Purim as a Holiday of Freedom (and a Path to Pesach)

The Gemara cites additional homiletic interpretations on the topic of the revelation at Sinai. The Torah says, “And Moses brought forth the people out of the camp to meet God; and they stood at the lowermost part of the mount” (Exodus 19:17). Rabbi Avdimi bar Ḥama bar Ḥasa said: the Jewish people actually stood beneath the mountain, and the verse teaches that the Holy One, Blessed be He, overturned the mountain above the Jews like a tub, and said to them: If you accept the Torah, excellent, and if not, there will be your burial. Rav Aḥa bar Ya’akov said: From here there is a substantial caveat to the obligation to fulfill the Torah. The Jewish people can claim that they were coerced into accepting the Torah, and it is therefore not binding. Rava said: Even so, they again accepted it willingly in the time of Ahasuerus, as it is written: “The Jews ordained, and took upon them, and upon their seed, and upon all such as joined themselves unto them” (Esther 9:27), and he taught: The Jews ordained what they had already taken upon themselves through coercion at Sinai.

(1) After Purim we read the Chapter of Parah, which is a preparation for Pesach. The Chapter of Parah is read so that people will be alerted to purify themselves from the impurity of a corpse, in order to be ritually pure for offering the Pesach sacrifice.

(2) It begins as the concept of pur (lottery), for PuRim is named after the PuR (Esther 9:26). But afterwards it becomes PaRah (cow), because Purim, too, is certainly an approach and path to Pesach.

(3) This is the meaning of “His lips, roses dripping with flowing myrrh” (Song of Songs 5:13). “His lips” is the concept of PeSaCh—Peh SaCh (a mouth that speaks) (as is brought). Shoshanah (rose) is Esther (as is brought in the holy Zohar and the writings of the Ari, of blessed memory). “Dripping with flowing myrrh” alludes to MoRDeKhaI—MoR D’ror (Chulin 139b), which connotes freedom, the freedom of Pesach.

(4) Therefore, the letters which spell Purim are hinted at in the verse about Pesach: “seven days you shall eat matzahs as I have commanded you, at the appointed time of the month of the standing grain, for in it you exited from Egypt, and you shall not appear in My presence empty-handed” (Exodus 23:15). The first letters of MeMitzraim V’lo Yeira’u Panai Reikam (“from Egypt, and you shall not appear in My presence empty-handed”) spell PURYM. This is because Purim is the path to Pesach, so that it is possible to be on the alert against chametz. {The Rebbe stopped in the middle of this idea and did not reveal more.}

(5) For, initially, all beginnings were from Pesach. This is why all the mitzvot are “a commemoration of exiting Egypt.” But now… {the Rebbe did not complete this}.