The Rambam in his preface to Sefer Hamitzvos writes that the purpose of the mitzvah of reading the Megillah on Purim is to bring about the awareness of the passuk in the Torah that claims(דברים ד ז) כי מי גוי גדול אשר יש לו אלקים קרובים אליו כה' אלקינו בכל קראינו אליו. What other nation is so great who possesses an Elokim so close to them that any time they call to Him He answers.

In the Megillas Esther it is written (8,7) ואותו תלו על העץ על אשר שלח ידו ביהודים  they hung Haman on the tree who sent his hand against the Yidden. Why did the Megillah, when referring to the final demise of Haman, describe his evil plan of total annihilating the Jewish Nation in such general and vague terms of merely “sent his hand”,  instead of writing more openly and outright that he wanted to completely destroy, murder and obliterate them as described in the very same Megillah  להשמיד להרוג ולאבד?

Now that Purim has passed us by we can begin preparing for Pesach. However before we leave Purim entirely until next year we must take our last “shot” by first understanding how it relates to Yetzias Mitzrayim in a very extraordinary way.

When cataclysmic occurrences happen in the world the Yid must take careful note and do teshuvah. When they happen back to back then taking note is insufficient. We need to speedily make changes in our lives for time is of essence.  What transpired in Japan is just mind boggling. First they experienced a deadly earthquake, then a massive destructive tsunami, followed by a nuclear disaster and contaminative fall out, climaxing with volcanic eruptions.  Each one of these catastrophes by itself would have been enough to send a message to Am Yisrael.

Number nine is a very significant number in Torah. It symbolizes the middah of emes which symbolizes eternity as the passuk says emes tikon la’ad. For emes in mispar katan [which means when broken down to the smallest number by adding up all the digits] is 9 [emes =441]. That is why we find that any multiple of 9 adds up in mispar katan to 9, 18,27,36,45 etc. Nine has that non changing quality just like the middah of emes. All other religions over time change and alter it to fit the times which is not so with Torah.

To keep in the spirit of Purim I want to begin with a short story. An individual who obviously drank too much and was irresponsibly driving his vehicle under the influence of alcohol, was quickly pulled over by the police cruiser after crossing lanes many times. The police officer asked the man to get out of his car  [this was before they carried breath analyzers] and to walk a straight line on the marked divider of the two lanes.