I have heard warnings from multiple people never to have sex while on E (ecstasy) because you will never enjoy sex again, I think purim is the same way, ever since leaving yeshiva – Purim hasn’t been the same. For me the quintessential purim experience is the yeshiva kind. Going collecting and than a bunch of drunken purim shpiels while the sober wives watch their husbands make fools of themselves, have little homoerotic experiences with their chavrusas and collapse into a pile of puke laughing about something only they can understand.
Of course, I may be being negative because I have to work on Purim, why my fully kosher restaurant is open for a regular Sunday service on Purim is beyond me – I warned the chef not to be, but alas, I will pour a glass of wine, eat some bread and have my own little solo seuda at work. Luckily, the Jews of the Bay Area have the real parties on Purim night, which happens to be Saturday night this year – the only night I am off. So I will go check out some of the parties in San Francisco and get my purim on.
It just so happens to be that I never really appreciated purim, I think the fact that drunkenness bodes no appreciation in my book may have to do with it. I also think is best shared with good old friends, the kind who don’t mind if you puke in their cars or try to kill them during a drunken rage – we should keep in mind that I only drink wine and beer – I like the taste and not the alcoholic effects. Back in the day when I wanted to get some action, I would get a little tipsy, but in my old age confidence and no want for anything other than long term relationships that lead to marriage has led me away from drunken flirtations.
I should mention that I used to enjoy going to my cousins in Monsey for purim. Yeshivish folks really do purim right, they have a meal and in the middle of it, streams of drunken underage yeshiva boys come in and dance for money – kind of like the yeshivish version of the strip club if you will. Alas, I am nowhere near Monsey, I would go to one of the kollel guys here for the meal if I wasn’t to be working that day and it’s not like I can find someone else to take my shift on Purim.
Totally, completely, entirely, epicly, awesomely, massively true.
There’s nothing like purim in Yeshiva.
when i was younger i came to the conclusion that i would never enjoy purim until i could drink…. now that i am old enough it is easily my favorite day of the year
Yeah, I hear you. This will be my first non yeshiva purim and I’m honestly not very excited at all. I also have to work, but at least only until 11 so I can have a seudah, however lame it may be. Forget about the night party! No one does Purim like Rochester, they practice all year!
no one does opurim like the mir yerushalayim
guy come from all the other yeshivos; brisk, reb dovid, red sholom shechter…lev aryeh…the list goes on and on……
till 2 or 3 am the place is rockin’!!!
This is so true! Nothing like the allowed complete hefkerus, drunk with all your friends, going party to party, experience like purim.
Denying a yeshiva guy from drinking is like denying him from having sex. Oh you already do that? Then no wonder this isn’t a big deal to you.
Nothing like purim and simchas t in chaim Berlin in the good old days.
The whole concept of “missing the old Purim” is really only relevant between the Yeshiva stage and marriage. Purim is a whole different scene once marriage and family are in the picture.
It really puts you on the other side of things. Instead of going around with your group, you’re the one sitting at the table as the groups of boys come in one after another, and you have to be chilled and tolerate their often obnoxious drunken behavior.
Purim has always been my favorite day, simply because watching yeshivish drunk guys reminds me that after you get past all the externals, they are by far – the best of the Jewish youth.
Purim in yeshiva in Israel ….especially 3 day purims (meshulash)….Nothing like it. Period.
Purim is – by far – the worst holiday of the year…for “frum” women, especially single women. (Frum being in quotations to be whatever you count as frum).
Women can drink but in many communities, it is severly frowned upon for women to drink to the point of drunkness – totally ok for the men.
Women can’t dance in public – have yet to be at a seuda with a women only dance area.
Smoking is fairly popular among guys all year round, but on purim mixed with the drinking, dancing and general “debauchery” (with purpose) it is especially prevelant. Most “frum” women do not smoke, although I’m not sure if they arent allowed to if they wanted to.
There’s a fast involved. No one likes fasting – dieting maybe, not fasting.
So, along with Simchas Torah where women sit on the other side of the mechitza watching the guys party it up, Purim is fairly dull for females, except with costumes and baking hammentashen we can’t eat lest we gain weight and become un-shidduch worthy.
I’m holding out for Pesach. 😀
I feel for you B&T. Purim is really awesome if you’re a guy. (I wrote a comment on exactly how awesome it is for yeshiva bochurim, but it got lost or something.)
don’t worry, some people hold the same for men-not to drink. i know someone who his father doesn’t let him drink on Purim (his father himself doesn’t drink on Purim), so he just goes out and drinks elsewhere
One guy in Yeshiva pretty much summed up the purim mood in one line when I heard him say, “A freilichen, motherf-cker.”
lev aryeh holds it’s own when it comes to parties we don’t need mir yerushalayim. Purim is just the day when we get little more wasted than the rest of the year.