Why did the Jewish people defeat Haman on Purim?

Rabbi Landau teaches that Haman paid ten thousand silver talents to wipe out an entire nation, “and he lost.” The reason, he explains, was set in motion long before: “12 years earlier, before anyone knew Haman’s name, the nation gave tzedakah, half a shekel, every person, no exceptions.”

What made that giving so powerful was its reason. It was given “not from fear, not from desperation, from nothing but the fact that it was right.” And when the moment came that they needed it, “nature broke for them.”

Haman’s money was a payment for destruction; the half shekel was a deposit made in advance. That, Rabbi Landau says, is why Purim still opens a window each year to give before we need it.

Going deeper: Rabbi Landau's teaching, level by level

Surface claim

The Jewish people defeated Haman because of the half shekel they gave years before his decree.

What may be behind it

In A Soul at Peace, Rabbi Landau cites our sages: it was known before Hashem that Haman would weigh out coins against the Jewish people, so He made their coins come before his coins.

Deepest human truth

In A Soul at Peace, Rabbi Landau writes that the power was not in the size of the amount but in the timing and reason: giving in a time of calm, simply because it was right.

More questions from this teaching

• Why give tzedakah before you need a miracle?