The Purim Fool

Yes, that's me...dressed as a hamantaschen. I made the costume the night before Purim. Technically, I made it the morning of Purim, which kind of shows. But for a costume conceived, designed, and constructed between 11:30pm and 2 am, it's pretty good.

I wore it to Purim services Thursday night, and then I wore it again at the Purim carnival today. It's all about putting your money where your mouth is. It's one thing to espouse the joys of Jewish ritual to your own children and to the kindergarten kids you are teaching at religious school, but until they see their supposedly respectable grown-up teacher walking around dressed like a big folded cookie, it's all academic. My goal is to teach them...and their parents...and everyone else at our synagogue...that Purim is not just a pediatric holiday. It's for everyone. Even respectable teachers like myself.

I got a lot of praise for the costume from my friends at synagogue. But mostly I got a lot of grief from people who watched me try to sit down in the pews in the costume. Let's just say that it did not work. I ended up standing for the entire service.

Speaking of making a fool of himself, Senator John McCain was in the news recently. Poor McCain. He was just trying to show support for Israel in a press conference with Ehud Barak by commenting on the impact of the rocket fire on the children in the area. He said, "As they celebrate their version of Halloween here, they are somewhere close to a 15-second warning, which is the amount of time they have from the time the rocket is launched to get to safety."

Yep, that's right folks. Purim is our "version of Halloween." The entire Book of Esther and centuries of ritual have been reduced to a second-rate version of All Hallow's Eve.

Sen. Joe Lieberman, who was traveling with McCain, had to quickly correct McCain and explain to him the significance of the holiday. Lieberman took responsibility for the gaffe, saying that he had compared the holidays to McCain earlier.

I realize what happened, of course. On the flight over to Israel, Lieberman was probably trying to prep McCain for the pending news conference.

Lieberman: "...Oh, and John, you should probably mention something about Purim. It'll improve your street cred with the Israelis."
McCain: "Purim? What's that?"
Lieberman: "It's a Jewish holiday that starts Thursday night. I guess you could think of it as a Jewish version of Halloween. On Purim, we read the Book of Esther from the Bible. We celebrate how brave Queen Esther saved the Jewish people from Haman, the prime minister of Persia. See, he hated the Jews and wanted to kill them all...kind of like Al Qaeda in Iraq. It's a fun, joyous holiday celebrated by dressing in costumes, eating special cookies called hamantaschen, and making noise whenever anyone mentions Haman's name."
McCain: "...wait, I'm writing this down (mumbling) Jewish...version...of...Halloween. Got it. Thanks, Joe."

I could just hear Lieberman thinking to himself later, "Thank God I didn't mention the part where we get drunk."