February 25, 2021

Throughout many cultures and religions, we find certain days on the calendar commemorated by a certain degree of “escapism.” On these days, actions that typically would be deemed as abnormal are embraced as the norm, often leading to behavior that can approach chaos or even lawlessness. In the greater world, “carnival culture” gives people the opportunity to let loose and act in ways that many would never even think to engage in outside of that setting.

In Jewish tradition, the day which most approaches this escapist idea is Purim. The underlying explanation for why can be found in the Megillat Esther, which highlights the concept of upheaval — or turning reality upside down.

The Megilla itself is very different from any other biblical text. God’s name is never mentioned. An evil decree is launched against the Jewish people — but unlike all the many other times this is recorded in biblical texts, there is no explicit reason given for why this decree was issued. The Megilla extensively discusses issues which, on face value, are not directly related to the story. These oddities, along with other practical and thematic differences, make the Megilla stand alone.

Purim itself is also very different from any other day in the Jewish calendar. There are specific mitzvot that aren’t observed on any other day; specifically, our sages ordained that people should get inebriated to the extent that they are unable to distinguish between Mordechai the righteous and Haman the villain.

Like nearly every action that asks us to stray from our “normal” modes of behavior, this halacha has the ability to be done in a way that brightens our world and those around us, but almost as easily, it can darken that very same world.

Drinking can be done in a way that brightens our world, but almost as easily, it can darken that very same world.

Everyone who has enjoyed alcohol with the purpose of embracing Torah values or to open one’s heart in honest conversation knows that drinking can have a wholly positive and even heavenly purpose. But we also know how Purim can become a truly dark and disturbing day, where children and teenagers become exposed to the evil side of irresponsible drinking, which can lead to complete lack of control and even place people in great danger. Alcohol also has the additional risk of leading a drinker quickly along a path of addiction — a concept that is the more frightening when we’re talking about our children or grandchildren.

We are therefore presented with a real challenge where tradition asks of us to confront an activity that brings with it the potential for danger.

One option is to completely abstain. Stay away from drinking altogether and avoid potentially problematic parties. This is making a strong statement to avoid potential risks. But for many — particularly impressionable teens and young adults — it’s not overly practical, and it’s also not the best way to educate children about the importance of moderation and responsibility. Practically, teenagers will be exposed to these parties and will drink. But more importantly, if we are to completely ban drinking, we are also ignoring one of the basic elements that comes with the holiday.

The second option is to look at this challenge as a real teaching opportunity. Educators and parents should approach this issue by speaking with our students and children with honesty about the dangers that come with drinking, especially on Purim. We should not deny that alcohol can be a positive thing when carefully controlled, allowing us to escape from behind the “mask” we wear the rest of the year. But they need to understand that when it goes uncontrolled, the results can be tragic.

Our message should be that when we act responsibly but still remain in control, drinking can even be a blessed thing. The goal is to successfully instill within the next generation that we view our approach to this holiday as challenging but one that we can accept with the proper steps in place.

From both the educational and ethical perspectives, this is an appropriate lesson for Purim — and one which is applicable at all other times. Young people need to appreciate that there are many inherent dangers in our world, in both what we do and with whom we interact. But life gives us tools and capabilities to encounter those potential dangers and use them in a way that can be positive rather than destructive. To bring light rather than darkness and, indeed, to make us better and stronger people.

This is a key message and one that needs to be approached with patience and sensitivity. But if it is conveyed effectively and properly internalized, we can be confident that we are educating our children to be better prepared and equipped to make the difficult moral, ethical and practical decisions that lie ahead.

Rabbi Yuval Cherlow is the Director of Tzohar’s Center for Jewish Ethics.

When my phone calendar reminded me last week to start my annual hamantaschen operation, I realized autocorrect had changed Purim to Putin. I wondered if the FBI was deciphering my “buy ingredients for Putin” and “clear counter space for Putin” tasks. To any agents studying my recipe for clues (“What does she put-in there?”), no authoritarian leaders are entering my kitchen this pandemic or any time. It’s not my tradition.

Tradition matters. For my relatives, that means eating my grandmother’s prune hamantaschen recipe. I also like other poppyular fillings — especially if the holiday falls on a Mohnday — and I make additional flavors for friends. But I wouldn’t be apricaught dead sending non-prune to family without permission. My mother, Esther, loves prune, making them the queentessential version.

Looking at the calendar, I also felt a visceral reminder of last Purim. It’s sobering enough to (mostly) put aside bad puns for a moment and reflect on a year covering our punim with masks.

Last Purim arrived as the pandemic escalated. Here in Washington State, where the first U.S. case was diagnosed, cases and fatalities went up and communities cancelled large gatherings, including Purim festivities.

I’ve fulfilled my hamantaschen-making obligations in unusual circumstances before, so I felt hard-wired to make them. It was also a touchstone. Even modified ritual helps us through uncertainty. I mailed boxes to family then — with precautions — drove around dropping off containers for friends. Standing far apart, we wondered what would happen. Schools closed the next day. A lockdown started a few weeks later.

The ensuing year has been like a twisted version of Purim — minus the fun parts. We’ve worn masks, dressed in unusual ways, consumed more alcohol, ousted a certain public figure and made loud noises at specific times. Between pandemic fatigue and general exhaustion, we’re grogg(i)er than ever.

Between pandemic fatigue and general exhaustion, we’re grogg(i)er than ever.

I keep looking at the ingredients on the counter, knowing I need to bake, yet finding it hard to start. But I have to. It’s in my DNA.

My grandmother perfected her grandmother’s recipe into fragrant, delicate hamantaschen, adding lemon zest to the dough and making lekvar (prune butter) from scratch. As a kid growing up in an irreligious-but-Jewish home, all I knew of Purim, other than who Haman and Esther were, was that my grandmother sent prune hamantaschen layered on wax paper in those repurposed blue tins — you know, the ones covered in pictures of goyische butter cookies. I assumed Purim was a longer holiday, lasting from the hamantaschen’s arrival to the day we finished them. Before my grandmother moved to California, we’d drive from Manhattan to visit her on Long Island, where she put me on a step-stool and taught me to make them, cutting dough circles with a glass.

As my mother says, hamantaschen-making skips a generation in our family. I took over hamantaschen duties a few times in my 20s when my grandfather’s health declined and my grandmother took care of him. Then, in 2011, she died a few months before Purim. At the shiva, I leaned against my grandmother’s kitchen counter with my great-aunt Shirley, both of us trying to hold it together. She asked, “You’re making the hamantaschen, right?”

And I have — sometimes against all odds.

The following year, a few days after Aunt Shirley and Uncle Joe got their box, the hamantaschen for my parents in Manhattan still hadn’t arrived. My mother asked me to look up the location. “Still triangulating,” I said, finding the tracking number. The hamantaschen had gone south to a USPS facility near LAX — three miles from where my grandmother last lived. We joked that my grandmother’s memory wanted to make sure they were up to standards.

Weirder still, the tracking next showed them on Long Island, in Bethpage, NY — a few miles from where she lived before moving to California. After a week-and-a-half tour of the places she called home in my lifetime, the hamantaschen finally arrived undamaged in Manhattan.

The next year, in late January, I moved to Cayenne, French Guiana — and admitted that sending hamantaschen within a few weeks might not be realistic. Purim approached as my now-former partner and I were staying in a hotel, looking for housing. On the avenue outside, Cayenne was celebrating Carnaval with spectacular, rain-soaked, masquerade-filled parades more festive than any Purim celebration I’ve seen (but without triangular cookies).

I felt the pull of tradition and commitment. But I had nowhere to bake. Then, my new friend Jessica invited me to use her kitchen, where I made batches of hamantaschen with her two young daughters. As I attempted to match my grandmother’s ease, we laughed at the resulting pile of messy dough and at my even messier French. The younger girl insisted she’d make hamantaschen for me when she grew up, and I blinked back tears. We ate hamantaschen together.

It’s a gamble to send cookies on a three-continent journey, but beating odds is a Jewish tradition. Compared to Mordechai and Esther foiling Haman’s plot, coordinating an international family-hamantaschen export scheme seemed easy. I carried packages to the post office the next day in a heavy rainstorm that flooded the front yard of Jessica’s house. If I’d waited one day more, I wouldn’t have been able to bake. After a triangular route from Cayenne to Paris to the United States, the hamantaschen arrived intact.

Years later, I’ve never failed to send them. As I face round two of pandemic Purim pastries, I’m grateful my parents are healthy and have been vaccinated. Aunt Shirley and Uncle Joe celebrated Uncle Joe’s 100th birthday this year. Not everyone’s family has been so lucky. And like many, I’ve faced paralyzing pandemic-related depression and anxiety. It’s hard to find energy some days — even for making hamantaschen.

But I got up, started the prunes and am making the dough. Aunt Shirley and my mother have had these hamantaschen every Purim of their lives, and it’s my job to ensure that doesn’t change — to provide something consistent despite challenges. I’ll make extra for friends again too. Consistency, like good food, is cultural resilience.

So is humor. It’s why I’m drawn to the playfulness of puns and of Purim — for which there are lots. We won’t have parties, but we can celebrate safely. Masks are traditional — including Adarable little masks for kids. If some dangerous dude gets in our personal space, we’ll give him Esthern warning: “Hey-man, you’re getting too close.” We can Vashtihands and shush an anti-masker howling about inconvenience. We can prune down outdoor gathering size and avoid indoor ones. Asking people to move Megillah readings online or to a scenic outdoor spot is one way to a-spiel to their better nature.

Or we can stay home and make hamantaschen. As they bake, I’ll enter next year’s reminder into my phone, hoping for better days ahead. This time, I’ll check the spelling.

Deborah (Debs) Gardner is a public health professional, writer and semi-snarky Jew living in Seattle, WA. Our “pundemic correspondent,” she is a multi-time winner of Pundamonium Seattle, a local pun slam.