It was on Purim 1956, 66 years ago, when the Rebbe raised the question why would we want people to lose their minds and not remember that “Haman is cursed” on the holiest day of the year?! The Rebbe’s answer was life-changing. Watch Rabbi YY Jacobson present the explanation in this lecture given yesterday in Monsey.
Why did Haman feel the need to kill every last Jew and not just Mordechai? Why did Hitler murder even Jewish atheists who were more German than Germans? Why did he feel compelled to destroy even the Jewish corpses after they were gassed? What Purim teaches us about Jewish identity, Jewish history, and who we are as a people and as individuals.
All trauma is the result of a mind that has been distorted by self-beliefs that cripple it. On Purim, we are invited to become cycle breakers, to allow our internal mental chatter to be silenced, as we open ourselves up to the Self that is not filtered by our limited tools of self-perception.