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February 26, 1999/10 Adar 5759, Vol. 51, No. 22
Get down and party, with God and Esther
ANITA DIAMANT
Special to the Jewish News
Purim is almost here. Have you got your costume yet? Your mask? Your atomic noisemaker?
Yeah, I'm talking to you: Mom, Dad, Gramps, Bubbe.
I understand your confusion. Purim is the premiere pediatric Jewish observance in America. The tots are adorable as Esther and the King, parading around at the synagogue Purim carnival, lining up for their tickets, ring toss, and trinkets. Cute, cute, cute. Also wrong, wrong, wrong.
Call me the Purim Scrooge, but I gotta say it: Purim is wasted on the young.
For one thing, they just don't need it as much as we do. Toddlers laugh 5,276 times a day; grown-ups fewer than six times a day. I'm sure you've seen this statistic before. The science behind the numbers may be of dubious origin, but the message rings true. Purim is Judaism's attempt to correct this miserable imbalance - at least for one day.
Besides, Purim did not start out as a kiddie holiday. Take a look at the Book of Esther, for crying out loud. A bawdy burlesque that deserves an R-rating for its depiction of drunkenness, harem sexuality, and violence.
And then there's the fact that we're supposed to get falling-down, drooling stupid drunk on Purim - so drunk we can't tell the difference between Henry Hyde and Barney Frank. Purim means it's okay to gamble, too. The word purim comes from pur, which means "lot," as in, "What the heck. Let's bet the whole lot on red."
Purim has room for cute kids, but it also requires the grown ups to cavort and giggle, to sing "Adon Olam" to the tune of "I've been Working on the Railroad," to read Mad Magazine from the bimah (platform), and to look up the jokes in the Talmud (Bava Batra 23b and Berachot 8b). I kid you not.
Once a year, Purim comes along to remind us to stop posing as a nation of priests, to wipe the smirk off our collective face, and to replace it with an idiotic grin. Get down and boogie with You-Know-Who, who certainly digs Purim. How else do you explain the belief that Purim will be the only Jewish holiday still celebrated after the messiah arrives and redeems the world? Not Yom Kippur. Not even Passover.
God must know we need to keep laughing at ourselves, no matter what. And if Purim is a keeper in this world, maybe the world to come will turn out to be a friendly asylum, staffed by the Marx brothers, assisted by the likes of Molly Picon, Henny Youngman, and Lenny Bruce - whose collective memory is a riot.
This is serious nonsense! If your rabbi doesn't do a disreputable funky chicken on Purim, your rabbi ought to get the hook.
Slip that seltzer bottle up your sleeve. Take my tsuris, please.
Anita Diamant, a writer who lives in the Boston area, is a regular columnist for JewishFamily.com. She also is an author of many Jewish books.
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