In the story of the "Master of Prayer," The King possesses a hand which has engraved on it all the roads and paths in the world. On this hand are also found the paths between different worlds. The paths by which Moshe, Eliahu and Chanoch went up to heaven are inscribed on it. The paths to heaven traveled by Basya bas Paro, who merited to go up to heaven with her body in the merit of the tremendous danger she took upon herself by saving and raising up Moshe Rabbenu, and Serach bas Asher, who revealed to Yaakov that Yosef was still alive, are on this hand. There are paths by which each and every person in the world can travel up to heaven. 
    The people closest to finding their path are the converts. After all the suffering that they have gone through in finding the path to Judaism, leaving behind their family, people, and country, they have the best chance of finding their path to heaven. Even baalei tshuva--those that return to a religious life--have family, and grandparents: they start off with at least some footing. 
    The book Yetev Lev asks, why is it written in the Gemara, "Pinchas is Eliahu?"  Surely, since Pinchas was the one who came first, so it should say, "Eliahu is Pinchas!" The fact is that Eliahu was actually an angel, and therefore he had been created before Pinchas. Thus, one can say, "Pinchas is Eliahu." However, the Midrash Rabbah relates, that because Eliahu did not go to Yiftach to repeal his oath (Shoftim, 11:30), he disappeared for two hundred years, his ruach hakodesh was removed from him, and only after two hundred years of hisbodedus (meditation) was he able to raise himself back up, and become Eliahu, on the level of an angel. 
    Eliahu was the angel Sandalfon. Chanoch was the angel Metatron. They were each leaders of the two groups that, as the Gemara relates, argued against making man at the time of the creation. Hashem had asked them their opinion, and they had requested more information, "what will be the nature of this man?" Hashem had answered them the he will have an evil inclination and will do sins. As is recalled in Tehillim, " Ma enosh ci tizkarenu." "What is the point of creating a man that You should even think about him," being that he is going to sin?  Hashem burnt up all the angels with His finger, apart from the two leaders, whom He threw down to earth, where they became Eliahu and Chanoch, so that they would be able to see the power of the evil inclination and how would they be able to stand up against it! 
    The evil inclination is a fire. In Melachim I (18:37), Eliahu says to Hashem, "veata hasibota et libam achronit," "Hear me Hashem...that You have turned the heart of this people back again." The Gemara (Brachos 31b) explains that this is a kind of accusation against Hashem: why did He create the evil inclination so powerful! Hashem Himself requests that we bring an atonement for Him for two things: that He decreased the size of the moon, and that He created the evil inclination so powerful. 
     Only the greatest  tzaddikim are able to stand up against their evil inclination.  Namely these are: Moshe, who was the aspect of Nefesh, Rebbe Shimon bar Yochai, who was Ruach, The Arizal, Neshama, The Baal Shem Tov, Chiya, and Rebbe Nachman, Yechida. (Here the Rav related the story of the Baal Shem Tov who was walking in the mountains one time in a dvekus, and came close to falling off the edge of a mountain.  A second mountain then came and joined up to the first, so that he should be able to continue his walk without interruption.) Each one was on a higher level than the previous one, therefore Rebbe Nachman was able to stand in any test. Rebbe Nachman begged Hashem to test him, as he was certain that as long as he had the slightest amount of intelligence left inside him, he would never fail.
        It is written in the Zohar that Hashem asked Moshe (Shemos 14:15), "Why are you shouting to me?" Ba Attika talia milta, "the matter is dependent on heaven and not on you. Moshe only gazed at the level of Attik, but Rabbenu actually reached the level of Attik Yomin. These five tzaddikim were all actually the same tzaddik, that each time returned with a greater level of revelation.
         King David asked Hashem to test him. Hashem answered him that he would not be able to stand in the test.  Later he was given the test of Bat Sheva, which apparently he failed. In truth, he could have stood in it, but since Hashem had already told him that he would not, he failed deliberately in order to prove Him right.
         It is the mission of the Jews to shine a light to the nations. As it says in the verse (Isaiah 60:3), "vehalichu goyim leorecha,"--"the nations shall walk in your light." The nations should see the light of Israel and do tshuva, repent.  Hashem does not want to punish them. The Rabbis teach that one of the reasons that on Rosh Hashanah we blow 100 shofar blasts is to fix the 100 cries of the mother of Sisera that she cried when she heard that her son had been killed. Why do we have to fix her cries? The answer is because we sinned, and therefore Hashem sent Sisera to war against us. Because of this, Sisera had to die, and that is why his mother cried. However, if we had not sinned, Hashem would not have had to send him, and she would not have cried, so we are responsible. The nations look to us to set them an example of how to behave, and when we do not do our part, they hate us and kill us. 
    In Shemos 6:12, Moshe Rabbenu says to Hashem, "if the people of Israel are not willing to listen to me, why should Paro?" The Noam Elimelech asks what sort of a kal vechomer (inferring from a lenient matter to a stricter one) is this? Granted, Israel were unable to pay attention to Moshe, as brought three verses earlier, because of the "anguish of spirit and cruel servitude" that they were suffering, but surely Paro should certainly have taken him seriously. Especially after, as the Midrash relates, he had seen the staff of Moshe swallow all the staves of the Egyptian magicians, and was terrified that maybe it would swallow him also. Furthermore, it says in Shemos 4:31, that "the people did believe (in Moshe) and bowed and prostrated themselves." 
    In truth, the people were divided into three groups. The first, who were neither interested in listening to Moshe nor in leaving Egypt, all died in the plague of darkness. The second, the most simple people, certainly did believed in the Tzaddik, as quoted from parshas Shemos 4:31. The final group, the tzaddikim, were the ones that were suffering from the "anguish of spirit."  They did not believe in the path of Moshe, of serving Hashem with songs and dancing. They wanted hard work, not happiness: fasts and sufferings, dedication to learning. They didn't understand that it is only through the songs and dancing that serving Hashem and Gemara learning are raised up to the Shechina. This is the explanation of the verse, "If the people of Israel will not listen to me." That is, if they are not willing to serve Hashem through singing and dancing as opposed to undergoing all kinds of sufferings, then "how will Paro listen to me," i.e. how am I going to conquer him and bring out Israel from the Egyptian slavery!
         People are fasting now, during the weeks of Shovavim (it is a custom to fast during the eight weeks from parshas Shemos onwards). They can be satisfied that they are atoning for sins, but without singing and dancing, it will not bring the geula (the redemption.)
         A similar argument took place between King David and his advisor Doeg. King David used to sing and dance to Hashem from midnight until the morning. Doeg complained that surely it was a waste of time that should have been spent learning Torah. David answered him, "You also are happy, but  your happiness is when you damage someone, and mine is in Hashem."
         In another 80 days it will be Purim, which has an element of everything being the exact opposite of what it seems.  As it says in Megillas Esther 9:1: "The day came when the enemies of the Jews had hoped to conquer them. Everything  was overturned, and it was the Jews who conquered their enemies." Similarly the tzaddik is the opposite of what we understand: he is the only one who understands things exactly as they are. Mordechai had told Esther not to reveal to the King from which nation she came. She could not imagine how she was going to observe such an instruction. Surely the King would punish her for such impertinence. How can a person not know from which nation he is from?
    However, the King was looking for precisely that: a wife that did not know her own people. When Esther revealed to him that she was unaware of her background, even though he did not believe her, he was delighted that she was too embarrassed to tell him, for then she could never come to think that she was greater than him. Vashti, who was a granddaughter of Nevuchadnetzer, had constantly teased him that she had a far greater lineage than him, that he was nothing, and that he had even been a slave to her father. She also observed how her father had been able to drink barrels of wine without becoming drunk, while Achashverosh would fall on the floor after only one glass. For years he had been searching for the opportunity to kill her, and was determined not to make the same mistake twice. Next time, he would be certain not to take a king's daughter, but a simple woman, with no special lineage. Esther said that she did not know from which nation she came, and it was precisely for this reason that she found favor in his eyes. 
    Similarly, Esther herself had prayed for three days that the situation would be overturned, that from Achashverosh loving Haman and raising him up to the highest position in the kingdom, the King himself should decide to kill him. This is in fact how it turned out.  First, the King started to get the idea into his head that Esther wanted to marry Haman. Then he had a dream that Haman killed him. The next thing that happened was that Haman came to the court in the middle of the night, an unheard of behavior, and then had the incredible impertinence to demand the King's crown for himself (Megillas Esther 5:6-8) when asked what should be done to a man that the king wants to honor...let the crown be placed upon his head... Even before Esther had told Achashverosh about Haman, the King had already decided to kill him, and this is the question that he asked her (Megillas Esther 7:5), "Who is he? And where is he?" which the Midrash explains him as saying, "whoever it is...tell me it is him!"
        Mordechai had told Esther to "go tonight and speak to the king." The Midrash teaches that this was said on Erev Pesach. Esther wanted to wait another eleven months, until the actual time of the decree. She could not understand what was the hurry? She said that soon we will be burning the chometz, and all the evil will be burned up with it. Reb Pinchas from Koritz connects the ten pieces of chometz we hide, in order to find them during the search, and which we then burn in the morning, to the ten sons of Haman. The trouble was that she was living in the castle and did not know much about what was going on outside, but Mordechai knew that the common people would never wait the eleven months till the date of the decree, and that they would start the killing of the Jews immediately. Exactly the same as that which happened in the time of the Holocaust, when the goyim could not wait until the Germans came and conquered their country, before they started killing the Jews.

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