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PURIM IN ISRAEL
By Stan Schroeder

As we celebrate Purim this month and look forward to Passover next month, and then realize Yom Ha’atzmaut (Israel’s Independence Day) is in May, we see that the 76th year of existence of the State of Israel is nearing its end. This has been another difficult year for Israel. Prior to the October 7 Hamas horrific invasion of southern Israel, and the ensuing current war in Gaza, Israel had ongoing protests against the Netanyahu government and its plan to change the method of selecting Supreme Court judges. Now Hamas still holds 134 hostages and Israel is charged with genocide at the International Court in the Hague.

In the spirit of celebrating the nation of the Jewish people, let’s look at how Purim is celebrated in Israel. In Israel Purim is as intensely ruckus as Carnival in Brazil or Mardi Gras in New Orleans. Every city, large and small, has a parade. The one in Tel Aviv is so over-the-top that cross-dressing drag queens can usually be seen mingling amongst the clown-clad kiddies.


School children often have multiple costumes. After all, why pick just one superhero or princess when your teacher lets you come in costume the whole week! In the days leading up to Purim, even teachers and administrators come to school in costume. Every year, the municipalities and local districts organize an adloyada, a parade of youngsters from the regions' schools, all dressed up in a chosen theme. The crowds of children and their parents are enormous - a big street party in costume!


And it's not only the children and teenagers who take advantage of this fun-filled Jewish holiday! Grown-ups enjoy it too, attending fancy dress parties and some even go to work dressed up in something comical!


For weeks, every grocery store and baker is hawking the Purim pastry of Hamantashen. By the time the holiday finally rolls around, everyone has more than had their fill of these poppy-seed and prune-filled delights, so prices are slashed to a dime a dozen.


The actual day of Purim is a holiday from school, so that is when kids attend their neighborhood Purim party, sponsored by the local community centers. These affairs are loud and rocking, with blaring DJs, smoke machines and copious amounts of junk food.


Teenagers get in on the action at night, when the parties feature perhaps mellower music, but a near hyper-like consumption of alcohol.


While there is no trick-or-treating on Purim, the holiday still has that Halloween-like quality that most likely comes from ingesting way too many sugarred treats. Religious and secular alike in Israel can be seen on Purim morning delivering baskets of food – usually sweet pastries and candy toffees – to their friends and family members. Let us also remember that Purim is the time to give food to the needy as well as baskets to friends and family.


With the continuing war in Gaza, rockets from Hezbollah in Lebanon displacing thousands in northern Israel, and increasing international pressure, let’s pray that next year brings peace and security for Israel and its neighbors.

See my Shir Ami Purim poem in the right hand column.

 

Board Meeting Dvar Torah (October 2, 2019)
By Owen Delman

“Blind obedience without the restraint of reason or morality is dangerous.”

“Abraham should not be honored for willing to kill his child because of a command from God.”

“The key word is blind — this is the stuff of fanatics and terrorists.”

These are some of the concepts regarding the Akedah discussion today. There are rabbis who refuse to include the Akedah in their Rosh Hashanah services because the concept is unacceptable. They reject any of the interpretations which attempt to justify the basic premise of God commanding a sacrifice. Given the holocaust with the murderers using as a defense that they were “just following orders” (an example of ‘blind obedience’) they condemn the whole concept.

Bringing it into our present day, they say if there had been a trial of Abraham he would have used the defense of “God ordered me to do it” and that this is quite similar to the defense stated by the assassins of Yitzhak Rabin who claimed that to give any part of Israel back would be a denial of God’s plan for Israel.

So how should do we deal it?

In Stan’s Torah study group we often hear the refrain “but that can’t be true” or “but that doesn’t fit with something in another part of the bible.” The questioner gets reminded that these are stories, parables used for teaching concepts.

After services yesterday, (where I had posited a number of theories of what the Akedah meant) a friend came up to me and asked me which one was the correct interpretation.

I asked him with which one he felt most comfortable because there is no one answer.

The Bible is not history, not an accurate accounting of past events

Let me stop for a moment: I’ve studied history and literature. Let me explain the differences.  History is a written account of past events based on the author’s examination of events and documents to back up his conclusions. Literature is a creation of an author perhaps based on fact or wholly conceived by the author. The Akedah is a story in the Torah meant as a lesson; a piece of literature. In the study of literature it is accepted that it is less important what the author meant as opposed to what the reader sees in the work — how it affects him. There is no correct answer, only how the viewer is affected by the piece.

Once a piece of art (literature, painting, sculpture, etc.) is given to the world, it matters little what the artist meant. What is important is how it is perceived and how it affects the contemporary viewer.

When you understand the Akedah for what it is to our day, to us, it becomes much more understandable. Those rabbis who won’t even allow the Akedah to be part of their Rosh Hashanah story may be missing a wonderful teaching lesson for the sake of political correctness.


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Ritual Committee Other Functions

Stan Schroeder is our Ritual Vice President and Editor/Publisher of our monthly Shir Notes newsletter. Besides coordinating our regular Shabbat services and High Holy Day services at de Toledo High School we coordinate Rabbi Vorspan’s Thursday night Around the Rabbi’s Tisch education/discussion program and Stan’s monthly Shabbat/Torah study. You can call Stan at (818) 718-7466 for more information on these functions.

Helga Unkeless is our new Tribute Card chair. She performs the important function of sending your cards for all occasions. You can call her at (818) 340-5751or email her at  helgaunkeless@yahoo.com to send your personal messages for simchas, get-well wishes, or condolences. The $5 minimal fee goes into our Shir Ami treasury.

The chair of our Lifeline Committee is Helga Unkeless. She is informed by Rabbi Vorspan when a death occurs in our Shir Ami family. She arranges to prepare the food table at the home of the bereaved family after the funeral. The Committee also helps serve the food and helps with the guests who return from the funeral service. Fran has a list of volunteers to call, usually on a one-day notice.

Naturally we are always in need of more volunteers for this special, kind mitzvah, and you can call Helga at (818) 340-5751 to let her know if she can call on you to help out, even on a one time basis.

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Shir Ami Purim 5784

 

On Purim we read Queen Esther’s story,

Written on her own unique scroll.

Esther and Mordecai share the glory;

Haman gets hung from a pole.

 

Ahasuerus is a simple minded King;

Vashti was his former wife.

127 provinces under his wing –

You’d think he had a pretty good life.

 

He needed advisors for every task.

Women must be kept in their place.

King’s orders dispatched before he could ask;

Find a Queen with a pretty face.

 

Esther became his most favored queen and –

She was able to save the Empire’s Jews

Who killed their attackers throughout the land.

So we celebrate Purim and that’s good news.

 

We enjoy great food and lots of wine.

We wear costumes and act like goofs.

Of the many traditions, the favorite of mine

Is creating outlandish spoofs.

 

Our Ritual Committee advises Rabbi Vorspan:

Please expand our Shabbat service.

We want to include witchcraft and voodoo if you can –

We hope it won’t make you nervous.

 

Social Action usually helps the needy;

We want to include certain others.

We especially want to assist those who are greedy

And con men who target grandmothers.

 

At the Tisch we learn from biblical text;

Rabbi Vorspan selects wisdom each week.

Some surprises in store when we meet next –

Iran Ayatollah Ali Khameni on Zoom to speak.

 

As we celebrate the Sushan of the past

Let’s not confuse fables with fact.

Remember that all Jews were asked to fast,

And each of us is required to act.

 

Stan Schroeder


 
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