purim

I have to do teshuvah from my ridiculous dvar torah for purim last year, so hopefully this will be better.  I'm still looking for help with this, so any ideas would be really appreciated. I prefer, at least for now, to keep the harsh rhetoric down a level or two, so lets keep it nice.  Thank you.

There are a few questions I had in the rambam concerning purim.

1.  The Rambam names theses halachos hilchos megillah vichanukah - why not hilchos purim vichanuka?  Wouldn't that make more sense, especially given the parallel with chanukah?

2.  The Rambam, in the koteres, says that hilchos megillah vichanukah contains two mitzvos midivrei sofrim.  Presumably, these two mitzvos are mikrah megillah and ner chanukah.  What about the other mitzvos of purim, i.e. mishloach manos, matanos laevyonim, the seudah.  Aren't they also mitzvos midivrei sofrim included in these halachos and therefore they should also be counted in the koteres?

3.  Why don't we make a bracha on the other mitzvos of purim?  Maybe you can kvetch and get out of a birchas hamitzvah on mishloach manos and matanos laevyonim, but you still have to deal with shehechiyanu (and yes, I know that you're supposed to have in mind the other mitzvos of the day when you say shehechiyanu on purim day, but that doesn't answer the question.)

4. The hagahos maymonios brings down from Rav Amram Gaon that one should not say al hanissim in maariv on purim night, because at that point we have not yet lained megillah.  On this the hagahos maymonios asks, why is purim different than any other yom tov, where you say yaaleh viyavo at night even if you havent yet had the seder/ shaken lulav / been mekadesh the chodesh.  The very day of purim is mechayev in al hanissim, so what difference does it make if we have not yet read the megillah.  Can we answer this question?

From all the above, it seems clear that there is really only 1 mitzvah on purim  - and that is megillah.  Everything else - mishloach manos, matanos laevyonim, seudah, and even the entire "kedushas hayom" of purim itself (al hanissim), all stem only from the chiyuv of megillah.

Lets switch focus for a second.  We know that simcha on purim is elevated to an extreme.  And I quote the famous rambam:

...מצות יום י"ד לבני כפרים ועיירות ויום ט"ו לבני כרכים להיותן יום שמחה ומשתה ומשלוח מנות לריעים ומתנות לאביונים.
כיצד חובת סעודה זו שיאכל בשר ויתקן סעודה נאה כפי אשר תמצא ידו. ושותה יין עד שישתכר וירדם בשכרותו.

So a very chashuv person brought to my attention the following question (its well known, but somehow he put a fresh perspective on it that helped me to understand):  There is a stark contrast between the rambam's description of simchah in hilchos lulav and hilchos megillah.  In hilchos lulav, the rambam emphasizes how simcha ba-avodas hashem is "avodah gedolah hi".  Not everyone who wants to participate in this simcha is rauy to do so:

מצוה להרבות בשמחה זו. ולא היו עושין אותה עמי הארץ וכל מי שירצה. אלא גדולי חכמי ישראל וראשי הישיבות והסנהדרין והחסידים והזקנים ואנשי מעשה הם שהיו מרקדין ומספקין ומנגנין ומשמחין במקדש בימי חג הסוכות. אבל כל העם האנשים והנשים כולן באין לראות ולשמוע:

So how can it be that comes purim, and all of a sudden every Tom Dick and Harry is rauy to be misameach and drink until he doesn't know the difference between arur haman and baruch mordechai?  Something just doesn't add up.

It must be that the source of our simcha on yom tov is very different from the source of our simcha on purim. There is more to say about this, but the simcha of yom tov is the simcha in " עשיית המצוה ובאהבת האל שצוה בהן"  - its the simcha that we have taken our lives and transformed them into something meaningful through torah and mitzvos.  Thats not a simcha that anyone can just wake up one day and experience.  Its a simcha that requires years, and really, a full lifetime of effort to be able to truly appreciate - only the true gedolei yisrael can dance at the simchas beis hashoevah.  The rest of us watch the dancing, aspiring to one day have an inkling of what it means to feel a true simcha in עשיית המצוה ובאהבת האל.

What is the simcha of purim?  On purim, klal yisrael faced an existential threat to our existence - we really thought that we were all going to die.  And unfortunately thats what it took, but it brought us all together.  We gathered as one - lech kenos es kol hayehudim - and we begged G-d to spare us.  And G-d answered our prayers, and vinahafoch hu - everything turned upside down, and we were saved.  What a simcha - to appreciate the life that Hashem has given us - to appreciate our fellow Jews, to all come together and rejoice in our salvation -- its really a tremendous simcha.

Its a simcha that, by definition, cannot be limited to only gedolim or yechidei segulah - because its all about achdus and appreciation of all that G-d has given to each and every one of us.  Every year, we come together and we relive our shared history: the mitzvah isn't to simply read the megillah - its to relive it.  As explained above, megillah is the only mitzvas hayom - we relive the story, and mimeila we come together again with mishloach manos, matanos laevyonim, and a joyous seudah.

Don't get me wrong - seudas purim is an integral part of the day, and it is a joyous and (slightly) over the top experience.  But purim is NOT chas vishalom about simcha shel הוללות (the way a certain talmid chacham described it, hashem yerachem.)   It is a simcha because we are so thankful for just our lives, our families, our friends.  The Rambam's penultimate halacha in hilchos megillah almost follows automatically:

מוטב לאדם להרבות במתנות אביונים מלהרבות בסעודתו ובשלוח מנות לרעיו. שאין שם שמחה גדולה ומפוארה אלא לשמח לב עניים ויתומים ואלמנות וגרים. שהמשמח לב האמללים האלו דומה לשכינה שנאמר להחיות רוח שפלים ולהחיות לב נדכאים:

When we appreciate all that G-d has given us, we cant forget those less fortunate.  And the real simcha of purim, says the rambam, is to make even those people happy - to give them too a taste of simchas purim, of the joy in coming together with achdus and hakaras hatov to hashem for everything.  If we do that, then we are truly דומה לשכינה.

We should all be zocheh!

A freilichen purim to all.