Happy Purim, one and all!
I know that it’s already been Purim for a while by most of you (at least I have the advantage of a massive time difference vis a vis the US, so there you’ve just heard the Megillah read for the first time and are probably fully in revelry mode now). Jerusalem, of course, reads Megillah on Shushan Purim, so today’s a regular workday and only late this afternoon will I figure out how to pull off my zombie costume (not very original and probably will wind up looking reminiscent of the time I dressed as tumah, but hey, it’s what I’ve got this year. And it will, after all, still involve gluing rhinestones to my face and everything) and go hear Megillah at a friend’s house. The Megillah reading, btw, will be done entirely by 13 year-old girls, which I think is pretty cool. (It was one of the 13 yo girls who informed me that I should be a zombie as opposed to a Lilith-like succubus [Medieval monster version]. It’s just as well, since I didn’t have time to make wings last week. ) It should be a nice Purim.
I was with family in Haifa this Shabbos; it was fun watching all the high school kids on the bus on Friday in their full gear and a massive treat to see the cutest 1 year-old zebra and 3 1/2 year-old fairy that have ever been created in the history of cuteness. It was truly cute overload.
And you know that you’re in Israel when the cheezy techno radio station the bus driver was playing last night on the way back to J’lem (why do people insist on doing bad remakes of 80s songs and putting them to techno? Why????) kept being interspersed with techno versions of the children’s Purim songs with which we Jewish kids grew up. All of them–Ani Purim, Hag Purim, the Mordechai one, etc.
As for Purim Torah, I haven’t done an extensive survey of the blogosphere–haven’t really had time–but BZ‘s delectible menu, here is definitely worthy of a shout-out. (Gotta have Hebrew or Jewish knowledge for it to make any sense.)