Another Three Day Holiday (Article# 79) 3/27/2008

Purim, I mean.

In truth, I had always been jealous of the people who lived in Israel. After all, they got to enjoy a second day of Purim, which is definitely one of my favorite days of the year. Purim is tons of fun; dressing up, visiting as many friends as I can get to and enjoying my kids make the day special.

Last year, I was a little harried in dealing with Shushan Purim in Yeshiva and regular Purim at home in addition to Goldie’s illness, but I really felt prepared this year. We had gotten our Mishloach Manot packed and ready early in the week, our Seuda plans were all made and I had even gotten our costumes ready (most of us were The Katz in the Hatz – a costume no one in Bet Shemesh had seen).

With Purim falling out on Friday, it made for an extension of the holiday through Sunday for those who observe Shushan Purim, with a host of changes in how things were done. Megilla is read everywhere, even Jerusalem, on Thursday night and Friday morning and most people observe the regular obligations of the day on Friday (more about the Seuda a bit later).

However, Jerusalemites give Matanot L’evyonim on Friday, say Al Hanissim on Shabbat and give Mishloach Manot and have their Seuda on Sunday, creating what is referred to as Purim Meshulash or a 3 day Purim. With all the different days and obligations, the Yeshiva guys and I were all looking forward to an extended celebration that would really be meaningful.

For those who have met me or seen my picture, you know that having begun to go grey at age 15, I have a full head of grey hair now. As an additional Purim shtick, I had my brother Ozer bring me a bottle of Clairol hair dye for men, and colored my hair totally black. It was amazing.

Goldie could not believe it. She kept saying, “THAT is the man I married”. When I finished rinsing my hair, Mordechai took one look at me and said to Goldie, “EEMA – who is that man?” and only after hearing my voice did he realize it was me (although he couldn’t figure out what I had done).

Batya thought I had gotten a haircut and Chaim didn’t notice anything (with much laughter from the rest of the family as he tried to figure it out). My teenager women knew right off the bat.

In shul, as we prepared for davening and the megilla reading, I kept taking off my “Cat in the Hat” hat, to the shock of our friends. My next door neighbor, Ari Ginsberg, came over to me the next morning to tell me that he had sat in his seat for half of davening wondering why I hadn’t introduced him to my younger brother who apparently was visiting for Purim.

The best reaction came from the students in the Yeshiva. On the night of regular Purim every year, we have a special event in a local restaurant to keep the guys occupied and not running all over the country to celebrate with their friends outside of Jerusalem. I arrived to the restaurant with a baseball cap, and when I walked in I got a chorus of cheers from the guys. When I removed the cap – they went nuts. It was really awesome.

On Friday, while the rest of the world was rushing around to get their Seuda finished early and Mishloach Manot delivered, I got to do something I have wanted to do for several years. Before I continue, I want to make something clear:

I am not a Rav. I do not make Halacha decisions. I have said before that this column is a journal of our life here in Israel and should not be relied upon for halachic purposes – every one must consult their own rabbinic authorities for such decisions. So please, do NOT email me if you disagree with the Halacha we followed – especially since this issue won’t come up again for something like 13 years and by then we had better be celebrating Purim in the Bet HaMikdash.

In preparation for Purim, I mentioned to one of my neighbors that I had always thought it was nuts to rush around and get the Seuda finished early and go like crazy all day whenever Purim falls out on Friday. It made much more sense to me that you should start the Seuda late in the day, break for davening and then come back to the Seuda for Shabbat.

I had always been told that this was totally wrong and could not be done, so I followed along and pushed myself to try to have a normal Purim with such a limited time allotment. Yet this neighbor told me that he has ALWAYS done Purim on Friday in such a manner, the source was a Gemara. While investigating the issue, I found out that a local (Ashkenaz) Rav was having a shiur on the topic and attended and following his psak, we made the late Seuda this year.

Without going into things, we stopped in the middle of the Seuda to daven Kabbalat Shabbat, covered the bread on the table, made Kiddush to change the Seuda from Purim to Shabbat and finished our meal, bentshing with Al Hanissim (like Jerusalem residents) before davening Maariv with a bunch of others on my block (including this Rav) who had done the same thing.

We were able to spend the morning delivering Mishloach Manot like regular people and our kids weren’t totally stuffed from a daytime Seuda so that they were actually able to enjoy a 5 hour seuda with Purim songs and Zmirot for Shabbat that was much more L’kavid Purim and L’Kavod Shabbat than we would have been able to do if we had to rush an have a quick early Seuda in the morning.

Did I mention how unbelievably hot it was here on Purim weekend? Temps in the 90’s!!!! I thought the kids were gonna wilt and our chocolate covered wafers were half melted by the time we finished delivering the Mishloach Manot. I couldn’t believe how hot it was, we had to have a/c for the Seuda.

On Saturday night I rushed into Jerusalem to join the Yeshiva for the shpiel/party. As I drove home, I realized how truly exhausted I was from all the Purim, Purim, Purim we had been celebrating. I had even seen it in the Yeshiva guys. Many of them didn’t bother to come in costume that night (or the next day for the Seuda) and the celebration was definitely more low key – which I attribute to the long stretch of 3 days between the beginning of Purim to the end of Shushan Purim.

Before bringing the little kids to the Purim Seuda in Yeshiva, we decided to take the whole family on what has become a regular outing for us. Dressed in costume, we made our way to several checkpoints and really delighted in giving specially prepared Mishloach Manot packages to each and every soldier on duty there (we even stopped a passing truck).

The delight the soldiers showed, especially in meeting our littler kids who were all in costume, was infectious. I hope never to tire of visiting the soldiers and bringing a smile to their face as a small measure of thanks for what they do in protecting me and my family.

By the time the Yeshiva’s Seuda was finished, even my kids were tired of all the partying. It is a great time of year and we really enjoy it, but we are definitely ready for it to go back to being a 2 day affair next year.