Purim

Here's a children's book about Purim that my frum friend says has the best ever recipe for Hamantashen dough: Purim Play

While mentioning children's books, I have to mention my all-time favorite series of Jewish picture books which are cute and educational: the "Sammy Spider" series. Here's the one about Purim: Sammy Spider's First Purim
I kept buying these as new ones came out for a few years after my kids were really past the intended audience. I guess I was thinking in terms of future grandkids I see from the Amazon listing that I've missed a few. I sure wish I had some younger Jewish nieces and nephews to buy these for, but my sister-in-law does not have children, and my sister's kids are Catholic and secular Christian.

My 17 year old daughter wants to chant a chapter of Esther for my minyan's erev Purim service this year. She wanted to do it last year but got too busy at school and ran out of time to prepare. The extra challenge is that at my minyan the Megillah is read from a scroll, so as for a Torah reading the reader has to know the vowels and trope, but she says that the vowels and trope are "easy" for such as narrative story. I hope she is not taking on too much because she is going to be really busy since she as "first cello" at her school she is playing in the orchestra for her school's production of "Hello, Dolly".

My family has usually done all our costumes in some sort of family theme, which is a fun tradition done by many families in my minyan. Last year we were all "bugs"'; the previous year we were different "Alice in Wonderland" characters. Our best year we were "other holidays": my husband was a piece of matzah; my daughter was a lulav and carried a giant "etrog"; my son was a dreidel; I was a tree (Tu Bishevat).

Debbie B. wrote:

Here's a children's book about Purim that my frum friend says has the best ever recipe for Hamantashen dough: Purim Play

While mentioning children's books, I have to mention my all-time favorite series of Jewish picture books which are cute and educational: the "Sammy Spider" series. Here's the one about Purim: Sammy Spider's First Purim
I kept buying these as new ones came out for a few years after my kids were really past the intended audience. I guess I was thinking in terms of future grandkids I see from the Amazon listing that I've missed a few. I sure wish I had some younger Jewish nieces and nephews to buy these for, but my sister-in-law does not have children, and my sister's kids are Catholic and secular Christian.

My 17 year old daughter wants to chant a chapter of Esther for my minyan's erev Purim service this year. She wanted to do it last year but got too busy at school and ran out of time to prepare. The extra challenge is that at my minyan the Megillah is read from a scroll, so as for a Torah reading the reader has to know the vowels and trope, but she says that the vowels and trope are "easy" for such as narrative story. I hope she is not taking on too much because she is going to be really busy since she as "first cello" at her school she is playing in the orchestra for her school's production of "Hello, Dolly".

My family has usually done all our costumes in some sort of family theme, which is a fun tradition done by many families in my minyan. Last year we were all "bugs"'; the previous year we were different "Alice in Wonderland" characters. Our best year we were "other holidays": my husband was a piece of matzah; my daughter was a lulav and carried a giant "etrog"; my son was a dreidel; I was a tree (Tu Bishevat).

The costumes sound wonderful!

Here's a link for a graphic novel version of Megillat Esther

My daughter is making me anxious over her Megillah reading. The woman who had given her a quickie lesson last year was sick and then too busy, so we arranged a lesson over the phone. But my daughter insisted that she couldn't hear well over the phone and was mad at me for making her go through it. Then she has been too busy to prepare, so I asked her if she was sure she wanted to do it while there was still time to back out so the coordinator could easily line up a replacement leyner. This caused her to get mad at me because she said I was telling her she couldn't do it. But then later when I asked if she had done any practicing, she said she thought I had told her she couldn't and that I was going to tell the service coordinator that she was not doing it. So then I gave her the coordinator's email address and said that if she wanted to back out, it was her responsibility to notify the coordinator so she couldn't blame me for either making her read or not read. Sigh...sometimes she is quite mature, and other times she is definitely a teenager. And there is the inevitable mother-daughter dynamic.

As of this morning, she says she's going to do it. Only a week to go and most of 22 verses to learn. So I'll be biting my nails. Luckily, my minyan won't care if she stumbles through it. The gabbaim will prompt as much as needed. (And if she were to completely freeze up, although that's not likely to happen, there are several minyan members who could simply step in and take over.) I don't think she realizes how much I do want to be able to kvell about her reading Esther. She gave me a lot of naches by chanting a chapter of Eicha ("Lamentations") for Tisha B'Av.

What a great looking graphic novel!

Sending good luck to your daughter - she'll be fine :)

Can you recommend a website where I can order some nice, but not too expensive mishloach manot for some orthodox friends? I can't give them homemade food since my kitchen is not totally Kosher (ie. I don't mix meat and milk in cooking, but I don't use separate dishes), and I'd feel awkward about labeling all the bought food so that they know it's Kosher.

esf: Lots of packaged food is already labelled with a kosher hechsher, so it is really not too difficult to put together your own kosher mishloach manot even if you do not have a kosher home. It will be much less expensive to make your own packages than to buy any that you can buy (cheapest I could find with a quick Google search is $16 including shipping for a very small basket of candy---and probably only a few $ of candy with most of the expense for the shipping). Here is a list of kosher symbols: http://www.kosherquest.org/symbols.php
The most common ones are "OU" (U with a circle around it). O/K (K with circle around it), star-K (K with star around it), and Kof-K. Triangle-K is considered "not reliable" by some who are very stringent. A plain "K" is not an assurance of rabbinical supervision.

Some possibilities for package contents (these are what I use):
fresh fruit (no hechsher needed---I use clementine oranges or small apples), individual packages of chips, pretzels, crackers, or cookies (they don't have to be hamentaschen), small raisin boxes (Sunmaid is "Triangle-K" and I have some very frum friends, so I buy the Jewel generic brand which is OU), individually packaged tea bags, individually wrapped small candies (Hershey's kisses are OU-D and Ghiradelli and Lindt chocolate balls are kosher). One warning is that sometimes packages of individually packaged products have a hechsher on the big package, but not on each individual item. But in cases like Hershey's kisses, people who keep kosher know that they have a hechsher. In my note saying Happy Purim from my family, I give details about the hechshers of items that are not individually marked. For example, I buy packages of hamentashen and then re-bag to put three or four cookies in a zip-lock sandwich bag, so my note might say "hamentashen are OU-pareve and Hershey's kisses are OU-D".

I've also received mishloach manot containing individually wrapped granola bars, juice boxes, small bags of nuts, nuts in their shells like almonds and walnuts and brazil nuts, individual applesauce and fruit cups (Mott's applesauce is Triangle-K, but some strict Jews who don't eat other Triangle-K products eat the applesauce). The possibilities are endless.

Once you start checking packages for kosher symbols, you'll see that these days a very large number of national brands are kosher. I still remember how excited some Jews were when Oreos became kosher. Read the story here: The koshering of the Oreo cookie My sister-in-law taught me about hechshers about 30 years ago. It was really weird to discover that those symbols were all over and I had just never realized what they were.

esf wrote:

What a great looking graphic novel!

Sending good luck to your daughter - she'll be fine :)

Can you recommend a website where I can order some nice, but not too expensive mishloach manot for some orthodox friends? I can't give them homemade food since my kitchen is not totally Kosher (ie. I don't mix meat and milk in cooking, but I don't use separate dishes), and I'd feel awkward about labeling all the bought food so that they know it's Kosher.

Like Debbie said, many foods are labeled. I bought granola bars, candy, tea and dried fruit. I did go to a grocery store that sells kosher food to get some candy that I knew would be dairy and gluten free. But really, it's easy to find things that are kosher in your regular store. I'm looking at a Butterfinger minature wrapper right now and it has the hechsher right on the package. The Reese Cups I had did not but I'm fairly certainly people know I wouldn't put food in their bag that isn't kosher. If they're in that much doubt they can just toss it.

The Reese's Cups are kosher. Here's a list of all the Hershey's brand candies that are certified kosher:
http://www.thehersheycompany.com/brands/special-nutrition.aspx#/Kosher

Note that unlike fresh fruit, some dried fruits require a hechsher (at least for Jews who strictly observe kashrut):
http://www.crcweb.org/kosher_articles/dried_fruits.php

Debbie B. wrote:

The Reese's Cups are kosher.

Oh, yeah I know they are kosher. It's just the little individual cups don't have the hechsher on them. It's too difficult to see with the wrapping I would imagine. The other candies I bought do have one located on the individual piece of candy. I'm not sure about the granola bars as I forgot to look (it's on the box).

Debbie B. wrote:

Note that unlike fresh fruit, some dried fruits require a hechsher (at least for Jews who strictly observe kashrut):

I just assumed it needed one since it's a packaged food that obviously has something done to it.

The fact that individual items are not always printed with the hechsher is why my notes always give that extra info. But in the case of things like Hershey's candies, most Jews who keep kosher know which items are certifies kosher. And my friends, even those who are very stringent, know that I am very careful about food that I would give them (since when I have had them over I have sometimes checked with them about a particular hechsher because I know it matters to them), so they would probably not worry about anything that I would give them in misloach manot. So the hechsher info is probably not actually necessary, but I figure that it never hurts to give extra info.

Oh, I just remembered that I still have to pick up more of the colored cellophane for wrapping my packages. Or I'll just use Saran wrap if I don't have time or can't find the cellophane.

I wanted some pretty wax paper but I have no idea where to buy it locally so I gave up for this year. I'd love to find some for next year.

Thanks to both of you. Don't worry, I know that most foods are labelled etc, I actually keep fairly strict kosher in terms of what comes into my house, but not keeping dishes separate (and a few other things) means that my kitchen is not kosher. It was really just the hamantaschen that I was worried about (I can either buy them from a kosher bakery or in packets, but either way I'd need let my friends know that they're kosher, so Debbie's comment is exactly what I needed to know:

Quote :

In my note saying Happy Purim from my family, I give details about the hechshers of items that are not individually marked. For example, I buy packages of hamentashen and then re-bag to put three or four cookies in a zip-lock sandwich bag, so my note might say "hamentashen are OU-pareve and Hershey's kisses are OU-D".

Thanks! :)

When the Purim reading coordinator emailed to see if my daughter was prepared to chant her megillah reading, my daughter finally admitted that she isn't ready and can't reasonably learn all of the first chapter by Wed night, particularly given her school work and pit orchestra practice. Luckily, there is precedent for minyan members to split a reading between two people. There's a minyan member who worked for several years as a professional cantor for a Traditional congregation who probably read the "whole Megillah" (as they say) for them and can just fill in as needed. It's easy for him because as an Israeli, he is a native Hebrew speaker, plus he knows all different tropes really well. So my daughter will just read the first half of the chapter and then M will finish it.

What I'm really excited about is this year's Purim shpiel. It is a wacky combination of the Purim story with "A Christmas Carol" and has lots of really funny songs, some of which make fun of the minyan or Conservative and Orthodox Judaism. I've been recruited to play Scroogenberg's niece, Rabbi Fredina which is thankfully a non-singing role, although I'll do my part to sing for the chorus parts of some of the songs. The funniest song is definitely the one to the tune of "Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious" making fun of my minyan's official six-word name due to a merger with our host shul which had already previously merged with part of another shul.

Some humorous Purim videos:
Hazon Purim video vault

I haven't watched these myself, but thought that others with more time on their hands might find them amusing.

Also a nice article from Hazon about Purim:
How Purim leads to Pesach

Do any of you give Mishloach Manot to your non-Jewish friends? We're putting together packages and my 4 year old son is keen to share with ALL his friends..

esf wrote:

Do any of you give Mishloach Manot to your non-Jewish friends? We're putting together packages and my 4 year old son is keen to share with ALL his friends..

We share with our Jewish and non Jewish friends.

Great :) Do you explain the holiday, or just treat it as a bonus gift?

esf wrote:

Do any of you give Mishloach Manot to your non-Jewish friends? We're putting together packages and my 4 year old son is keen to share with ALL his friends..

I brought hamentaschen into work on Monday for my coworkers, the bulk of whom are Chinese. They were totally into them, and the American employees who knew what they were were psyched, too (though really, anyone's psyched if you ply them with baked goods).

At the risk of being Debbie Downer, I have to say that that was much more fun than the Megillah reading I just attended, which I spent crammed into a tiny space behind an impenetrable mechitzah with about fifteen other women. I get that space is at a premium in our building, and it's Chabad, but c'mon, guys. A mechitza's not required for the Megillah reading, for one, the space was totally inadequate for the number of women who wanted to listen (and who are halachically obligated to listen, I might add), and I saw at least three or four women who ended up stranded outside in the courtyard, unable to hear the reading, because there wasn't an inch of space for them behind the mechitzah. Also, fire hazard.

I know I should probably just quit my whining and be happy I have a reading to go to at all, and I really am, but it was still a downer, I suppose because I totally didn't expect it. The photos I saw from last year didn't have a mechitzah in them, and I've attended Chabad readings before that didn't have one, so it didn't even cross my mind. More irritating was that the mechitzah itself is a set of thick, foldable, wooden panels, so it could have been moved without a lot of fuss in between Maariv and the actual reading.

One more reason to get my butt posted somewhere with a wider range of Jewish options after I leave China, I suppose.

It looks like I may be spending Purim in bed with a bottle of Nyquill. I know I am contagious so I probably shouldn't even force myself out since I don't want to get anyone else sick.

Ick, sorry to hear, Dena!

I couldn't do Purim last year because it was opposite our yearly reenactment. This year will be my first.

Does anyone fast on Purim? I didn't know it was a fast day (minor fast day?) until I saw a mention of it on one of my Facebook news pages.

FaustianSlip wrote:

the Megillah reading I just attended, which I spent crammed into a tiny space behind an impenetrable mechitzah with about fifteen other women. I get that space is at a premium in our building, and it's Chabad, but c'mon, guys. A mechitza's not required for the Megillah reading, for one, the space was totally inadequate for the number of women who wanted to listen (and who are halachically obligated to listen, I might add), and I saw at least three or four women who ended up stranded outside in the courtyard, unable to hear the reading, because there wasn't an inch of space for them behind the mechitzah. Also, fire hazard.

At first I was confused when I read your post in the morning and then realized that being in China means that you are well into the holiday before it has even begun for those of us in the US. Bummer about the mechitza situation! If space was tight with only 15 other women, there sure is a tiny space for women! It sends a definite message that they don't expect women to participate in shul. And as you say, it is not halachically required AND it prevented Jewish women from being able to fulfill the mitzvah (required of them!) to hear the Megillah. It is cases like these where the real misogynistic views show rather clearly. I like many aspects of Orthodox Judaism, but I don't like it when some Orthodox Jews discriminate against women without true religious need for it, and seem to be selective in their observance of halacha such that they invariably follow it when it is not in women's favor, but neglect it when it should support women.

Will the space issue be a problem for other holidays? Were you there for Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur? I suppose it will be less a problem for Pesach since most of the women will be busy cooking and preparing for the seders. Will Chabad have a seder and will you have somewhere to attend one?

Mychal wrote:

Does anyone fast on Purim? I didn't know it was a fast day (minor fast day?) until I saw a mention of it on one of my Facebook news pages.

Actually, the Fast of Esther is the day before Purim and lasts only from dawn to nightfall, not 25 hours like other fasts. I personally do not observe this fast.

I don't usually give Mishloach Manot to non-Jews, but many years ago, I did bake and bring in hamentashen for all my co-workers. My secular Jewish boss (whom I'm still friends with over 20 years later) was really excited. A Chinese co-worker wanted to know why I brought in cookies for Jewish holidays, but had not brought in anything for Chinese New Year. I suppose the truth is that even back then, Judaism was more important to me than Chinese traditions even if that's my ethnic heritage.

Update on my daughter's megillah reading: she bailed out. Luckily, the Minyan member who will do it instead was very gracious. My family is dressing in a "sports theme": my daughter will wear her karate gi, my son will wear his swim shirt and swim shorts with a mask and snorkel (maybe my husband's fins too), my husband will wear bicycling jersey and tights with a bike helmet, and I'll wear my ski helmet and goggles with a ski jacket (maybe clunk around in ski boots too).

Debbie B. wrote:

Bummer about the mechitza situation! If space was tight with only 15 other women, there sure is a tiny space for women! It sends a definite message that they don't expect women to participate in shul. And as you say, it is not halachically required AND it prevented Jewish women from being able to fulfill the mitzvah (required of them!) to hear the Megillah. It is cases like these where the real misogynistic views show rather clearly.

It's a very tiny space; maybe a bit bigger than the walk-in closet in my apartment. I wish I was exaggerating. And your points are exactly what bothered me so much. It was pretty outrageous, really. I would have been furious if I'd gotten there after all of the seats were taken and was left unable to actually fulfill the mitzvah because no one could be bothered to find a way to expand the womens' section on a holiday. The Rebbitzen introduced herself after the reading and was very nice (though I had to bail on the party because of work today), but there's no way I'm going to take time off work to go back for the second reading today when there's not even a guarantee I'll be able to get myself a seat, and it's made so clear that they're not particularly invested in whether women show up to this stuff or not.

Quote :

I like many aspects of Orthodox Judaism, but I don't like it when some Orthodox Jews discriminate against women without true religious need for it, and seem to be selective in their observance of halacha such that they invariably follow it when it is not in women's favor, but neglect it when it should support women.

This pretty much sums up the reason I didn't elect to pursue an Orthodox conversion (and sums up the reason that I'll probably never identify as Orthodox, no matter how observant I become). It left a really sour taste in my mouth, and I'm someone who has davened with a mechitzah, understands the rationale behind it, et cetera. I really can't imagine what someone who'd never even set foot in an Orthodox shul before would have made of it. A side effect of the set-up is that during services, almost no one actually did any davening; everyone was just having a coffee klatch behind the mechitzah. And really, why not? When the clear message is that it doesn't matter whether you're there or not, there's not much incentive to actually listen to the chazzan or participate.

Quote :

Will the space issue be a problem for other holidays? Were you there for Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur? I suppose it will be less a problem for Pesach since most of the women will be busy cooking and preparing for the seders. Will Chabad have a seder and will you have somewhere to attend one?

I've only actually gone there one other time. There's another city about two hours away with a liberal community, and after a similarly awful experience at Chabad the first time I went (a Shabbat service the week I got here), I gave up going there and now take the train to the Reform shul whenever I can. I felt like it was better to just daven on my own and be able to focus on what I was doing than go to shul and be so pissed off at the environment that I had zero kavanah. But I thought maybe I was being uncharitable; there was a big event in town when I went, I was homesick, maybe it was me that was being unfair. And besides, getting out just for Purim was going to be tough. But this experience has pretty much reinforced all of my previous thoughts on the matter.

Thank G-d, I was actually in Australia for High Holy Days last year; I deliberately timed my vacation to get the heck out of dodge. I davened with a really awesome Masorti community in Melbourne, and it was the best decision I could have made for myself. This year, I'll go to the Reform shul for Rosh Hashanah and will be in Oz again for Yom Kippur. Maybe I'm looking a gift horse in the mouth, but I'm not going to spend the holiest day of the year crammed behind a wall with someone practically sitting in my lap who's not interested in what's going on, anyway. For Pesach, I'm going to be in the UK, so I'm going to find a Seder there- I'm in touch with a group on Facebook who said they could hook me up. Not sure where I'll be next year; if I'm local, I may just try and hold my own Seder. I'll be just about to go to my next post, though, so it'll depend on what's going on.

I don't think I'm expecting miracles or anything, really, but it doesn't strike me as a lot to ask to actually have space to daven, for one, and to have enough quiet behind the mechitzah to daven effectively, for another. Neither of those should fly in the face of any kind of halacha.

Mychal wrote:

Does anyone fast on Purim? I didn't know it was a fast day (minor fast day?) until I saw a mention of it on one of my Facebook news pages.

I did last year but today I've had a few drinks of water because I was coughing my head off. I plan to eat something here soon too.

I observed the fast and actually didn't eat or drink until after I heard the reading of the Book of Esther.

It gets tough in the middle of the day but once you pass a certain point it becomes easier again. Well at least for me!