The last thing we did in person at my synagogue last year, before the Covid shut down, was the Purim Spiel. Everyone was crowded into the sanctuary, with congregants of all ages singing from the “stage.” A few days later, the world stopped, but we had no idea that we’d be living on Zoom for an entire year, or more, and that our next Purim Spiel would be presented entirely on Zoom.
I’d never seen a Purim Spiel (or even heard of one) before coming to my current synagogue nine years ago, but it turns out that they have been a Jewish tradition for centuries. A Spiel is a play (from the German/Yiddish) and a Purim Spiel is a comic version of the story from the Book of Esther that we read each Purim, with a lot of leeway for modern interpretations, humor, music, and especially satire. Many politicians and Very Important People have been lampooned in Purim Spiels across the world.
At our synagogue, the Cantor writes the Purim Spiel each year, usually adapting popular songs to fit the Purim story: there was a Star Wars version, a Wizard of Oz version, a Billy Joel Extravaganza, etc. Once a year, it’s a chance for doctors and lawyers and teachers and children to get up on stage and sing their hearts out to an audience filled with every age group, including children dressed as unicorns and cowboys and princesses.
The goal of the Purim Spiel is to provide a catharsis and to give us a chance to laugh, and after the devastations of Covid and the economy and politics this year, we really need that. It will be easier to take a deep breath and move into the more sober tone of the Biden years after getting what we’ve just been through out of our systems, and then we can wash our hands of it, as much as that’s possible.
Purim isn’t a major holiday on the Jewish calendar, unlike Passover or Rosh Hashanah. It’s very likely that the holiday of Purim was instituted by the rabbis to give Jews something Jewish to celebrate at this time of year instead of being drawn into the celebrations of their neighbors. Purim may have been based on an ancient pagan festival, celebrating Marduk and Ishtar, two of the important pagan gods of the ancient Near East, with the names changed only slightly to Mordechai and Esther.
The story of Esther, considered by most scholars to be historical fiction, rather than history, highlights one of the major themes in Jewish life across Millennia: anti-Semitism, the baseless hatred of Jews because they are “the other.” But in this story the Jews win, because Esther, a Jew who hides her Jewish identity, becomes queen of Persia and is able to thwart an attempted genocide of the Jewish people. It’s a court intrigue, with all of the misunderstandings and frivolity and devious plans and feasting and blood lust you can imagine. The main characters are the King (silly and gluttonous), his first wife Vashti (smart and rebellious), his new wife Esther, her uncle/cousin Mordechai who encourages her to play her role to save her people, and Haman, the Grand Vizier and the bad guy.
Imagine if, instead of going along with Hitler’s Final Solution, German leaders had listened to Jewish voices and turned around and killed Hitler and his henchmen instead – that’s the Purim story. It’s a fantasy, and a welcome one for a people who have often been the targets of prejudice and genocide and need at least one day a year to imagine what it would be like to turn things around.
The original commemorations for Purim were more sober and serious and focused on the formal reading of the Book of Esther; the custom of masquerading in costumes and the wearing of masks probably originated among the Italian Jews at the end of the fifteenth century. But whether it was originally intended as a party or not, the playfulness and laughter and blurred boundaries of Purim feel essential now.
Usually our synagogue also has a Purim carnival for the kids, with games and rides and a costume parade, and Hamantaschen to eat, but that will not be possible this year. Hamantaschen were another late addition to the holiday, based on a German cookie called a Mahn-tash or poppy pocket, filled with sweet poppy seed paste. Hamantaschen are three-cornered cookies filled with sweet (or even savory) fillings, meant to resemble Haman’s three-cornered hat.
For adults, Purim is also a time for drinking. The tradition is to drink until you don’t know the difference between cursed be Haman (the bad guy) and blessed be Mordechai (the good guy), maybe to let us know that feasting and drinking, and taking on the role of power, can make us into the bad guys if we’re not careful. We tend to learn these lessons best by acting them out, rather than just learning the theory, so this holiday is a low risk way to try out being one of the bad guys (with a mask), or to lose track of your moral rectitude for a moment (with alcohol), and re-learn the lesson that you need certain rules in place in order to be the person you want to be the rest of the year.
The masks and costumes are always fun, but resonate even more deeply this year. Many people who have been outsiders to society know how it feels to wear a mask in order to fit in, but we’ve all experienced the way masks can obscure aspects of who you really are, for better or worse, this year. Our Covid masks allow, or require, us to obscure who we are, and especially how we feel. I have masks for synagogue school, made by Mom, covered with chocolate chip cookies, or butterflies, or birds, or dogs, instead of plain surgical or black masks, because I can’t smile with a mask on and the colorful and playful fabrics can do that for me, even if I don’t feel like smiling underneath.
So this year the Purim Spiel was on Zoom, with wine and Hamantaschen optional, and without the music (because group singing on Zoom is heinous), but it still gave us a chance to act out our revenge fantasies, and laugh at ourselves. If nothing else, Jewish history has taught us that we can adapt to new circumstances, and make the best of what we have, as long as we continue to tell our stories and search for meaning, together.
If you haven’t had a chance yet, please check out my Young Adult novel, Yeshiva Girl, on Amazon. And if you feel called to write a review of the book, on Amazon, or anywhere else, I’d be honored.
Yeshiva Girl is about a Jewish teenager on Long Island, named Isabel, though her father calls her Jezebel. Her father has been accused of inappropriate sexual behavior with one of his students, which he denies, but Izzy implicitly believes it’s true. As a result of his problems, her father sends her to a co-ed Orthodox yeshiva for tenth grade, out of the blue, and Izzy and her mother can’t figure out how to prevent it. At Yeshiva, though, Izzy finds that religious people are much more complicated than she had expected. Some, like her father, may use religion as a place to hide, but others search for and find comfort, and community, and even enlightenment. The question is, what will Izzy find?
rachelmankowitz 
Purim Spiel sounds like a very interesting, refreshing and educational holiday. As always, a very interesting window into Jewish tradition and the reasons and theories behind it.
Thank you!
Interesting stories! All I know of Purim was that alcohol was abundant. The joke was that holiday was originally called “Pour ’em !”
😂
I’d never heard that, but it fits!
I love this tradition! It’s brilliant, healing, and so wonderfully positive. It would be lovely to attend sometime. Thank you for writing about this!
Thank you so much!
This sounds like such a good festival/holiday. I am not Jewish but I think that some of your holidays are excellent. The psychological release of Purim is a real benefit and I can see that even with it on Zoom this year it will still be a gathering of importance. Thank you for sharing this.
Thank you!
Triple Chocolate Hamantaschen? I definitely need to try it. Purim sounds like so much fun.
The addition of chocolate really helps!
I love that you provide likely explanations for the origins of Purim, of the costume custom, the cookie. And that you tie together holiday, health, and human masks. Glad to be on your blog list!
Thank you so much!
Purim Spiel sounds like fun!
It is!
Honestly, at this point i wouldn’t mind a trip to the groomer. 😉
Ha! Cricket has to be medicated for the ordeal.
Sounds interesting! I recently got a clear plastic face mask 🎭 on Amazon. ….. Also, I’d like to think I would have helped Jews escape, and would have helped southern black slaves escape.. And I thought about if there were anything I could do when the whole *children separated and in cages* thing started, and I was stuck… Although I could be mistaken for a sailor: “J F C !!” is one thing I rarely utter, but I kept saying it to myself again and again, when I read stories about that … & the only thing I came up with: perhaps join ICE, but to “go rogue” only??
I felt really powerless about the kids who were separated from their parents at the border, and so many other injustices in the world. Sometimes all we can do is express our outrage and support those who have the power to take action.
Fascinating! Your posts are always so informative plus I love the way you use photos of “the girls” to illustrate your points.
Thank you! The girls love to have their say!
They have such wonderfully expressive faces
They do! Ellie was afraid to express herself at first, but after watching her sister run through every emotion possible, she decided she could be herself.
That’s fantastic Rachel
Sounds like fun!
Always interesting to read more about your religious traditions. It feels like you always have something to celebrate!
Best wishes, Pete.
Sometimes you have to search hard for the happy!
The French dramatist Jean Racine (1639-1699) wrote a play called Esther, which strangely enough was originally commissioned to be performed as a school play. https://operasandcycling.com/racines-esther-in-saint-cyr-lecole/
So interesting! Thank you!
My pleasure. Esther is not one of Racine’s better-known plays, though apparently there was a brief flurry of interest in France after the film Saint-Cyr came out in 2001.
Rachel, Wonderful, engrossing, and educational. Loved the line: “Jewish history has taught us that we can adapt to new circumstances, and make the best of what we have, as long as we continue to tell our stories and search for meaning, together.” You said a mouthful there. I can’t think of any other ethnic group to which those words could apply.
The wonderful thing about our society is that we can share our stories and learn from each other’s experiences.
Thank you for this fascinating history.
Thank you!
Super interesting and now I know where those pantomime names come from, so often the baddie has Haman in his name. Thanks Rachel, I learnt something good today. Enjoy those cookies, they look delicious
So interesting! Thank you!
I love your posts about Jewish traditions. I always learn a lot.
Thank you!
What a beautiful and timely tradition! Thanks for this glimpse into Judaism, I really enjoy learning a bit about that as you share these wonderful stories! May next year find you able to celebrate your Purim Spiel in traditional fashion with community and song! Thanks Rachel!
Thank you!!!
I always learn from your commentaries on the Jewish holidays, and Purim was no exception. Of course, working at a synagogue, I know what Purim is and how our synagogue celebrates it, but did not know some of the deeper, philosophical points that you made. Thank you, and could I please have some of those hamentashen?
They’re easier to make than the regular ones, for some reason. They also disappear MUCH faster.
Nice summary, Rachel, on Purim. One of the best Purim Schpeils I saw was in 2002/3/or 4, at the original Havurat Shalom (“…the little yellow house on College avenue”…), as a dozen Havniks got up and sang a song with the chorus line of: “You too can be the leader of the world so free” to the tune of ‘Modern Major General’ !! 🙂
It was so hillarious that I’ve remembered it all these years later as one of the few nights of Purim that I did not spend cringing and waiting to get away from the noise! 🙂
Shavuah Tov,
-Shira
Groggers can be a lot, I agree. We tend to use boxes of pasta at our synagogue, which keeps the noise in a lower register and takes care of the matanot la’evyonim at the same time.
Hey, that is a great idea!
Thanks for explaining Purim because I had heard of it but never knew what it was. It was interesting to read about
Thank you!
This sounds like fun! I love Purim, my favorite holiday from childhood.
My daughter lives in Manhattan and her family belongs to the Park Ave Synagogue. They, too, had their Purim Shpiel on Zoom and it was laugh-out-loud funny. My older granddaughter had a part in it; the costumes, singing and plot were hysterically humorous! We were also proud to see her reading a chapter of the Megillah.
In between the reading of the chapters, the rabbis (there are 3 of them) showed how to make various cocktails and it was clear that by the end, they had achieved the proper level of drunkenness called for. All lots of fun!
The cocktails!!!!!!
Wow, this was really interesting and informative, thanks! Also love your masks 😀
Thank you!
Oh, I could do with some of that Chocolate. The masks were really interesting and the Girls were lovely, as usual. Sounds like a fun celebration!!
Thank you!
Purim is such a fun holiday!
http://www.motownsavvy.com
I’ve never heard of Purim Spiel, though I did know that kids dressed up in costumes for the holiday. I also didn’t know how the costumes and the Hamantaschen originated. Such an interesting post!
Thank you!
Your explanations of jewish celebrations and festivities shine a valuable light onto customs and traditions that are far from my own experiences. I think the purim spiel sounds wonderful and full of fun, laughter and community. Did your girls make a zoom appearance? I am sure they would have been a hit with the children. Thanks again Rachel.
Thank you!
Thanks for sharing this, Rachel. Sounds so much fun. ‘Would love to see a Purim Spiel. But sadly, it is because of us Gentiles (not all) throughout the centuries that you have this one-day event when you could have been celebrating most of the year instead. Looking forward to a time of full forgiveness, reconciliation and healing. 💗🐩
Thank you!
I’ve returned to blogging and missed you and the ladies!
Wonderful!
Thank you!
Have you ever seen the Christopher Guest movie For Your Consideration? In it they are making a movie within a movie called Home by Purim. After the Hollywood machine gets done with it, the new title is Home by Thanksgiving. It’s a hoot!
I’ll have to look for that one!
Any story that links back to ancient Mesopotamia has my attention👍
Ha!
I thought I knew a lot about Purim, but this is a very unique and insightful perspective. I love it! Thank you for sharing 🙂
Thank you so much!