More About Purim

One of the important things that I learned about Purim this year is that one of the four big mitzvot (commandments) of Purim is to give money (tzedakah) to people who would not otherwise be able to share in the joy of the day. In fact, the tradition tells us that, on Purim, one should give away more money to others than one would spend making his/her own special holiday meal. And Purim, in some ways a slightly disturbing holiday. has taken on much more meaning for me this year because of this focus on tzedakah.

I am on the Tzedakah Committee at the Yeshiva where I study, and we plan events to help raise money to give to different charitable organizations. I suggested that we have an auction, and of course I then got put in charge of planning it! We scheduled it to coincide with Purim, and the holiday spirit got people caught up in giving. The majority of the items auctioned off were food items, but we also had some more eclectic items such as an hour of pre-Shabbat cleaning, an hour of chauffeuring to wherever you need to go, and a ping-pong competition with the head Rabbi of the Yeshiva. (We purchased a box of Thin Mints - a rarity here in Israel!-and an hour of Kabbalah study with one of our beloved teachers.) I am proud to say that the Yeshiva raised 2,535 Shekels (close to $600) on Friday!


Here is a few pictures from the Purim party that we went to on Thursday night. Purim is a holiday where nothing is as it seems and, in that spirit, people wear costumes. Geoff and I, now a dual-clergy family, have maxed out on the dork-factor. We dressed up as the concepts of "Mutar" (permitted things to do according to Jewish Law) and "Asur" (forbidden things to do). Geoff wore a green shirt as mutar and I wore red for asur, and we pasted pictures on our shirts from a children's book about Permitted/Forbidden actions on Shabbat.