Highlighting: “The Concealed and the Revealed: The Royal Intrigue and Divine Irony of the Purim Miracle” by Rabbi Daniel Glatstein. Artscroll Mesorah Publications. 2021. English. Hardcover. 524 pages. ISBN-13: 978-1422631072.
(Courtesy of Artscroll) Megillas Esther tells a tale of concealment, a story of deep darkness. The Jewish community’s sin. Haman’s genocidal plot. Esther HaMalka’s fate. Even Hashem’s Name, hidden, never mentioned. Yet, deep darkness … transformed into the great light of Purim.
Today, we experience a very different kind of concealment. Beneath the joy and merriment of our Purim celebrations lie many virtually unknown—and soul-stirring—Torah truths that most of us have never encountered. Truths known to our Sages and Torah commentators, and now revealed to us through the scholarship and brilliance of Rabbi Daniel Glatstein.
Rav and founder of Machon Maggid Harakiah in Cedarhurst, New York, Rabbi Glatstein is one of the contemporary Jewish world’s most popular speakers and respected maggidei shiur. His more than 7,000 recorded shiurim have garnered millions of views on Torahanytime.com and other venues. His Hebrew sefarim, as well, have garnered acclaim throughout the Torah world. Rabbi Glatstein has a masterful grasp of an exceptional array of sefarim and commentaries, and a rare ability to explain profound teachings with remarkable clarity.
In “The Concealed and the Revealed,” we will discover how seminal events throughout history are predicted in the Megillah and the astounding significance of the unusual letter formations. How all of Haman’s plans boomeranged right back at him and how Achashveirosh actually helped finance the rebuilding of the second Beis Hamikdash. We will learn about Eliyahu HaNavi’s mysterious appearances in the Megillah and why only an orphan like Queen Esther was chosen for her role to bring salvation to the Jewish People. So much wisdom, so many breathtaking chiddushim: “The Concealed and the Revealed” is like a generous and beautiful mishloach manot basket to klal Yisrael, filled with delicacies that will nourish our souls and immeasurably enrich our joy on Purim and throughout our lives.
The following is one fascinating excerpt from this scintillating book.
Purim Fest 1946
The year was 1945. World War II had ended. Six million of our brothers and sisters had perished, murdered in cold blood by Germania’s evil and destructive nature that was unleashed on the world. An International Military Tribunal was established in Nuremberg.
Nuremberg was chosen as the site for the war tribunal for several reasons. It had been a hotbed of Nazi propaganda. Many of the Nazis’ rallies had taken place there in 1927 and 1929, and then annually from 1933 through 1938. In addition, the laws stripping Jews of their citizenship were passed there.
In November 1945, in the year תש”ו (the trial had initially been scheduled to begin in June 1945 but was postponed), eleven Nazi war criminals, among others, were brought to trial for their war crimes. They were: Hermann Göring, Hitler’s second-in-command; Wilhelm Frick, the interior minister; Joachim von Ribbentrop, the minister of foreign affairs; Field Marshal Wilhelm Keitel; Ernst Kaltenbrunner, the head of the Gestapo, under whose auspices Rav Elchanan Wasserman Hy”d was murdered; Julius Streicher, the founder and publisher of the virulently anti-Semitic newspaper Der Störmer, which became a central element of the Nazi propaganda machine; Fritz Sauckel; Alfred Jodl; Hans Frank; Alfred Rosenberg, a philosopher who advised Hitler; and Arthur Seyss-Inquart.
Each of them was found guilty and sentenced to be executed. The French judge recommended death by firing squad, but he was overruled. A firing squad was deemed not severe enough a punishment for the atrocious crimes they had committed. It was decided that their sentences would be carried out by hanging.
The sentencing had the desired effect. They expected nothing less than the death penalty, but the hangman’s noose struck a chord within them that served to demoralize them. They understood that this was a very demeaning manner in which to be punished.
The night before the scheduled execution, Hermann Göring committed suicide. The remaining ten Nazis were hanged the following day, on Hoshana Rabbah, October 16, 1946.
Newsweek reported the events of the execution (October 28, 1946):
Only Julius Streicher went without dignity. He had to be pushed across the floor, wild-eyed and screaming, “Heil Hitler!” Mounting the steps, he cried out, “And now I go to God.” He stared at the witnesses facing the gallows and shouted, “Purim Fest, 1946.”
The hanging of these ten reshaim, these ten Amalekim from Germania, was a re-enactment of the Yom Tov of Purim, of the hanging of the Aseres Bnei Haman. Something inside Streicher’s evil soul prompted him to connect the hanging taking place on that day to the events of Purim. The hanging did not take place on Purim, but the event itself was the answer to Esther’s tefillah.
She knew that at some time in the future, the Jewish people would face the cruel brutality of another Haman. We would fall victim to Amalek once again. She beseeched Hashem יִנָּתֵן גַּם מָחָרּ —in the future, grant the Jews victory. Allow us to hang the ten Nazi criminals at that future time, just as the ten sons of Haman have now been hanged.
The ten sons of Haman were hanged again, in Nuremberg. An eleventh committed suicide—as did Haman’s daughter when she jumped to her death after realizing that she had mistakenly poured the chamber pot over her father’s head as he paraded Mordechai through the streets of Shushan.
Ten of Haman’s sons were hanged, and an eleventh child died by suicide. Ten Nazis were hanged, and another died by suicide. The parallel is eerily identical.
