Jewish History with Rabbi Dr. Dovid Katz

God can only be comprehended (to some extent) through history, not philosophy!

Why did the Jews stop observing Purim a few years after they originally accepted it?

Has Sinwar ימ"ש caused the death of Khamenei and the fall of his regime? The ironies of the Purim season

Was the mountain held over their heads at Sinai to compel them to accept ALL the mitzvot? Did the Jews not want to accept ANY mitzvot? Or just some of them? In other words, what actually happened as a result of Purim?

Why would he deprecate the use of coercion on the non-frum? The answer lies in his own and his family's history...

וְנָתַתִּי לָהֶם בְּבֵיתִי וּבְחוֹמֹתַי יָד וָשֵׁם טוֹב מִבָּנִים וּמִבָּנוֹת שֵׁם עוֹלָם אֶתֶּן לוֹ אֲשֶׁר לֹא יִכָּרֵת

Had Esther's intervention not succeeded, would Mordechai THEN bow down to Haman to save the Jews?

Managing an unsolvable existential problem - the " זֵכֶר עֲמָלֵק" in every generation,

Who was the ממוכן who recommended הֵגֶא ? The world of varied interpretations of מגילת אסתר

Abarbanel wrote three books on Messianic themes: a,)מַעַיְנֵי הַיְּשׁוּעָה b.) יְשׁוּעוֹת מְשִׁיחוֹ c.) מַשְׁמִיעַ יְשׁוּעָה

When Haman fell from power, did Mordecai gain possession of Haman's "Jeffery Epstein Files"?

Why is שִׂנְאַת חִנָּם the thing that prevents the Rebuilding of the בֵּית הַמִּקְדָּשׁ ?

Both leaders wanted the Jews-by-birth to accept the Torah, and discerned they would be impressed by sight of the non-Jews who now embraced Judaism

Built with forced labor, it doesn't seem to have captured the emotions of כלל ישראל. Instead, separation, במות, etc. Unlike the בַּיִת שֵׁנִי

Malbim's theory of the terminus post quem for the Redemption

R Menachem Tenenbaum (Cleveland) has translated the wonderful סֵפֶר יְשׁוּעָה גְּדוֹלָה (שֶׁהוּא מְלֻקָּט מִסֵּפֶר "יַעֲרוֹת דְּבַשׁ"), which contains the "Agadic Pilpul" on the Purim Story from the Gaon Y. Eibeschutz into readable English...in time for this Purim! https://www.amazon.com/Megillas-Esther-Rav-Yonason-Eybechutz/dp/B0GL96L8DJ

Was it a wave of גֵּרֵי צֶדֶק or an avalanche of opportunists, a new עֵרוּב רַב?

A box never to be opened, a symbol of Divine Mystery?

"Rise intellectually and struggle to comprehend the meaning of the Tetragrammaton." Like any ideal, you cannot get there but you must strive to constantly progress in that direction"

How the King and the High Priest had to come up with a fundraising plan whereby none of the money went to the solicitors! Rather all the $$ went to the Temple Plant refurbishing campaign.

Malbim calculated Mashiach would come in 1927. To be continued...

This is the book that launched (and legitimized!) the rational (non-Kabbalistic) approach to Torah and Judaism. written to rescue the religious Jew "drowning in doubt" (in the author's words)

Jeremiah: "The Destruction of Jerusalem is unstoppable, but your physical torture by the captors IS preventable, IF you do the right thing and free your Hebrew Slaves whom you are holding beyond the six years"

The child who hit his father not knowing it was his father; he was kidnapped at birth!

A tale from the Victorian Era: In 1860 the Druze massacred the Christians in Lebanon, the Muslims massacred the Christians in Damascus, and now the Christians wanted to set-off massacres of the Jews there as well as in Baghdad, but Lord Palmerston & Lord Russel (thanks to Montefiore) prevented this.