Chag Purim! Chag Purim!

Or, a holiday for really, really big kids too.

So, Purim is a fantastic holiday. The basic rundown of the holiday is it celebrates the Jewish victory over Haman and Persian Jew-haters who tried to kill the Jews of Persia, as told in the book of Esther. The book itself is fascinating (one of my favorite biblical books with dense story lines, hidden meanings, and applicable, relevant lessons for Diaspora life today), but also troubling: there’s a lot of drinking, debauchery, killing, and the total absence of God. It’s the most modern (or post-modern) of any biblical book and holiday.

The holiday celebration itself is pretty fascinating. Basically, there are 4 mitzvot of Purim: hear the scroll of Esther read aloud, give gifts to friends, give gifts to the poor (Tzedakah), and enjoy a Purim feast. There’s also the custom of drinking until “One can’t tell the difference between ‘Cursed be Haman’ and ‘Blessed be Mordechai,’” but that’s NOT a commandment. People sometimes get confused.

To celebrate Purim at HUC in Jerusalem, we had a three-pronged celebration.

Prong 1: Purim service and Megillah Reading. Tuesday night, we assembled at school. A group of students organized an evening (Maariv) service/show they called Maariv: The Musical. They took us through a standard service but used modern tock and pop tunes as music for prayers/songs on prayer themes, while telling the story of a young girl named Estehr who wanted to be a star of Shushan Bandstand but the evil producer Haman wanted to wipe out the Jews because the Record Exec Mordy Chai wouldn’t sign his daughter. It was incredibly clever, very funny, and borderline inappropriate. But very, very funny.

The Megillah was read by the cantorial students, a few other rabbinic students ballsy (and talented) enough to learn Meggilat Esther trope (chanting notes), and three faculty members, including a very preggers head of the cantorial program. It was a riotous reading; it takes about an hour to read the whole books, but never before had I seen it read by people who both love reading text so much and are so good at it. What that deadly combination means is they have a lot of fun with it.

Prong 2: Purim Spiel/Beit Café. After the service, we withdrew to the moadoan (student center) for a festive catered dinner and a Purim Spiel. Traditionally, a Purim Spiel is a parody rendition of the Purim story. Because the service we had was more of a mockery of the Purim story, this Spiel was more a Beit Café, or talent show. There were some pretty funny acts (Meredith making fun of Debbie Freidman, me doing HUC-Purim madlibs, Aviv doing a rousing table reading of Shacharit: The Musical [a joke we’ve been making all year based on the broadway-ness of many liturgical music pieces], and Jordan lip-syncing to Nikki singing “Part of Your World). But everyone was pretty drunk y this point, so it really didn’t matter how funny or clever the acts were. Afterwards, a large goup of us went out on the town to experience Purim, Jerusalem-style.

Prong 3: Purim Sudah. One of the mitzvoth of Purim is to enjoy a Purim sudah (meal or feast) on the day of Purim. And since it’s a mitzvah that typically gets ignored (people either are at work or hung-over), I decided to make it happen. On Wednesday, Purim day, I had a few classmates over for a sumptuous, lavish, multiple coursed Purim feast. Here was the menu:

Canapes (cheese, pesto, olive tapanade, caramelized onions)
Mozzarella/red pepper skewers
Pasta Salad with feta
Asian rice noodle and chicken Salad
Tuna Salad (the classic!)
White Bean Salad with cumin
Lemon-Rosemary chicken skewers
Frittata, with zucchini and mushrooms
Roasted potatoes
Savory challah bread pudding, with tomatoes and onions
Melon, Persimmons, Apples
Whiskey-Chocolate Bundt Cake

It was a lot of cooking the day before and that morning, but it was a lot of fun. Ari and Meredith came over to help the morning of with last-minute chopping and mixing and plating. People came and had a really nice time. I was really glad to have done it; I felt like a real person, cooking and entertaining. I feel like I’m growing into my family heritage, doing shit like this at the drop of a hat, because it’s enjoyable. Am I a real person? Someday soon.