15. Ki Tisa 5779: Purim Katan: Sleepless In Shushan

FaceBook: https://www.facebook.com/TheLighthouseProjectMiami/videos/2006250556336926/ Notes: https://www.dropbox.com/s/xzjnfcs8qlw1jcc/15.%20Ki%20Sisa%205779.%20Purim%20Katan%20-Sleepless%20in%20Shushan.pdf?dl=0 Handout https://www.dropbox.com/s/4wz0muotgz6bupx/15.%20Handout%20for%20Ki%20Sisa%205779.pdf?dl=0 -- There is a saying, “What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger.” However, there is also a saying the response saying of, “Dear G-d, I am strong enough, thank You.” We are taught as children, and retaught as adults, that the darkness and hard times in our lives are here to make us stronger. However, when do we get to tell G-d that we are at our preferred weight and muscle mass, without wanting to get any stronger? How can we choose to not have any more darkness, challenges or suffering anymore in our lives? Can we at all say this to G-d? The answer is yes, when we handle the one and only darkness, struggle and suffering of our lives. There is a Chinese proverb that says, “No light is complete without its darkness (shadow).” This is actually a play of a saying of the holy Zohar (-Volume I, 46a) on the verse (-Geneses 1:5), “And it was the evening and the morning of day one,” that in order to have a one [complete] day there must be an evening and a morning; a day [light] and a night [darkness]. So, yes, there is going to be a night (darkness, challenges or suffering) in our lives, whether it be health, financial, mental or emotional. However, what we will learn is that if we deal with it right, then we don’t need to go through it anymore. This lecture is based on a maamor the Rebbe delivered in 1965, about the miracle of Purim, of which the Book of Esther states (-6:1), “On that night, the king's sleep was disturbed.”