By Rabbi Yair Hoffman for 5TJT.com

There are a remarkable pshatim that one can think about when preparing the Shalach Manos.  But first a question.  With what power did Haman succeed in getting his agenda passed?

The answer is that he pointed out to Achashveirosh – “yeshno am echad mefuzar umeforad bein ha’amim bechol medinos malchusecha – there is one nation scattered and separated from all the nations in all the states of your realm.”  He pointed out the division within us.  The Chasam Sofer points out that the word yeshno means that we are sleeping – we are thus sleeping in our achdus.

What does mishloach manos do?  It points out that we are indeed, One – we have an Achdus that no other nation has and this mishloach manos awakens us to it.  We are united in our love for each other.  This undoes the power of Haman and Amalaik.

There is a fascinating Targum Yonasan that is found in a different megillah that of Megilas Rus.  Boaz mentions the fact that Rus both joined up with the Jewish nation (an amazing thing – being that she was a foreign princess) as well as did chessed with her mother-in-law.  The fact that they were both mentioned together indicates that they were both on the same level of piety.

Now hold on one second.  Imagine if a British princess, Princess Diana or someone like her, were to leave her royalty and join up in Lakewood as  kollel wife – availing herself of WIC and HUD.  It would be earth-shattering news.  And yet it did happen.  It happened with Rus.  What a remarkable accomplishment!

But from this Targum Yonasan we see an even more remarkable chidush.  The chessed she did with her mother-in-law was equal to the first accomplishment!  What we see from here is that there is no limit to what we can put into a Mitzvah.

Let’s think about what we can, therefore, accomplish with Mishloach Manos.  In preparing them, we can counter the power and tumah of the sonai Yisroel – of the Hamans of the world, by showing our achdus.

So let’s prepare, bake new, repackage, whatever it is that we do – all with intense kavana.  We should have the kavana of achdus.

Now just one more pshat.  The Nesivus HaMishpat in his sefer on Megilas Esther explains that Purim is different from all the other yomim tovim – in that the ge’ulah did not come on account of zchus avos like on Pesach.  Rather, it came from the individual teshuvah of each member of Klal Yisroel.  He, therefore, explains that they enacted Mishloach manos as an expression of Hakaras haTov to each other – a manifestation of the gratitude we need to show all of our brethren for bringing about the ge’ulah then.  We can also have this idea in mind too.  And the sky is the limit in terms of the intensity of the kavanah that we have.

Everyone should have a freilechen and dveikus-filled Purim!

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