Post-Purim Blues

I always feel a let-down after this holiday. Maybe because the run-up to it is so intense. At least it is in our house. We LOVE this holiday. I mean in a major way. For weeks in advance, we plan our costumes and wait daily for Ebay packages to bring the bits and pieces that make the outfits just right. No baking this year, sadly, due to my ever-creasing girth and inability to fit comfortably in our galley kitchen. The many hours spent preparing the Purim Shpiel and the Megillah reading -- and then poof...over in just the flash of an eye. This year, thanks to timing, it was a weekend full of festivities. Services on Saturday night, carnival on Sunday morning, and an adult-only costume party on Sunday night. It was a fantastic weekend. One celebrating our ongoing survival against enemies who would rather do away with us.

And so it was particularly upsetting for me to discover that for many of the non-Jews in our area, their awareness of Purim was informed by an article which ran in the LA Times this past weekend. An article entitled "A More Sober Marking of Purim?" While it is true that drinking to excess present real problems and underage drinking is both illegal and dangerous, this is not a story that should have landed in the secular press. This is an internal issue that we must deal with -- within our community and not before the eyes of the secular public. Furthermore, there is so much more to Purim than drinking. And how very sad that the real message of this holiday had to be obscured behind what some editor felt was newsworthy.