Shabbat before Purim

In addition to serving as your International Communications VP, I am also my synagogue’s USY chapter president. My synagogue, as I’m sure is the same with many of yours, throws an annual purim carnival on the Sunday before Purim. My chapter has a tradition of coming to the synagogue after Shabbat on Saturday night to set up the carnival, and then spend the night together at the temple as a big board sleepover in the youth lounge. This is definitely the all around favorite activity that we do as a board and as a community. Along with setting up, our chapter runs all the booths at the carnival, enlisting help from teens in our community who are not on our board and may not be involved in USY otherwise. We also always do a group costume. Last year, we were M&Ms, and this year we are Gru and his minions (I’m Gru, in case you were wondering). More personally, my family bakes hamantaschen every year and we give them to our neighbors for a little treat during the winter. As I’m sure you all know, in Massachusetts we were hit with a massive blizzard this past week. The blizzard started around 7 pm on Sunday and at 6:30 before the snow began my mom and I were trekking down the street in all of our gear to deliver cookies. Was it cold? Yes. But was it meaningful? Also yes.

Two years ago, I was walking around the University of Pittsburgh campus with my aunt who works there, and I noticed a group of students participating in a Stand Up To Jewish Hate protest, and it got me thinking “am I going to have to pick a college based on safety for Jewish people?” After talking with my family I realized that by seeing those kids, who were only two years older than me stand up to hate, that I could too, no matter where I ended up going to school.

Every year during Purim, we are reminded how Esther revealed her Judaism to her husband, the king, in order to save her people from evil Haman. In today’s world, that idea seems more present than ever. As we all know, antisemitism is on the rise, and many of us may feel as if we need to hide our Judaism in order to be given a fair shot, just as Esther did. However if we continue to hide our Judaism from evils like Haman, the evil wins. I encourage you all to go out this Purim, wear a silly costume, eat tons of hamantaschen, and wave your grogger at those who tell us to hide.

Shabbat shalom