why moving to brooklyn was the best idea ever reason #2

purim!

there have been signs up in my neighborhood for weeks now, advertising ... something. a big community issue? something sinister? something happy? the signs were big and yellow and plastered on my front door, on the telephone poles, on the fences. hasidic women with their strollers would gather around them and discuss them in earnest. men were posting them wherever there was an empty space. clearly something was going to happen.

but i had no idea what the signs said. i am a good jew (what other korean girl can kick out a round braided challah for rosh hashanah? l'shanah tovah, kids) but my jewish education stopped short of reading and writing hebrew. i realized today i've forgotten all the prayers i learned back at good old beth el and am shalom, but eh, jews don't believe in hell anyways. isn't it punishment enough that i've been surrounded by the chosen people my whole life and always known i'm not one of them?

but back to purim.

i noticed sunday night that the signs had magically disappeared from the neighborhood. i figured the party was over.

oh, how wrong i was! purim! today is purim, and what a party! the signs, must, must, must have been advertising the bangbang hullabaloos going on all over south williamsburg today. or at least, on my side of the tracks. seriously. i live in israel; my friends across broadway live in puerto rico. so this afternoon i went out to grab a salad and run some errands and was greeted with jewish children decked out in crazy elaborate costumes, from pirates (no ninjas, unfortunately), cats, angels, ballerinas, cartoon characters, or just made up with crazy circus makeup. moms weren't dressed up, but walking with strollers and carrying huge platters of food, everything from roasts and meatballs to what looked like roasted vegetables and bread baskets. daddys were running around carrying food and trying to contain the kids, and all the men seemed to be wearing these huge, round, furry hats even though its pulling near 60 degrees outside. everybody was going somewhere. at around 2pm, celebratory jewish music started blasting in my backyard.

i want in! i want to play!

crap. i'm not jewish. sigh.

this is becoming a recurring theme in my life. but, more about that some other time.

so, i did a little research, and learned from one of my favorite websites, jewfaq.org, that purim is kinda like a jewish mardi gras, with all the fun costumes and pomp. it celebrates when jews in persia were saved from persecution and extermination. the book of esther tells the story of esther basically rocking and saving everyone's life from hamam. so after paying respects to esther by fasting for a couple days, jews get to ... party. there's even a huge purim party tonight at the puck building, which when i went there last with C, was filled with queens and trannies and beautiful, beautiful half-naked boys raising money for an HIV/AIDS charity. i love new york.

anyways. the best part of purim, as i see it: "Jews are commanded to eat, drink and be merry. According to the Talmud, a person is required to drink until he cannot tell the difference between "cursed be Haman" and "blessed be Mordecai," though opinions differ as to exactly how drunk that is. A person certainly should not become so drunk that he might violate other commandments or get seriously ill. In addition, recovering alcoholics or others who might suffer serious harm from alcohol are exempt from this obligation."

i like when drinking is a duty to god. i can so get on board this thing. happy holidays.