Purim, Purim, Purim

Jenny's mom, Millie, arrived to Jerusalem last Thursday, ready for what was sure to be her topsy turvy 'round 2' in the holy city. And how could it not be? As we've mentioned before, Purim has all the right ingredients of a colossal holiday: the costumes of Halloween, the eating of thanksgiving, and the drinking of St. Patrick's Day & New Years combined! - not to mention the mitzvahs of sending gifts to your friends and to the poor.

All of Jenny's practice during the past 3 months paid off when she read her portion of megilla beautifully on Sunday night, surrounded by the Pardes community, the press and other guests. The public reading of the book of Esther is done both on the evening of the holiday and the morning after. The 10 different readers, one for each chapter, were all very different in style and performance. Some readers, who had a lot of dialogue in their chapter, read their portion in several different voices: low and authoritative for the king, high and soft for Esther, etc. - all contributing to the funny and light atmosphere of the holiday.



Following the reading on Sunday night was our school's Purim Shpiel in which students perform different humorous acts and skits. Many people thought Jenny has been dressed that night as a ballerina, but she was actually dressed as Carrie Bradshaw, from "Sex and the City", in order to act in a certain skit. I was dressed as Spiderman. Yes, I know. I just couldn't find a Batman costume, so this had to do. Not only that, but the costume was the size of a small boy, so you can see that it was 'forced' on a bit - made for good laughs. In addition to the shpiels, I emceed a service auction to raise money for students at the school. I was a little nervous going into it, but I received a lot of good feedback afterwards - I guess I had drunk the appropriate amount in order to be funny and not sloppy!

After the next morning's reading, Jenny, Millie and I walked around the neighborhood of Baka. We found a nice coffee shop and spent some time relaxing before the following rounds of celebration. Next we were off to the home of my gemara teacher, Meesh, who hosted the traditional Purim 'seudah' (meal) for the entire school. Those 3 hours consisted of a lot of food, alcohol, and singing - not to mention explaining to Meesh's children why grown-ups act so weird when they drink.

Next, we ventured to another party at our friend, Marni's, house. It was nice and low-key, save for a friend of ours who was dressed as a cohen gadol (high priest), and had drank himself silly. You can see in the picture that I had pity on him and had to be his dance partner.


Upon returning home from Marni's, we heard the sound of singing and drum-beating from our next door neighbors, so we decided to stop in, dance a bit, sing a bit, and take pictures with their cute daughter, Yonit.



You would think that by now we had had enough Purim and were ready to crash, but we instead we mustered our strength and headed into city center to see a free concert. The band was called, "Ha Dag Nahash", which means, "The SnakeFish". They were pretty cool. I'd liken them as the beastie boys of Israel. The scene downtown was very young and hip, and we surprisingly saw a lot of our friends there! Who would've known?

So that was our Purim. Jenny and her mom are traveling up north this week to see the Golan and the Kineret sea. I meanwhile, due to being home alone, get to be the brunt of jokes at school such as, "Did Jenny leave you an allowance while she's away?, "Are your shoes tied correctly today?" I guess it means I have a lot of friends.