In Israel, Purim is practically a two-week holiday. When returning from Yeshivat Ohr Sameach on the first night of Adar II (March 1st), I already saw children in costume, out on the street. Since, then, I don't think that a day has passed without me seeing someone dressed up for the holiday. Unfortunately, I missed three days of school the first week of March, because I caught a virus from a student when teaching him at his house (he covered his mouth with his hand when he sneezed).
Nevertheless, I still managed to teach the Purim shiur for my corps of volunteers. I love teaching, in this or any capacity, and, even though I was as sick as a dog (and therefore couldn't eat any of the hamentaschen or drink any of the wine that Carmel had brought), did my best to introduce the basics of the holiday, and to facilitate the rest of the group presenting thematic sources. Veta and Hannah in particular did an excellent job with the wine and drunkenness sources -- it's easy to have fun with such topics, including such sources as the narrative about Rabbah and Rav Zeira getting drunk together. Anyway, I think that the shiur was a success, despite my own health.
On my week back at school, my school held an all-day Purim carnival, or shuk as they called it, for the students. All of the teachers manned (or womanned -- almost all of the teachers at my school are ultra-orthodox women) stations in the different classrooms, students accrued points, and exchanged them for prizes. Some prizes, I will admit, were rather meager. One student succeeded in winning a gluestick, for instant, which he didn't even bother to take with him. More interesting prizes included a few soccerballs, a ceramic salt shaker in the shape of a chef, stuffed animals, and a set of wineglasses (still uncertain about this last one). Fewer than half of the students, I would say, were in costume. Most who were in costume had very minimal costumes; the older girls, for instance, mostly just wore more colorful skirts than usual. I haven't mentioned it much, but there's a quasi-dresscode at my school. All students wear the school emblem on their shirts and hoodies, the girls wear medium-length skirts, the boys wear kippot, and that's about the extent of it. Very occasionally, I see students come to school out of uniform, but this doesn't seem to really be a problem, so long as the boys keep their heads covered. I think that a few of the older girls would prefer to wear more revealing clothing, and I saw some of that on Purim. However, the number of store-bought costumes was very, very low, and restricted to the younger grades, whom I don't know as well as the older students. I would say that there were no more than ten or so such elaborate costumes. I attribute this, again, to the low-income status of the families of my students. Some of the students, after all, can't even afford schoolbooks. To my great surprise, at the end of the day, during the presentation of mishloach manot to the school principal, secretary, custodian, etc., I received a basket, as did the Sherut Le'umi women! I completely fudged my response (in my defense, I was quite surprised), and exclaimed that I was shocked (nid'ham) rather than surprised (muf'ta), but at least didn't misspeak (I think) when I explained "lo tzafiti," I didn't expect it. I shared the gifts with my housemates, along with the leftover falafel from the carnival that I had received. We're in a very sharing house; Veta and Alex shared the contents of their pre-Purim basket with me, which I greatly appreciated.
The Fast of Esther was even easier than usual. I typically have almost no difficulty with the half-fasts, although the thirst does tend to get to me by the afternoon. It was a very rainy day, a nice change from the dry winter that we've been having so far. I took a nap before Ulpan, which helped, too, and the time elapsed without my noticing it, Coco bringing to my attention that I could drink water again. That night, most of the other volunteers attended a party at Samir's restaurant; I had my chevruta with Josh, in which we read about twice as much as is typical. Quite fittingly, we're studying Megillat Esther right now, which is helping to familiarize me with the text more. Meanwhile, it seems, the volunteers in my group were winning prizes with their costumes. Alex came in 3rd place as a Roman, and Perrin and Devin won 2nd prize, free tickets to the next concert, in their joint salt-and-pepper costume.
I saw Asaf at Minchah on Shabbat, and he told me that the Megillah reading would occur at 6:40 pm in the evening, at the synagogue. So I returned for Arvit, after seeing Alex off for Tel Aviv, and listened to Asaf recite beautifully, carefully enunciating every ayin and chet correctly. Although there were a fair amount of people in the sanctuary with me, most of them were significantly older than I am, and only two or three were beneath the age of Bar Mitzvah. This was surprising for me; back home at TBE, there are always tons of children in attendance on Purim for the evening Megillah reading. Also, noise-making at the reading of Haman's name is much less enthusiastic here in Israel. I don't think I heard a single traditional noisemaker (or ra'ashan, as it's called in Hebrew -- gragger is Yiddish, I think) in the crowd. Anyway, I went back happy, read and sent e-mails, cooked up a large (meat) stew to give as mishloach manot, and had an enormous amount of difficulty falling asleep.
On Purim itself, although I had set my alarm for 6:30 am, I overslept until about 6:48 am. I hurried to the synagogue, desperately hoping that I would not miss the reading. Luckily for me, when I entered, the congregation was just beginning the recitation of the Shema, but I managed to catch up by the end of the Torah reading (thank goodness for that!), and listened, again, to the whole Megillah. I really love the story of the Megillah, and I'm glad, that, for the first year ever, I can understand most of it. Afterwards, I delivered my mishloach manot to the other volunteers in the Veradim House, arriving at 9:15 am or so. The rest of the day was, sadly, uneventful. I never received the expected invitation from my teacher, so had no real se'udah. I also received some very unexpected negative news. When I walked around the city, there was almost no sign that it was Purim. There were some bored-looking kids wandering around outside without costumes, and I saw a few costumes, but, for the most part, the theme of the day seemed to be "business as usual."
Today, Shushan Purim, has likely been slow and uneventful. I will be teaching Underground tonight, which will be fun. It's a Jewish holiday, but most of my students are Muslim; it's not their holiday, and so I asked Carmel to ask them if they still wanted to come. One did; I just hope that she shows up. As a Jew growing up in a country where Jews are the majority, and my own holidays never aligned with those of the majority, I was always frustrated at missing school on days that were important for me, while I was left with many breaks on days that had no special significance (some, of course, did have significance, such as MLK Day and Thanksgiving). So now, it's my turn to have revenge on the stupid system by refusing to deny my Muslim students their weekly class, just because it happens to be a Jewish holiday in a few cities here. I hope that it's time well spent.
I'm very deeply missing home, my friends, my books, my favorite running paths, my favorite library nooks, and my studies right now.
Love, always (from Israel),
~JD
No comments:
Post a Comment