), but rather to solicit thoughts on a practice that sort of disturbed me. the wedding was in a well-known hall where I have attended many previous weddings. this was the first time I saw people, err, "collecting" at a wedding, though. it struck me as really not ok. i'm not sure if that makes me a grinch.
relatedly, there was a troop of yiddish-speaking young men in army fatigues and motorcycle helmets who apparently come to wedings there regularly, do some shtick (which they didn't manage to do tonight), and ask for money. It struck me that they are the chassidic analogy of the guys who do breakdancing in times square. ;)

puzzlement

why is it that almost all of the spam that comes with the tag [SPAM##] in the subject line evades my spam filter? (in fact, these tend to be the only spam messages that get through...)