I am a big baseball fan. I’m a bigger Israel fan. Hatikvah gets me each and every time. Put them together and you get some magic that the world witnessed at the World Baseball Classic this past week. The Israeli team, after a win against Chinese Taipei in Seoul, South Korea, followed protocol for these games and stood at attention on the foul line as Hatikvah was played. Each member of the Israeli team – a group of second rate Jewish ballplayers (none currently in the Major Leagues unlike most other teams) – surprised the world and donned custom-made kippot which they wore during the playing of Israel’s national anthem.

Any lover of Judaism and the Jewish state cannot help but be moved to the core by that inspiring act of Jewish patriotism. The players on the team – some, if not many, are not halachically Jewish – have identified with Team Israel and their joint endeavor. For some this may be the most Jewish thing they have ever done or will ever do.

The 2014 Pew Report on American Jewry demonstrated that American Jews have a very high level of pride in being Jewish, somewhere in the 90% area. This is much higher than almost anything else Jews do across the board. It is the key for Jewish outreach and engagement; to find Jews when they are proud and connect that ethnic pride with a life of Torah and mitzvos and a reintroducing them to the God of Israel.

I sensed this connection in the second verse of the Parshah:

"באהל מועד מחוץ לפרכת אשר על העדת יערך אתו אהרן ובניו מערב עד בקר לפני ה' חקת עולם לדרתם מאת בני ישראל" (שמות כ"ז:כ"א)

“In the Tent of Meeting outside the curtain, which is before the Testimony, Aaron and his sons shall order it (the Menorah) from evening to morning before the Lord; it shall be a statue forever to their generations on behalf of the people of Israel” (Shmos 27:21)

Why does the Menorah’s location need to be connected to the Ark within the Holy of Holies? The Menorah, the Table and the Golden Incense Altar were all in the “Holy” section (as opposed to the Holy of Holies.)

I believe that the Menorah, which represents the illumination of Torah and higher intellectual pursuit, has to be inextricably connected to the Ark, which served as the heartbeat of the nation. The Ark contained the Tablets of law (and the broken ones); a jar of Manna; the Torah that Moshe himself wrote. We must always be able to connect every Jewish act with the essence of what it means to be Jewish.

Last week we spoke of the Mishkan being an attempt to recreate Revelation at Sinai in the Jewish Camp. Others see the Mishkan as paralleling a Jewish home, having a washing basin, a table, illumination …

The Holy of Holies then, perhaps, would be the most intimate, such as one’s bedroom.

Long ago I realized that Purim and beds make strange bedfellows.

"אמר רבא: מיחייב איניש לבסומי בפוריא עד דלא ידע בין ארור המן לברוך מרדכי." (מגילה ז:)

“Rava stated, a person is required to become intoxicated on Purim until they are incapable of differentiating the phrases ‘blessed is Mordechai’ and ‘cursed is Haman’” (Megillah 7b).

The very same Aramaic word for Purim means a bed.

"אמר רב יהודה אמר שמואל בהני תלת מילי עבידי רבנן דמשנו במלייהו: במסכת, ובפוריא ובאושפיזא" (בבא מציעא כ"ג:-כ"ד.)

“Rav Yehudah said in the name of Shmuel: In only these three matters is it the practice of rabbis to deviate in their speech from the truth: in regard to knowledge of a tractate’ in regard to matters of the bed, and in regard to hospitality” (Bava Metzia 23b-24a).

Regarding puraya, matters of the bed, Rashi explains that due to the privacy of intimate matters between husband and wife, one may alter the truth to maintain confidentiality and discretion.

If Puraya can mean both Purim and bed, we must ask ourselves two questions: first, what is the connection between the two terms and second, can we use the various definitions alternatively?

To answer the second question first, the RaMA famously suggests that one fulfill the ‘intoxication’ at the meal by taking a nap, i.e. on a bed.

"ויש אומרים דאין צריך להשתכר כל כך, אלא ישתה יותר מלמודו ויישן, ומתוך שישן,  אינו יודע בין ארור המן לברוך מרדכי..." (הגהות הרמ"א על שו"ע או"ח תרצ"ה:ב)

“There are those who say one need not get intoxicated so much, but rather, should drink a little more than usual and then go to sleep. While sleeping, one does not know the difference 'between blessed is Mordechai and cursed is Haman'” (Comments of the RaMA on Shulchan Aruch Orach Chayim 695:2).

The Mishnah Brurah concurs with the ruling of the Rama. The Mishnah Brurah also rules that one must be able to recite the grace after meals after the Purim meal and to pray the evening service after the Purim meal. In the New York Metropolitan area, Hatzolah,  - the volunteer ambulance corps founded within the Satmar community of Williamsburg  that has spread through major Jewish communities around the country - places full page ads in the Jewish papers asking people to drink responsibly and describe how people injure themselves and even kill themselves due to alcohol on Purim. A week ago I was speaking to one of the rabbis of my shul and a mentor of mine, Rabbi Dr. Aaron Glatt, who is renowned as a physician and a proud expert voice of Jewish medical ethics. He told me that the non-Jewish nurses know to expect on Purim Jewish people coming to the hospital on gurneys because they drink far in excess of the need and their abilities on Purim. This is a monumental Chillul Hashem.

What is the root of the word puraya? The Sages explain that the term relates to the mitzvah of pirya v’rivya, “being fruitful and multiplying,” i.e. procreating. A bed is traditionally the venue for fulfilling the mitzvah. I heard from Rabbi Shalom Rosner that one of the traditional behaviors of a Jewish mourner is to overturn their bed – k’fiyas hamita. Somehow this degraded the mourner. Today,  Rabbi Soloveitchik explained, we cover the mirrors, fulfilling the same idea. The bed is a place of vanity which can be sanctified.

Using the transitive law, Purim must also have a connection to beds and procreation. Indeed it does.

The first main turning point in the Purim narrative is when Achashveirosh can’t sleep and his servants begin reading to him the history books. After all, what else could put someone to sleep? At the end of the story, Achashveirosh sees Haman pleading for his life on Esther’s bed, eliciting the famous response, “Now you want to conquer the queen while I am right here, in the house?” (Esther 7:8). The next verse, which gets the noisiest response in many shuls, declares that Haman was hanged on the very tree he had prepared for Mordechai.

Purim is a celebration of our physical continuity. Haman tried to destroy the Jewish people not through assimilation, like at Chanukah, but physically. So much of the Purim story revolves around parties and physical destruction. In modern day, all would associate physical genocide with Adolph Hitler, y’mach shmo. But let’s not forget that Joseph Stalin, y’mach shmo, another 20th century butcher, sucked the soul out of Russian/Soviet Jewry for decades. It has been related that the two toys of Chanukah and Purim also teach us a profound lesson. The dreidel’s handle faces up: the gragger’s handle faces down. The miracle we celebrate on Chanukah came supernaturally from God, when we faced spiritual annihilation. On Purim, when the threat to the Jews was a physical one, God’s Face was hidden; it came from down on earth, appearing as “fate” or just a series of coincidences.

As we encounter yet another Purim, let us remind ourselves of our Jewish patriotism, which ultimately means we believe with all of our heart and pride that God directs the destiny of Jewish history, and does so behind the scenes, often making it look like nature. He eschews the supernatural. He allows the believer to find His Hidden Hand.

On Purim, we are those Believers. Let us illuminate His Hand and share with all our brothers and sisters how privileged we are to be of the Children of Israel.

A very happy Purim.