They tried to kill us. They failed. Let's eat.
I wish I could be as brief, but my description of Purim in Israel requires a deeper exposition. This holiday in the land of the Jews is a complex cross pollination among multiple world events, with several mutations. Think Mardi Gras in New Orleans meets Carnaval in Brazil meets Halloween in the US, with a hint of Hanukkah and a dab of crazy. It's a week-long holiday filled with costumes, joy, parties, gift giving, parades, festivities, and rituals. A week I'm sure the kids will remember for a long time and will sorely miss in years to come. It's the Purim I grew up with as a young child in Haifa, and which is unique to Israel.
The week leading up to Purim was filled with holiday-related activities at school. The children dressed up in costumes one day, celebrated upside-down day another (I still haven't figured out what that means), wore special colors, and silly outfits yet another time. Every day had its theme. On the streets, people of all ages wore costumes the entire week. It was so strange to walk down a wide boulevard in downtown Tel Aviv and to encounter at least 30% of the adults in elaborate costumes, walking along as though nothing was unusual.
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| Cleopatra |
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| Ninja |
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| Sponge Tamara Square Pants |
Like all Jewish holidays, the celebration begins at sundown the night before. On Erev Purim, we ate an early dinner with my parents and another friend from our congregation and then walked over to the community center that houses our conservative shul in Ramat Aviv Gimel. I was probably the only person not in costume. Even my parents surprised me by dressing up.
The primary ritual of Purim is the reading of Megilat Esther, the scroll containing the story of Purim. We arrived at services for the Megilah reading a bit early. The sanctuary consisted of a room with about 75 chairs by my estimation. By the time services were set to begin, it appeared that twice that many people showed up, including a delegation of high school students from the United States whose counselor was less than pleased about the accommodations. Our quick thinking Rabbi came up with a solution, and we began passing chairs from one end of the room out the window in the back, where someone received them and stacked them into piles. Soon, we had a side of the room with chairs for those who needed them, and most of the shul was standing room only. Ad libbing is one of the most crucial skills in Israel, and I give the Rabbi high marks.
The Megliah reading, if done properly, is one of the most entertaining and enjoyable activities in Judaism, and I dare say in the entire world, at least what I've seen of it. When I was growing up in Nashville, the congregants used to literally flip the Rabbi three times throughout the service, as the rest of the congregation cheered on. It is a mitzvah (commandment) to drink so much on Purim that you get drunk. In our Orthodox synagogue that I attended as a child, no mitzvah was observed with such dedication, fervor and enthusiasm as this one. After all, we were commanded to drink, so bottoms up!
As the reader recites the story of Purim from the Megilah, with a special tune that is only used on this holiday, the children are at the ready. Armed with noisemakers and groggers, they hang on every word waiting for that infamous name whose utterance will send the place into a wild and raucous frenzy. In my synagogue in Nashville, there was a game played where the reader pretended to try to say haman's name so fast that the children would miss it, and he would continue. Of course, the kids always caught him. But here, there was no such play. Before the first utterance of that evil name, the reader built up to a crescendo and exclaimed, "HAMAN!!" and then paused. And we broke loose. People shouted their boos, while others banged on anything that would make noise. The groggers spun while parents for once encouraged their children to make as much noise as possible. The remainder of the evening, every time the reader said, haman, the noise would repeat, the intensity rising, as the parents' enthusiasm for the noise level gradually decreased.
The Rabbi here added an interesting element to the reading. Between chapters, children performed Purim songs on various musical instruments. We were given two week's notice, but Benny and Tamara worked hard and prepared songs. Benny rocked the house with Chag Purim on the piano. It was actually pretty incredible. He played it loudly and really well, and the entire room sang along. I could see he was having a blast. Tamara decided to play her song on the recorder, an instrument that she learned to play in school here. She played the same song, and everyone sang along as well.
On Purim day, we went to the nearby city of Holon to view the largest Purim day parade in the country. The population of Tel Aviv is about 400,000, and it seemed all of them beat us there. I was unable to find legal parking, and rather than describe what I did with the car, let's just say that my photograph is hanging prominently in the Holon post office. Wanted! …for extreme parking behavior. We walked to the center of town where we utilized the cell phone algorithm to successfully find my parents, perhaps the latest in a string of miracles performed by God in Israel. It was the biggest parade I've ever witnessed. While I'm not a huge fan of crowds, this experience was worth it, except for the part where Elana and I freaked out as we were caught in a mob trying to go in the opposite direction of another mob. We were trapped for several minutes in a sea of bodies all seemingly with the intent of getting from one side of us to the other, with the incorrect assumption that going through us was quicker than going around us.
As fate would have it, Purim this year was also Elana's 12th birthday. We celebrated by going to dinner with my parents and our friends the Gevas. We had a long table at Max Brenners, and the kids (and their parents and grandparents) pigged out on chocolate-based delicacies. Outside, we were treated to a parade of party goers in outrageous costumes heading to a club next door where a high faluten Purim party was getting underway.
When we came to Israel for a year's Sabbatical, I anticipated that Purim, along with Independence Day, would be one of the highlights of our experience, and my expectations were exceeded. What a week!
