 When we hear talk of 'Binge Drinking Britain', I'm sure many of us think the same thing 'Of course, we aren't like that, not us'. And on the whole, we – British Jews – probably aren't. How many times have you been to a Jew-do or birthday party where the barman rolls his eyes, distinctly unimpressed as you order the 200th diet coke of the night?
And it's been suggested in our house that we mark the next bottle of wine we take to a party and see if we can trace its unopened progress across North West London and beyond.
But all that is supposed to change on Purim; we are supposed to drink, really drink. Drink until we are unable to distinguish between cursing Haman and blessing Mordechai, between the hero and the villain. And that means something a bit stronger than diet coke. We are encouraged to lose control, to cross the line of the golden mean. So yes, things are turned upside down on Purim.
Sometimes described as the Jewish Carnival, sometimes as a Jewish Halloween, it has elements of both.
There's tricking as well as treating , lots of dressing up and being subversive too. Or at least there should be. For many of us it doesn’t get much more challenging than having to put up with the forced jollity of your local rabbi dressing up as Mr Blobby… In some communities, Purim can feel like something put on to entertain the children or a slightly embarrassing obligation many of us could do without.
In our modern world we don't necessarily need permission to flip out. Most of us live in communities where we are essentially free to do as we please. One night of letting go doesn’t have the same significance in a country where it seems most of the population are quite capable of letting go every weekend on a scale of (and with the same consequences as) a minor military campaign.
But the potential for role reversal and questioning, of satire and breaking down boundaries is there. There is still value in letting our collective guard down, raising questions of gender, of identity, of how we view ourselves, our community and the wider society in which we live. Not to mention thinking about the spiritual importance of the holiday. As the saying goes, they tried to kill us, we survived, let's eat. But there's more to that too, why did we survive? How much was down to us, how much up to a higher power? What are the consequences of this? What responsibilities does this place on us in today's society? Rabbi Miriam Bayfield considers some of the issues relating to our role in a non-Jewish world when Purim coincides with Easter, as happened last year, here.
And we shouldn't get too smug; although as a community we may seem more likely to reach for the diet coke than the triple vodka and coke, like all sectors of society we have our problems and it's vital that those seeking support are not left out in the cold.
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