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Created: 12 March 2025

Ole and Lena’s bull took sick and died, so they needed to go to the auction to buy a new one. Ole had to get the crops in and couldn’t leave the farm, so Lena took the Altamont Corridor Express to Escalon to buy a bull. If she was successful, she would take the train back to the farm, then she and Ole would go to town with the truck to pick up their newly purchased bull.

The bidding was furious at the livestock auction, and Lena found herself bidding on the last remaining bull. It took everything she had but ten cents, but she was finally the successful bidder.

Unfortunately, the train home was fifty cents. “Please, Mr. Conductor, couldn’t you make an exception just once?” pleaded Lena. “Sorry lady,” he replied, “but you can send your husband a telegram to tell him your problem. The office is just down the street.”

At the Telegraph office, Lena asked, “Mister, how many words can I send to my husband for a dime?” “It’s ten cents a word,” the clerk answered. Lena pondered her dilemma, then finally said, “OK, here’s da message: “COMFORTABLE.” (i.e. come for da bull)

We send messages every day, by text or email and we really never know how the message will be interpreted, especially when we don’t check for typos or autocorrects. In the Eighth chapter of Megillat Esther, we learn that Haman had the ability to carry out his plan to eradicate the Jewish people from his own grave. Letters were already sent out to all the provinces urging the people to rise up against the Jews on the 13th of Adar (which was yet many months away), and as tradition had it back then “an edict that has been written in the king’s name and sealed with the king’s signet may not be revoked.” (Esther 8:8)

Therefore, Mordechai and Esther devised a plan where a second letter would be sent out in support of the Jewish people, with the hope that the people will follow the second letter over the first. 

Rav. Shlomo Alkabetz (1505 – 1584 Tzfat) in his Manot HaLevi commentary on the Megillah explains that there were three groups of people: the Jews, the Amalakites and the rest of the kingdom’s people, and they were all looking at the first letter, issued at the behest of Haman and the second letter, issued at the behest of Mordechai and Esther. 

The Jews clearly interpreted the second letter as a reversal of Haman’s decree. The Amalakites ignored or reinterpreted the second letter because of the rule that a king will never go back on an edict. The miracle lies in the way the rest of the people dealt with the contradiction. 

Historically speaking, when non-Jews were left to interpret whether to fight against the Jews or support them, they took the side of fighting against them.  Now, ונהפוך הוא,- things turned around -  they decided to support the Jews (or at least sit out the pogrom).

Messaging is such an important piece of our fight against anti-Semitism in the Diaspora, as well as the fight against terror in Eretz Yisrael. There will always be people sending out messages that reflect the sentiment of Haman’s letter and there will always be people for whom those messages resonate, no matter what kind of messages we send. Yet they represent a small minority. The majority of people will see those messages and they will see our messaging and make a decision on their own. 

Obviously, as in the Purim story, we need Siyata D’Shmaya – God’s help. Yet we have a responsibility to make sure that our messaging is loud and clear. If our message is simply “comfortable” (both literally and figuratively), it will be drowned out. If, however, our actions and our words reflect what Rambam (Yeosdei HaTorah 5:12) says about Kiddush HaShem (sanctifying God’s name), “then all will praise him, love him, and find his deeds attractive - such a person sanctifies God's name” the message will resonate throughout the world.

Now, for something connected to the Parasha.

In 2005, Malcolm Gladwell came out with Blink, a book whose premise is that we are constantly making split second decisions using our subconscious. These split-second decisions are often better than thought-out decisions provided that we are prepared in advance to make these decisions — we have trained for the moment, we have experience, we have thought about these scenarios etc.

In 2011, Nobel Prize winner Daniel Kahneman came out with Thinking, Fast and Slow, which the Atlantic called “The Anti-Gladwell.” Kahneman argues that there are two systems in the brain, system 1 and system 2. System 1 is ready to make split second decisions, and system 2 is used for decisions that require more thought. What happens is that people trust their gut and use system 1 for making decisions that require system 2 and that’s when mistakes happen.

In this week’s Parasha, we read about HaShem’s commandment to Moshe to form the second set of Luchot (Tablets):

“HaShem said to Moses: ‘Carve two tablets of stone like the first, and I will inscribe upon the tablets the words that were on the first tablets, which you broke,’” (Exodus 34:1).

The Talmud (Shabbat 87a) teaches that based on the above verse we see that G-d agreed with Moshe breaking the Luchot. Reish Lakish said: The Hebrew word asher (‘which’) is an allusion to the phrase: May your strength be true [yishar koḥakha] due to the fact that you broke the tablets.

Rav. Pinchas HaLevi Horowitz (1731-1805), in his Kabbalistic commentary on the Torah called Panim Yafot, asks: why did HaShem wait until now to give Moshe the yasher koach? Why not tell him right away that he did the right thing by breaking the luchot?

He answers that though the luchot were objectively heavy, a miracle happened that the divinely written letters of the Luchot lifted themselves, making the Luchot relatively light. But, the Sin of the Golden Calf, according to the Midrash (Tanchuma-Ekev #11), caused the letters to fly off the Luchot. Based on this, R. Horowitz suggests Moshe wasn’t sure if his decision to break the Luchot was because he intentionally let them drop or if they were just too heavy to hold now that the letters weren’t there to lighten the load. 

However, when Moshe was given the command to form new stones and carry them up the mountain, he realized that if he can carry the blank stones up the mountain, he can certainly carry them down. It was at the moment when he realized that it was a conscious decision to break the Luchot and therefore, that’s when HaShem needed to give him a yasher koach to assure him that he did the right thing.

What prompted Moshe to make the right split-second decision? Perhaps Kahneman will agree with Gladwell that when it comes to Moshe, his ability to intuit the will of HaShem was on a level that he could have used system 1 for anything. 

Where does that leave us? Perhaps I am oversimplifying the issue, but it seems that the Gladwell-Kahneman debate is one of l’chatchila or b’dieved (optimal or not ideal). Meaning we all are put into situations where a split-second decision needs to be made, and there are a number of factors, including experience, intuition, training, that will help guide those decisions — just ask anyone who is trying to teach their child how to drive. 

There are so many areas of our religious life where this holds true. For example, someone who is familiar with the laws of Lashon HaRa is much better prepared to navigate a conversation that’s headed in the wrong direction. Someone who is familiar with halacha might be better equipped to navigate a situation where someone makes a mistake when reciting a prayer or blessing. And of course, someone who is actively working on being a better person is less likely to snap when someone else makes a bad mistake.

We can never predict what the next moment is going to bring. Yet our whole lives can be seen as preparation for that next moment. The more we grow in our positive character traits and our knowledge, the better prepared will be to get a yasher koach when we are put to the test.