A person is obligated to ‘spice’ himself (drink wine) on Purim until he does not know the difference between “cursed is Haman” and “blessed is Mordechai” (Talmud Megillah 7b).

Here a famous passage from the Talmud that has been dutifully followed by Jews for thousands of years. There are great debates and a variety of opinions as to how much drinking is involved in this Mitzvah. It would seem the standard is pretty steep. One would have to be far gone not to know the difference between the holiest personality of the generation and that poster child of wickedness.

There are a multitude of approaches. One simple one is that after drinking some wine, not only is speech slurred but the power of reasoning may also become impaired. There is a numerical calculation that can serve as a sobriety test, much like walking a straight line works for the local policeman. If one would be required to figure out the difference between the numerical value of Boruch Mordechai and Arur Haman, employing only mental math, it might prove too challenging for the moderately inebriated individual. The answer, oddly enough is that both Boruch Mordechai and Arur Haman are exactly 502. Figure it out yourself! Now, what is the difference between Boruch Mordechai and Arur Haman? What is the 502 minus 502? Zero!

Maybe we can say that a person should drink until they don’t know ZERO! What does that mean? How does one not know ZERO? When I tested children to enter school, I would employ a series of questions and thinking tasks. I would often ask a young child to count to ten and then I would ask them to count backwards. Usually, they would stop at one and I would always ask, “What comes before one?”

Most would get it, “Zero!” Then I would ask, “Is zero a number or a concept?” It was always cute when some little five-year-old would pick up on my language queue and say without really knowing what they were saying, “it’s a concept”. I would tell them that they can have a nice discussion at the Shabbos table about that. Then I would ask, “Is infinity a number or a concept?” Even the parents were feeling confounded at that point. Now, that’s a discussion for the Purim seudah.

How much one needs to drink to come to the point where, as the song goes, “Ad d’lo yada” – “until you don’t know”? I don’t know and I don’t know why it is so difficult to come to the point where you don’t know. Why do we even need wine for that? There are so many things that we don’t know. I don’t know how a cell works. I have no idea how they replicate even though there are 60 trillion of them in my body. I don’t know how a cell phone works. I can’t figure out how to keep the cellophane wrap from becoming entangled. If everything I needed to survive required my knowing about it, I wouldn’t last too long.

Even If I was the biggest genius and I possessed all encyclopedic knowledge and I knew everything that there is to know from human exploration, there would still be so much I don’t know! Einstein famously said, “As the circle of knowledge ever expands so does the circumference of darkness that surrounds it.” So, maybe it has to do with admitting that you don’t know and humbly submitting one’s self and surrendering that we are not really under control of much and there is so much we don’t know.

Here’s another approach. There are two types of not knowing, just like there are two types of silence. There is a silence that is below knowledge, like when during spelling bee in elementary school, you stood frozen like Bambi on the highway with the headlights bearing down, when asked to spell the word laugh, and you didn’t know if it was spelled “Laf” or “Laff”. Then There is a silence that’s beyond knowledge, like when one’s mind begins to open up to the concept of infinity; an “Ohr AYN SOF” – an ocean of endless light! Now, one is intoxicated with an Awe AYN SOF! That might require a little rocket fuel to exit the orbit of pedestrian thinking. I heard from the Lubavitcher Rebbe himself, “Any number no matter how large is still infinitely shy of infinity!”

The sages tell us that when the wine goes in, (Yayin is the numerical value of Sod) the secret comes out. A real secret, you can say aloud and it will remain a secret. You can tell everyone about this. A slice of infinity is in each and every one of us. It’s hidden like HASHEM is and the jelly in the hamantaschen. With only a few sips of wine, the deepest truth is revealed, an AWE AYN SOF.