ב"ה
On Purim, nothing is as it seems. That ferocious monster is really sweet shy Sarah from second grade. That beautiful Queen Esther with the jewel-studded crown is really your brother Moishe. Is that a gigantic three-cornered-poppy-seed-filled-cookie walking down the street? And how did little Michael grow that luxuriant white beard?
The Red Heifer must be completely red-a color representing sin in Torah allegory-yet it must also be "perfect, without blemish." It is burned by fire and mixed with water, combining the power of ascent with the quality of settling and saturation. It removes the most severe of all impurities, yet those involved in its preparation become ritually impure themselves. The most incomprehensible of divine decrees is the antidote for the most incomprehensible of human experiences-the phenomenon of death. For Chassidic insights into Purim, click here
Suddenly, there was an awful noise. The name of Haman had been read, and little Yaakov was swinging his gragger with all his might. Happily, with a big smile on his face, he was swinging that gragger. Everyone became very frightened. The Rabbi continued reading. People were shaking their heads. One man wanted to take the gragger away from him, but everyone was afraid that Yaakov would scream and make a lot of noise if forced to give up his gragger. No one could tell him to stop using the gragger, for during the reading of the Megillah it is forbidden to speak. They were hoping that Yaakov would understand and put the gragger away.
The problem began when a comparative study on food design showed that there was no point at all in eating many of the foods around. Eggs, fruit, falafel, latkes, blintzes, tzimmmes, matza balls, muffins, rugelach, hot dogs and meatballs are all round. If there is no point at all in eating, the appetites of four point two billion people on earth would be affected, possibly leading to mass starvation.
I am the oldest and the dumbest in my class. I can't remember any of the words, no matter how often I hear them or look them up in my dictionary. Verb conjugation is beyond me. And trying to form a sentence just to answer a question, let alone express a thought, causes my throat to tighten involuntarily. I sit in dread of being called on by our teacher, a very kind, middle-aged woman who, I can tell, takes pity on me. She treats me kindly and pretends I gave sort of the right answer. Fortunately my classmates don't make fun of me; at most, they treat my responses with compassionate sickly grins and then look away quickly.
 When your family originally hails from Shushan, Persia (today the Iranian city of Chamdon), Purim brings back memories of pistachio sweets and holiday trips to the nearby graves of local heroes Mordechai and Esther. |
Leviticus 6:1-8:36 Week of March 19 - 25, 2000 The Parshah In A Nutshell Full Parshah Summary With Commentary 
THE REBBE: 50 YEARS PREVIOUS ISSUE |