“No one needs to hear how righteous you are when we all know you’re only interested in chugging enough liquor to pass out and maybe throw up six or seven times along the way.”
Jerusalem, March 8 – A resident of Israel’s capital laughed today at people’s invocation of a Talmudic statement enjoining men to imbibe alcoholic beverages in observance of Purim yesterday and today, noting that unlike those insecure amateurs, he requires no religious justification for indulging.
Asaf Fried, 44, expressed only scorn for those citing Tractate Megilah’s admonition to drink on Purim “until one cannot distinguish between ‘cursed is Haman’ and ‘blessed is Mordekhai,'” referring to the two characters at loggerheads in the drama that birthed the holiday. The accomplished consumer of hard beverages and assorted other mind-altering substances characterized those who imply that they would otherwise refrain from such indulgence of not for the Talmudic dictum as disingenuous.
“Be real – you want to drink but think you need to justify it,” he scoffed. “Just be honest, and down that Jägermeister already No one needs to hear how righteous you are when we all know you’re only interested in chugging enough liquor to pass out and maybe throw up six or seven times along the way.”
“Pathetic,” he added.
The observance in question has attracted commentators’ attention for generations. It stems in part from the dramatic moments of the book of Esther, Purim’s origin story, in the main taking place during, and punctuated by, various drink-fests. More profoundly, some commentators note, the role of intoxication in the story, and in the resulting annual observance, exposes a constructive role for a behavior and state of mind that under normal circumstances cause more problems than they solve. That counterintuitive phenomenon, in turn, highlights a capacity to perceive a wholeness inaccessible amid the usual insistence on avoidance of behaviors associated with increased capacity for immorality: that, perhaps only once a year, under the right circumstances, we can begin to comprehend the decisively good role in history and Creation that even the most negative phenomena fill, just as the Jews’ most bitter foes pursue ends that ultimately provide the key impetus to Jewish success and survival.
Fried has little patience for discussions of the redemptive potential of booze, however. “Spare me your philosophical treatises and pass the Jack Daniel’s,” he growled.
Scholars note that Purim’s prescribed approach to alcohol – only until a much-discussed, ambiguous state of blurred distinctions is reached – also contrasts with the chemical’s typical role in drink, which often involves an escape from reality, rather than a removal of intellectual inhibitions that under normal circumstances restrict one’s capacity to notice connections among seemingly-unrelated bites of lore and wisdom.
“Yeah, whatever,” slurred Fried. “You gonna finish that Araq?”
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