Through the year

Purim: the four mitzvos of the day

A scroll read twice, food sent to a friend, money given to two strangers, and a meal that runs long. What the day actually asks of you, and why the room is so loud.

The story, briefly

The Book of Esther is set in the Persian empire, in Shushan, some time in the fifth century BCE. A king deposes his queen and takes a new one, a Jewish woman named Esther, who does not tell him what she is. Her cousin Mordechai refuses to bow to the king’s minister Haman. Haman, in response, obtains a decree for the extermination of every Jew in the empire on a date chosen by lot — pur, from which the holiday takes its name.

Esther reveals herself, at real risk. The decree cannot be revoked, so a second decree permits the Jews to defend themselves. Haman is executed on the gallows he had built. The day set for the killing becomes a day of deliverance, and is fixed as a festival.

The thing most worth noticing about the book: God’s name does not appear in it once. Nothing supernatural happens. It is a chain of coincidences — a sleepless night, a chronicle read at the right moment, a beauty contest — each of which is individually plausible and which together are not. That is the theology of Purim, and it is the reason the day is about masks.

The four mitzvos

Purim is one of the few days in the calendar with a short, concrete checklist. All four are done on the day itself.

1. Hearing the Megillah — twice

Once at night, once during the following day. Both are obligations; missing the morning one is as much a gap as missing the night one.

The requirement is to hear every word. The reader recites blessings beforehand — three of them, including shehecheyanu — and, where there is a minyan, one afterwards. It takes around thirty-five minutes. Follow in a printed Megillah with English if you have one, both because the Hebrew moves fast and because it lets you recover if the noise buries a phrase.

Men and women are equally obligated in this one, which is not true of most time-bound mitzvos.

2. Mishloach manos — sending food

At minimum: two different ready-to-eat foods, to at least one person, delivered during Purim day. A drink counts as one of the two. Hamantaschen and a bottle of grape juice is a complete mishloach manos and millions of them are exactly that.

Custom is that a man sends to a man and a woman to a woman, and that it goes via a messenger rather than being handed over directly — which is a large part of why children in costume spend Purim afternoon running between houses.

The stated purpose in the classical sources is to increase friendship. Which suggests sending to somebody you have lost touch with rather than only to the six families you see every week.

3. Matanos la’evyonim — gifts to the poor

Money to at least two people in need, on Purim day, in an amount that could buy a meal. Not food parcels — that is the previous mitzvah. This is money, and it should reach people who actually need it that day, which is why a shul or a charity that distributes on Purim itself is the usual route.

Maimonides is worth quoting almost in full here: it is better, he writes, to spend more on gifts to the poor than on one’s own meal and on presents to friends, because there is no greater joy than gladdening the hearts of the poor, the orphan, the widow and the stranger. If one of the four is going to get your attention, the tradition has a clear opinion about which.

If you do not know where to send it, ask the office and it will be handled properly, or see the giving page.

4. The seudah — the meal

A festive meal, with bread and meat and wine, eaten during the day — not in the evening. Most begin it in the afternoon and let it run past sunset. It is loud, there is singing, and it goes on longer than planned. That is the correct outcome.

On drinking: the Talmud’s line about not being able to tell the difference between Mordechai and Haman is real and it has been read carefully for a thousand years. The practical mainstream position, and the one the Alter Rebbe records, is to drink more than one usually would and then sleep. There is no mitzvah in being ill, and there is certainly none in a person who should not drink at all being handed a glass. If you are driving, do not. If someone else has had too much, that is a job, and Purim afternoon is when it comes up.

The fast before

The thirteenth of Adar is the Fast of Esther, a daylight fast from dawn until nightfall — a different order of difficulty from Yom Kippur. It recalls the fast Esther called before going to the king, and the fasting of the Jews on the day they had to fight.

The minor fasts carry a good deal more leeway than Yom Kippur. Pregnant and nursing women do not fast on them, nor does anyone who is unwell, nor children. If you are unsure, ask.

Before the evening Megillah reading it is customary to give machatzit hashekel — three half-dollar coins, recalling the half-shekel given in the Temple — which then goes to charity.

Costumes, and why the noise

Costumes. A custom rather than a law, first recorded in Europe several centuries ago, and thoroughly at home in what the day is about. God is hidden in the story; Esther is hidden in the palace; the rescue is hidden inside a run of coincidences. Everybody dresses as someone else for an afternoon. That it has become largely a children’s thing is a shame, and adults who show up in costume are always the better for it.

The noise. When Haman’s name is read, the room erupts — graggers, stamping, boos. It comes from the command to blot out the memory of Amalek, whose descendant Haman is said to be: the name is drowned as it is said.

The tension with the requirement to hear every word is real, and it is resolved in one direction: the reader waits, the noise stops, and the reading resumes. If a gragger runs over the following words, read them yourself from the text. A room that cannot stop making noise has stopped doing the mitzvah, and a good reader manages this from the front.

Two smaller things

• Shushan Purim. In Shushan the fighting ran a day later, so cities that were walled in the time of Joshua keep Purim on the fifteenth of Adar instead. In practice today that means Jerusalem.
• Purim Katan. In a leap year, the fourteenth of the first Adar is a minor echo — no Megillah and none of the four mitzvos, but no tachanun, no fasting, and a slightly better lunch.

And one that surprises people: there is no Hallel on Purim. The reading of the Megillah is held to serve that function — the story itself is the song of praise.

Then Passover

Purim is thirty days before Passover, and the old rule is that you start learning the laws of a festival thirty days out. Practically: the day after Purim is the right day to think about your kitchen, order matzah, and arrange the sale of your chametz. See preparing your home for Passover — starting in the first week of Adar rather than the last week of Nisan is the single biggest difference between a calm Pesach and a miserable one.

This year’s Megillah readings and the party here are on the Purim page and the calendar.

Questions people ask

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