The Beholder’s Eye by Doug Brook
Purover II: The Search for More
Creekside Tavern
4330 Creekside Avenue • Hoover Breakfast Buffet Sundays Only 10a-1p M-Th 11a-10p • F-Sa 11a-12a • Su 10a-9p
We have a great private dining room that can accommodate groups and Simchas of all types. We also offer a special catering menu. Full-Service Bar • Internet Cafe 46
April 2013
Southern Jewish Life
Normally this month would cover Passover, but by now the matzah has been covered, uncovered, broken, eaten, disliked, and stuffed back into the shirt packaging where it belongs. Nonetheless, as a result of the court ruling U.S. versus Fishbein, because Passover intruded into Purim’s usual space in March, Purim is entitled to intrude into Passover’s usual space in April. And to $10,000 worth of airline tickets. Not that the two holidays are particularly similar. Purim commemorates a time when the Jews were in peril, and saved. Passover, on the other hand, commemorates a time when the Jews were in peril, and saved. They have some similarities, Since Passover was however. On Purim we are commanded to drink until we can no so early, it was easy longer tell the good guy from the to confuse with bad guy. On Passover we are comPurim. We’ll help manded to drink four glasses of wine, after which we can no longer you do just that… tell the good wine from the kosher wine. Some are also commanded to not drink Elijah’s cup of wine at the end of the seder, but some commandments were made to be broken. After all, pouring it back in the bottle just won’t do, and pouring it down the sink is alcohol abuse. Unless it’s Manischewitz. Moses, our emissary in the Passover story, went to Pharaoh many times, and needed 10 plagues to convince Pharaoh to let his people go get just a head start. Esther was in position to emisserate the Purim story because she won a beauty contest and married the King. Perhaps the Exodus from Egypt would have been easier if Moses could have nailed the swimsuit competition. For these and other reasons too few to count, this is the merged Purover story, as told this year at every seder that readers of this column did not attend. (You don’t know. Neither of you were there.) In the days of Moses and Esther, which due to an error in stitching parchment together appeared as one, King Pharaoh needed a new Queen. Esther was persuaded to audition for “So You Think You Can Be Queen” by her uncle Mordechai, who had hoped to have the house to himself again after she graduated from Memphis. Haman, King Pharaoh’s right-hand man, was insulted because Mordechai wouldn’t bow to him, so he enslaved his people for four hundred years. One day, Haman’s wife caught him playing the lottery, which he wasn’t supposed to do anymore because they had 10 mouths to feed. So Haman covered by saying he was just choosing a day for Esther’s people to die. While Moses was in the desert hanging out at Burning Bush, Mordechai told Moses about Haman’s plot. Moses went to King Pharaoh and said, “let my people go.” He tried this several times with numerous plagues and no success, so Mordechai called in Esther instead. She married King Pharaoh, made him a couple of feasts, and then said, “let my people live.” Now, which of them had a better sales pitch?
Continued on previous page