V'nahafoch Me: Purim

Forgive me for talking about Purim even though the rest of you are probably on to Pesach already... there are just a couple things I have to get off my chest before I approach the next holiday. For most of my life, Purim seemed like an after-thought, or at best a last-minute thought. As a kid you get the costume a couple of days before and have a fun day with family and friends, and of course "trick or treating". As an adult I was either in college- which didn't really account for Purim, or in SAR, where we worked Purim day. I always dressed up in SAR as the same thing, a chinese woman, because all it required of me was to throw on this red kimono that I have (many say I look Chinese, so I didn't even need the eye-liner). Mishloach manot was whatever I could throw together, trying to look creative without investing much effort. Here I am in Israel where Purim is neither an after-thought nor a last-minute thought. Purim starts to be discussed the day after Tu B'shvat. Just as the dried fruit is being rolled out of the stores, in roll the tiny wine bottles and tiny chocolate bars. Purim costumes and accessories line the toy stores and halls of the mall. People devote coffee and lunch breaks to "What are you dressing up as?" Once Rosh Chodesh Adar rolled around, there was a note on the door of Ayelet's gan every afternoon, instructing the parents what to dress the children in the following day. This brought on a lot of undue stress! It would be 4 o' clock in the afternoon and suddenly I would have to start putting together a clown costume, or an animal costume for the next day! I too had to dress up in many different costumes through out the week prior to Purim. To put it lightly, these Israelis get very into it.

As I wrote in one of my earlier blogs, the teachers in my school decided to dress up in a theme costume- and after I made sure that all my co-workers had signed up, I too signed up to partake in the group costume of Alice in Wonderland. I signed up to be one of the playing cards because I figured I could spend the least money on that, just 2 pieces of oak tag and a marker. The school had its costume day on Sunday the day before Taanit Esther. After almost 2 weeks of wearing a different costume each day, I was relieved that this would be the last. I worked on my costume on Saturday night, the Ace of Spades. Sunday morning, I show up in school, expecting to see a whole school's worth of teachers dressed up like rabbits and cats, caterpillars and cards, but alas I am one of 4 people who actually came dressed according to the theme. All my students run over to me and ask me what I'm dressed as. That's not a good sign, I think to myself. When I explain that I'm a playing card they say 'ohhh, you're the Ace.." Only they can't pronounce the word "Ace" so it comes out sounding like an inapporpriate word. Anyway, when I realized that I was only 1 of 4 in theme costume, I felt a little in the dark-- to say the least, and when I noticed that NONE of my fellow first grade teachers came dressed in part, I was somewhat... insulted, offended. I asked one of them, who was dressed like a ladybug, "what happened, why arent you dressed according to the theme?" she answered- "eh, thats just boring". yeah, ok, boring. Like a ladybug is so much more exciting. As I listened to myself think like this, I couldn't help but notice that yet another milestone has passed- I, just like any authentic Israeli, cared about my Purim costume! who would've thought?!

As a Judaic Studies teacher, it was common to give a lesson comparing Purim to Chanukah. After living in Israel I have a couple of things to add to that list...
Chanukah is an 8 day holiday celebrated for 8 days. Purim is a one day holiday that is celebrated for 2 weeks. On Chanukah, the fresh caramel sufganiyot made you think you died and went to heaven. On Purim, the store-bought hamentashen are not even worth trying. Even the pre-packaged Angel cake is better than that, and thats not saying much. Compared to Chanukah, I found that I spent a lot more money preparing for and celebrating this ever-so-short holiday of Purim....
mishoach manot shul fundraiser: 150 shekel.
personal mishloach manot: 100 shekel.
blonde wig for myself and cowboy hat for Yaakov: 40 shekel.
Wearing a costume in the middle of March and being "normal" : Priceless.