DIGGING OUT DIAMONDS FROM THE MUD

"Why are you so surprised to find evil and corruption running amok everywhere you look?
This world is the coarsest and harshest of all worlds, the ultimate concealment of the Infinite Light. Almost all of it is darkness and emptiness. Only a tiny spark of good is buried deep within to sustain it. You could spend your lifetime dwelling on the outrages and scandals, the travesties and the rip offs…—or your could take a moment to search for that spark. You could find it, grasp it, fan its flame. From within its aura, you will see the darkness shining brighter than the heavens. In that moment of light, the night will never have been."
[Chabad.org]

A night that is alive with the light of a new moon, a Rosh Chodesh is our holiday predictably once a month. It comes on schedule every month to bring us out of the night. To set aglow our darkness, to change the sorrow into celebration, to brighten our outlook, to give us hope.

We have 8 day Holidays in the Jewish religion, not just one or two day holidays, we have a significant quantity as well as quality of celebrations, with Pesach coming right after Purim. Purim as a time to destroy the bad guy, to bring us lightness away from the evil of Haman, as we approach the holy Holiday of Pesach, to celebrate no longer being slaves to the Egyptians.

There were 10 Plagues, and they sent the Pharaoh running amok. The brightness of our nights, the darkness of slavery that is no longer in our lives, as we Jews are the one percent of the world leading it with the spark of the holy, of the Divine.

We learned our lessons well, as we study Torah and always have yet something to learn that we do not know, always eager to search, find, fulfill, and flourish, we teach what we learn, and the world gets better as we get better. Not trying to change what we cannot change, not to fret over it.

Having a positive attitude towards life, a smile for everyone we meet, to continue to learn and to teach, to find students groveling in the mud as they look for diamonds, and then to come out of the mud, to brush oneself clean, and to appreciate the diamonds that they have found, that we have shown to them.

To find a diamond mine in your own backyard, to love it and to stay with it, cleaning it, not allowing the mud to come in between you and G-d, even if it is everywhere and dirties others. To separate yourself from the dirty, and to always come out clean.

To wash your hands 3x with a separate vessel, chanting the Hebrew hand washing blessing, and to drown out the name of Haman, to clean your cupboard of all chametz, and so in  this way, to be united with other Israelites.

To overcome all evil, to always be in and with the good. To only always worship the singular One Almighty G-d of Abraham and Sarah, the one and only G-d who is everyone's G-d.