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THE ROBES OF HAMAN

by Yossi Katz
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Embroidered into Haman’s cloak was an image of his god,
and whoever bowed to him, bowed to his god (Esther Rabbah 7:5).
God…
The Infinite Creator… The Omniscient One… The Omnipotent One… …desires our earthly service. A paradox… A riddle… …but the axiom of Creation.
And when we allow ourselves to experience that paradox, when we let our souls be aroused by that riddle, we know firsthand the secret of Creation; how enrobed within the halakhah, physical mitzvot, is the experience of God – God in Creation.
But we don’t always see it that way. We sometimes mistake the robes for the enrobed, the halakhah the guide for the destination. We see the mitzvot the garments as the goal, and their structure as the ultimate objective. So rather than serving God in doing the act, we focus on the act of doing and serve it. We make the medium our goal and the 613 Ways our destination (Zohar II, 22b)  And when rather than serve God with joy and trepidation, we become anxious and overconcerned with stringent minutiae, we have forgotten that even the most awesome spiritual beings cannot really serve God the Infinite Creator.
By Rabbi Yehoshua Starret

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