Yeah, I did Passover like...two years ago? 3 years ago? But anyway, another Jewish Holiday is coming up, and I feel inspired to rant about it! This one is a bit more obscure to people outside of the religion, but its not THAT obscure within the Religion.
But before I start, again, this is mostly just for information and so people can get more aware as to shit that goes on for stuff they aren't part of. I'm not trying to convince people to convert or anything, just mostly saying "Hey, this is what goes on! Now that you know, you can understand stuff when its brought up in the future!" Understand? Good, now onto the actual rant!
The Holiday coming up is Purim...I'd spell it out in Hebrew, but fuck if I'm going to find a means to type Hebrew on this, let alone none of you can read it...and those that can probably already know all this shit ANYWAY...not to mention many of you don't have a Hebrew Language Pack (hell, I'm not sure I do!)...you know what? Why am I even going over this?
Yes, I believe this is the Holiday that the Secret of Mana character is named after. If you're wondering how to PRONOUNCE it, its something like "Poor-reem" based off the actual Hebrew, but if you say it with a typical American accent, you're likely to just say it as "Pur-rim." The accent is on the first syllabul, not the second, basically.
Purim occurs on the 14th of Adar, which is the 6th Month in the Jewish Callendar. Actually, it CAN be the 7th Month on a Leap Year. Why? Cause a Jewish Leap Year adds another Month, cause its a Lunar Callendar, so to keep the Holidays falling somewhere along the lines of where they're suppose to, cause many holidays had seasonal based traditions, and interestingly, that Month is just called "Adar" as well. Basically, on a Jewish Leap Year, there's an "Adar Aleph" and an "Adar Beth", or for people who don't speak Hebrew or know the letters, its like saying "Adar A" and "Adar B." Yeah, really original, I know. Purim always happens in the 2nd Adar, on Leap Years. The logic behind this date? We'll get to that later!
...cause I'm Meeple, right. Anyway, from what I REMEMBER, which could be wrong cause its been like 10 years since I learned this shit and cared about it, "Purim" refers to something with a lottery, cause...well, you'll figure out why in the story.
Anyway, for customs, I might as well explain...THE STORY!!!
*ominous drums, shoots the person playing cause it was completely unnecessary*
The story is written in something called "Megillat Esther", or "The Book of Esther" as a loose translation. As the name would imply, there's a character named Esther in it. She plays an important role. She's what you'd call the "Female Lead" if you wanted to apply Literature/Theatre terms to it. She's also like one of the only two females in the ENTIRE FREAKING STORY...not that the story is very long, but hush! "Megillah" refers to some kind of book, which is originally written in scroll form, but uh yeah. This story is read in entirety on Purim, in one sitting, which is basically Purim's equivalent of a service. Reading the entire thing takes about an hour, and its generally read in Hebrew, though I'm sure some places read it in English. The Books that let you follow along often have English Translations on the side so you can understand WHAT IS ACTUALLY GOING ON!
So about the story itself...
Anyway, in some likely made up Kingdom cause all these Jewish scriptures are hard to take seriously, cause I'm sure half of them were written by Rabbis who were on acid trips, or just plain drunk...if you learned about some of the stories that were considered "canon" in Judaism, you'd understand why. Though, I will note a sense of irony related to the story later on, that I only just figured out NOW.
So the story begins with the king, Achashverosh...no, I'm not sure if that's how you spell it, Wikipedia claims something completely different that doesn't even remotely resemble the name's pronunciation in Hebrew, so I'm going with this. From now on, I'm just calling him "King Achy", just cause its much easier. Anyway, he rules over Shu-shan, the country I said is probably made up though Megillat Esther I think gives an actual rough location of it, and it sounds like its somewhere in Persia, from what I remember. He's the ruler, apparently rules over like 120 Kingdoms (...no, I'm not making that up; the book actually states something like this), and well, the guy is pretty much a text book example of your Fat, Drunk, Party Loving King. You know those kinds; the ones you picture sitting on a throne, with a Wine Goblet in one hand, and a full chicken leg in the other.
He has this Queen named Vashti, whose suppose to be a rather attractive woman. At one point, during one of his parties, he wants Vashti to come so he can show her off to his subjects, cause it sounds like she was a Trophy Wife. She refuses to come, wanting to stay in her own party, and this pisses him off...a lot...so he divorces her. Saddened by his own divorce, he declares that he wants to marry again and arranges to see a bunch of women!
ENTER MORDECAI (actually, its Mordechai, with that hard "ch" sound but...we'll stick to the Fire Emblem spelling), some Jewish Old Guy and the token male protagonist of the story. Mordecai has this apparently really hot niece named Esther and he thinks with her good looks, she'd be a dead ringer for a shallow fat ass king like that to marry, and with her as Queen, it'd put the Jews in SOME position of power, meaning they wouldn't have to worry much. Esther is worried that being Jewish may upset her chances, so Mordecai suggests she just keeps it a secret. It turns out the Esther is indeed every bit as hot as he claimed, cause King Achy falls in love with her first site, and they get married.
So some time after Esther becomes Queen, and basically does nothing to piss King Achy off like Vashti did...and apparently convincing King Achy to let Mordecai live in the castle cause Mordecai is apparently one of those "Like a Father" type Uncles, two dicks who may as well be precursors to the Incompetent Villainous Duo Cliche in many stories, decide they want to poison King Achy. I forget what role these two had, but it was something in the palace but that's unimportant. While discussing this amongst themselves, Mordecai over hears it, and learns of their plan. He quickly informs King Achy about this, and King Achy decides to test if Mordecai is playing a clever prank or is being serious. When the alleged poison food comes, he has a dog eat it, and sure enough the dog dies, confirming that Mordecai was correct, and the two guys get executed. Mordecai is now looking damn good in King Achy's eyes!
Oh yeah, at one point, Esther also surprises King Achy with a party, to further get on his good side...note that basically, the story makes it clear that if there's a Party, King Achy WILL BE THERE. So yeah, it was a smart move to get on his good side.
Enter Haman, the stories' villain. The name may sound familiar, especially if you've seen an episode of South Park, but that's an aside. Haman is an anti-semitic bastard...who happens to be the King's Chief Advisor, so essentially he's the #2 guy in the Kingdom. King Achy wants to honor Mordecai somehow, so he asks Haman how HE would like to be honored, if he were to do so. Haman initially thinks that King Achy wants to honor himself specifically, so he tells him exactly what he wnats, thinking he's going to get it. He says he wishes to be riding around on a horse, with a messenger basically openly saying "THIS GUY IS AWESOME CAUSE THE KING SAID SO!" throughout the town, making his deeds well known, etc.
Turns out that King Achy was going to take whatever Haman said and give that very honor to Mordecai. This pisses Haman off...but to add insult to injury? Haman's the guy who has to glorify Mordecai's name! Needless to say, they don't get off to a good start.
Later on, Haman is walking through town, and everyone is bowing to him, cause you know, he's like a high ranking guy, second only to the King, so he has a superiority complex. Then Mordecai happens to be around and refuses to bow. Haman demands that he does, and says he'll overlook his insolence...Mordecai says no, cause Jews don't bow down to people, especially in a way that's honoring them as gods, more or less. This pisses off Haman, so he takes it to King Achy alone. He tells King Achy that ALL the Jews refuse to bow down before HIM (King Achy). In otherwords, he basically changed "Mordecai" to "All Jews" and "Himself" to "King Achy." King Achy immediately believes Haman, and agrees to let Haman execute all the Jews, letting him pick from a lottery what day that is. The day he picks is what was equivalent to the 14th of Adar.
Esther catches wind of this evil act of Haman, and doesn't want to see all her people die while she lives (note that I think that Esther does NOT reveal she's actually related to Mordecai too, to make this make a little more sense.) Esther decides to take action, and boldly confronts King Achy and reveals that she herself is Jewish and doesn't want to see her people die. Furthermore, she reminds him that Mordecai is Jewish and that Mordecai DID save King Achy's life, without any ulterior motives. Realizing all this, King Achy sort catches on that Haman is probably lying his ass off, and he'd sooner trust the guy that saved his life than someone with a superiority complex...not to mention, he doesn't want to do something that'd upset his Hot Wife, so what does he do?
Changes the outcome of the date, such that instead of Haman hanging Jews, the Jews hang Haman, more or less...in public...and tells them to kill his entire family too. After this, everyone lives happily ever after!
That's more or less the story. Now, the interesting thing about Purim's story is, if you didn't notice, there's really no mention of God anywhere, and the ENTIRE story is pretty much completely lacking in mysticism. Its all stuff that could conceivably happen (...with some typical suspend belief in fiction), which is interesting cause just about every other Jewish story involves God in some way, or one of his messengers, or something. Here, its just 2 Jewish people who happen to take pro-active stances and basically reversing the scenario in the end, such that instead of all Jews dying, the guy trying to kill them all dies.
The basis behind the Holiday comes from that total reversal aspect on the 14th of Adar; due to this, you're suppose to act...completely different than normal. So its customary that you dress up in costumes, party all the time, play carnival style games, and to some extent, THEY ENCOURAGE YOU TO GET DRUNK. Its basically a "Jews go nuts!" day. There's only two days in the year where its traditional to that all Jews basically party, and Purim is one of them, and probably the more festive and crazy of the two. The other is Simchat Torah, the day where you finish the Torah and start it over again (basically, logic is "You finished the Torah, PARTY CELEBRATION TIME!")
Customs that exist in Purim are the following (at least in North America):
-Read the Megillat Esther, as I noted above.
-Dress in costumes...as I noted above
-Whenever Haman's name is mentioned in Megilot Esther, you're suppose to make a lot of noise. Technically, you're suppose to make this noise WHEN his name is announced so you never HEAR it, but because people are too lazy to follow along, they mostly just listen for the name, and its basically equivalent to a Red Alert, so people go buck wild. They actually specifically made an instrument of sorts, that people just call the Grogger, cause I can't be bothered to remember the Hebrew name, that when you spin it, it makes noise, and its pretty much used SPECIFICALLY for this holiday (kind of like the Dreydil in Hannukah...you know, that weird Top?)
-Eat Hamontashin. What are these? Well, they're Triangle Cookies with fruit filling inside the middle. They're named after Haman, cause they're suppose to be shaped like his hat (which was said to be one of those 3 point triangle hats, you know, kind of like what some Pirates wear?), and eating them is meant to be a means to insult him. But what's more important is, "Do they taste good" and the answer is yes, yes they do!
-Give Mishloac Mannot...I forget what this translates to, but in short, its basically baskets filled with nice goodies to friends. Generally, people get lazy about this and only the Rabbis and Synnagogues hand it to specific people, etc. but yeah, you're SUPPOSE to do this.
Note that because this Holiday is *NOT* in the Torah, but part of one of the writings that came well after it was written, it is somewhat a lesser Holiday relative to stuff like Passover and Sukkot. Its about even with Hannukah, just cause you don't get Presents and its only one day instead of 8, and NOT competing with Christmas, its nowhere near as commercialized, so it tends to be lesser known outside of Judaism. Due to not being one of the MAJOR holidays, the customs aren't so anal, such that not doing them is not considered OMG HORRIBLE! Also, because its not really a MASSIVE HOLIDAY, normal Holiday restrictions like "YOU can't ride!" or "You can't write!" do not apply...and considering the Holiday is based all around having fun, more or less, its really not shocking.
So uh yeah, there's probably stuff I'm forgetting, but this is the general gist of the Holiday. I figured I might as well inform you on something you guys will find 0 use of from here on in, but I KNOW some people are CURIOUS and...ok, screw it, its the end of the rant. If you have questions, comments, etc. I'll try to answer them, but I'm getting the impression most of you won't care enough to bother, and probably just mock me
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