Purim

Today was Purim. It's a very interesting holiday, that I still don't quite understand the origins of, but it seems to be a little bit like Halloween, although aimed both at adults and at children, although in quite different ways. I have heard the story of Purim a few times, but will not try and reproduce it hear. If you want to know why, this is a quote from the website I will give you to try and explain it for me:

"Did you ever hear a situation being described as A Purim Story? It means a crazy, mixed up series of events that do not seem to make sense, but in the end, all work out.
That is Purim in a nut shell– an ancient story of court intrigue, deception, miscommunication, drunken parties, assassination plots, a foolish king, a delinquent queen, villains, a strong hero and one beautiful heroine."

Yup, crazy, mixed up series of events that do not seem to make sense.....although I'm not sure about the working out in the end part. You can read more about Purim here. It's actually an interesting story, and the customs as well, so if you have time I would check out the link.

From this end though, without understanding a lot of why there are Purim celebrations, I can understand why the students in Sede Boqer celebrate it. I was told "It's the law to be happy on Purim" and the holiday seems to involve mainly dressing in costumes, having parties and drinking. Again, from the same website "A third century Babylonian teacher named Rava said that on Purim one should drink enough wine until one does not know the difference between arur Haman and baruch Mordechai, ‘blessed Mordacai and cursed Haman. " So I'm told that drinking has to be part of Purim, although I'm assuming not for the children. My Hebrew teacher told us that Purim is about opposites--where things aren't supposed to seem as they actually are. It's the one holiday where the relegious Jews can drink, the women can dress as men in costumes (and therefore are allowed to wear trousers).

So, of course, in Sede Boqer we had a costume party.








There were some interesting costumes. Including these two who went as a Bedouin and her goat.

I went as a tree that was being eaten by caterpillars. Here are the caterpillars. I had lots of egg cartons, and needed to do something with them. I think they turned out well, eh?

And this is my friend Valeria and I at the party. I started the night with many more caterpillars. Valeria had many people ask what her costume was. I thought it was kind of obvious.