L'chaim, L'chaim, to Bingo!

Read my 60-second Esther story and the celebration of Purim if you want to get my silly references in this post.

Several weeks ago I attended my first elementary school bingo night with my seven-year-old, who desperately wanted to go. I did not feel the same way, but I obliged. The gym was packed to the gills with be-costumed children and parents who wore the same tolerant expression that I did.

One costume that I saw repeatedly was this pink and orange swirly, sequiny two-piece dress with a matching headscarf and white go-go boots. I saw this costume run past me repeatedly on girls of various shapes and sizes. What I also noticed was that it didn't quite cover all their strategic areas, so most girls had to wear both shorts and a t-shirt underneath this dress. Now, I am not a mother of daughters, so I could be wrong, but when you have to dress your child in an entirely additional outfit under their dress, MAYBE YOU SHOULD TRY A DIFFERENT COSTUME. Just sayin'.

It was a bizarre look. I heard someone ask what they were supposed to be, and a set of three identically dressed girls announced, "A hippie!" Huh. I don't remember this double-outfit trend (or sequins, for that matter) in any drug-addled war protest pictures I've seen. But I digress.

So the gym was packed with costumed kids hopped-up on sugar and ready to rumble in the bingo scene. We started into our first of ten games and it was eerily quiet. The letters and numbers would appear on the power point screen as the announcer called them out. My son was eating it up, sure he would win one of these games, the $100 grand prize, and the capacity to buy himself a huge Lego castle set.

Eventually someone announced a winning card, and as they ran to the front to confirm, the most bizarre thing happened. The gym erupted in the chant, "False alarm! False alarm!" They were stomping and clapping and rockin' the house. Now, it's been a while since I've attended a typical bingo night. But I don't think it's a stretch to say that the typical senior citizen attendees of said bingo nights would not be screaming fit to shake the gym down. The cacophony continued until the winner was announced or the player was sent back to his/her seat in disgrace for accidentally marking the wrong square.

As my ears rang at the end of every game, I was reminded of the Purim celebration-- a packed room, costumes, sugared-up kids, and people screaming to drown out the dreaded word. It was a flashback to my visit to the synagogue in Jerusalem. But this time, the only thing at stake was a Lego castle.

Purim

You can read my summary of the Purim story here.

Purim is celebrated in the Jewish synagogue. Since one of the underlying themes of the story is "people are not always what they seem," many Jews wear costumes for the holiday (quite a few also get extraordinarily drunk, but I digress.) Some dress up as characters from the story, others simply dress up. And then there are the Americans.

There are a lot of American Jews living in Jerusalem. I attended a local synagogue for Purim that was largely attended by Americans. It looked... just like Hallowe'en (minus the glut of candy.) There were clowns and cowboys and railroad engineers. I heard people speaking American English everywhere. It was strange.

Jews commemorate the story of Purim by listening to the story as it's read aloud, in a sing-song chant called cantillation that I find haunting and exotic. Everyone sits and enjoys the story until the reader says the name "Haman." And then...

SCREAM! SCREECH! HOWL! :: STOMP STOMP::

The entire synagogue erupts in a startling cacophony of sound. I was caught off-guard, though not surprised. It's just that I don't speak a whole lot of Hebrew and I wasn't keeping up very well with the reading. I glanced around, wide-eyed and smiling as I understood that the pandemonium was just part of the ritual.

The idea is to obliterate the name of evil, namely Haman. So you stomp and clap and scream your heart out at each and every mention of his name. It makes for a long night.

As a side note, there is a neat little cookie they serve just on this holiday. They are called Hamantashen, or Haman's ears. It's a circle folded in on itself so it has three points, and it's filled with fruit preserves or seeds and nuts. Apparently the cannibalistic overtones of this tasty little snack don't seem to bother many (or they're too drunk to care.)

Old-school women's lib

In 1997 I studied overseas in Jerusalem. While there, I had the privilege of observing and participating in various holidays for the three major world religions. It was a fantastic experience. One of my favorites was the minor Jewish holiday of Purim. Here's my version of the Purim story:

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Purim celebrates the delivery of the Jews from annihilation while they were in exile in Persia. The star of the show is Esther, who became queen after the original queen, Vashti, refused the king's order to strip naked in front of the court (technically it's "display her beauty" but considering the patriarchal society, I don't think it's a stretch.) My response would have been a swift right hook. But poor Vashti didn't have the decades of women's liberation movement behind her like I do.

Along comes Esther, handpicked by the king from all the fully-clothed women of the Persian empire. What good ol' king Ahaseurus doesn't know is that Esther is Jewish (oh no, she didn't!) Esther turns out to be pretty good at her queenly duties, discreetly watching out for her peeps with help from her cousin Mordechai, who's on the inside.

Enter big, bad Haman. He's the newly appointed Prime Minister. He gets ticked at Mordechai and plots to kill not just Mordechai but all Jews in the empire. Esther catches word of it and orders the Jews to stop eating (okay, to fast) and pray-- for three days. Then she puts on her best threads and bling to appear before the king. There's a feast with Esther, king Ahaseurus, and big bad Haman, who thinks he's all that.

Then there's another feast. Haman is livin' large as PM and Esther is decked out once again. But sista's got plans. She tells Ahaseurus about Haman's evil scheme to kill all Jews, including herself. The king pops a cap in Haman (technically, he hangs him.) But Haman's extermination order can't be repealed, so Esther and Mordechai write a new law that allows the Jews to defend themselves. Mayhem and blood ensue. Later, Mordechai is appointed one of the king's brothas.

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