Purim Sameach

Ah, Purim. Hanukkah might be the sweet celebration, but it doesn't hold a candle to Purim for out-and-out madness and revelry. Maybe that's too bad...but maybe that's a good thing. I, for one, couldn't take more than one Purim a year, especially as I get older.

For those who don't know the Purim story, it's a classic in the "They tried to kill us, they failed, let's eat" type of holidays. Instead, though of eating, we drink. Well, we eat, too, but there's a special commandment to drink on Purim in order to accentuate the holiday's joyfulness. In fact, we're supposed to drink until we can't determine the difference between "Blessed is Mordecai, Cursed is Haman." There is a bit of debate about what this means exactly, but suffice it to say that many folks get completely blotto by the end of the night.

To me, the really fun part is the reading of the Megillah in shul. Text readings are normally pretty staid affairs, with people listening respectfully. This all changes with the reading of Megillat Esther. Folks speak out and act out and say inappropriate things, albeit usually quite amusing inappropriate things. Puns, ribadlry, even vulgarity, it's all there, and what with folks in costume and kids running around all over the place, it becomes barely controlled chaos. It's a good thing, really.

That said, my hang-over didn't even start until noon yesterday. /shudder.