* Translation by Yehoshua Siskin
Happy Purim from Jerusalem! Here in Jerusalem, Purim is celebrated today. The following thought from Rav Kook concerns the month of Adar and the fact that in walled cities like Jerusalem, Purim is celebrated a day later than everywhere else.
“Those who mention walled cities that stood in the days of Yehoshua Bin Nun will not remain slaves to Achashverosh.”
In other words, a nation that remembers when a wall surrounded its capital city cannot remain enslaved. Those connected to their past, to their roots, will always be free.
There is a tendency, perhaps, to think that a free person is one who throws off restraints of burdensome traditions and does not need to take into account what previous generations did. Is such a person not free? Yet Rav Kook explains that those connected to their past, who remember the history of their people, are the ones who merit never to be enslaved but rather to stay completely free.
Shabbat shalom.
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