Purim thoughts

[magid]

There are four mitzvot for Purim.

1. Finding an evening and a morning megillah reading is fairly trivial, and made easier because I know of at least one private reading (using a gorgeous scroll).
   
2. Giving tzedakah is also fairly trivial, in that pretty much all organized megillah readings around here collect for Yad Chessed, which distributes vouchers for which the money value is determined once they know how much people have donated.
   
3. Having a Purim seudah I've arranged with some friends, though given the number of kids, it won't be the meal filled with Purim Torah I might have wanted (and will find again some year).
   
4. Giving mishloach manot is doable, mostly because I've given up on the big giving of zillions, focusing on less than half a dozen, of people close by that I know where they live. Over the years, I've also shifted away from the current standard of giving sweets to 'real' food, and since I have a lot of canned goods.... my laziness knows no bounds, and all I really have to do is put things in bags and bring them over, at least one Purim morning. The other advantage of fewer packages is the ability to customize what I give, since different people like different things. No clue how much this means in cash equivalent, though, making my goal of giving more to tzedakah than spending on food for my happily-well-fed-enough friends.

There are other traditions. I don't do much with booze, and will continue that trend this year, since I'm ushering in the evening. I do like dressing up (up, but not necessarily as; I wore some fabulous outfit a year or two ago, and one person asked who I was dressed up as, rather than just liking the ensemble for what it was), but the aforementioned ushering requires wearing black. I decided that my daytime outfit should be black with the new flame hat: I'll be a lit black match :-). For the evening, I'm not so sure, though I'm sure it'll include a hat :-).

I got an email saying that someone(s) have given me mishloach manot through a particular minyan, and that I should go to $address at $time to pick it up, unless I email by Friday morning to have it delivered. I understand how these community mishloach manot plans happen, especially since it simplifies when people feel that they have to give to a ton of people (social tit for tat). However, having to pick up mishloach manot is just... not the thing. Closer to trick-or-treating than giving mishloach manot.

Dawn to dusk today is Taanit Esther, which is mentally the easiest of the minor fast days for me, probably because it's obvious from the text what this is about, while the ones leading up to the destruction of the Temple were never part of anything I learned as a kid. The hardest part is usually remembering not to drink, since hunger is less insidious than thirst. Perhaps I'll include some spinach for breakfast tonight in honor of the saint's day....

Comments

[scholargipsy.livejournal.com]

I love the Purim story, and in fact teach a history unit comparing Esther to Sita from the Ramayana. Best wishes for a good holiday.

[magid.livejournal.com]

I don't know a thing about the Ramayana, to my embarrassment. I should go read.

And thank you. (I didn't hydrate more consistently over the last few days, so unfortunately, I have a headache, but it's less than 5 hours until liquids, and the rest of the holiday is fun :-)

[magid.livejournal.com]

For the record, the fast day is today because while it should be the day before Purim, the day before Purim is Shabbat, and there's no fasting on Shabbat (except Yom Kippur, Shabbat Shabbaton), so Taanit Esther is pushed off to a prior weekday. Since it's pushed off, Friday is always considered inconvenient (prepping for Shabbat requires work, and often tasting :-), so Thursday it is. It has the added benefit of well-rested, not-hungry people Purim night, so there's not the same rush to get through the megillah, even though things start later due to needing prep time after Shabbat in many places.