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12 Adar 5761 - March 7, 2001 | Mordecai Plaut, director Published Weekly
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Home and Family
NOSTALGIA
A Chassidic Purim

by Sudy Rosengarten

Purim in Williamsburg was like nowhere else; streets teeming with children in masquerade, adults running to hear the Megilla, traffic creeping to enable the drivers to absorb all the sights. A carnival spirit pervaded the whole chassidic neighborhood, a spirit unknown any other day of the year.

Groups of youngsters, hugging oversized pocketbooks and baskets of shalach monos, tripped along cautiously, their high heels getting caught in the hem of mothers' long skirts. Miniature rebbes thumped their impressive canes, trying to look very stern and adult-like as they adjusted pillows that bulged in the wrong places and eyeglasses that kept sliding off little noses. Great big round sable hats, long black coats, pants pushed into long white stockings... a world of mini chassidim, running up and down stoops, in and out of doorways, zig-zagging across streets between crawling cars, and reprimanding those younger than they with instructions about safety and caution.

The reds and purples, blues and greens flashed in the sunlight all along Bedford Avenue, past Ross, Rodney and Keap Streets, then down Lee Avenue, where the shopkeepers were having a hard time keeping up with the lively business. There was so much to buy -- food for the evening meal with loads of company, gifts, sour pickles from Flaum's Appetizing Store on the corner of Wilson Street. All items for sale were hung on display outside the shops and blowing in the wind; long-sleeved nightgowns, white satin Shabbos aprons, peaked velvet caps for little boys to wear to shul on Shabbos and holidays.

Tante Blima Gittel was so busy on Purim that she didn't have time to scoot us out of her house, as she usually did, afraid that we'd make it dirty. To make sure that her house stayed clean, after washing the floor, she'd cover it with newspapers, usually the Times, which had the most and largest sheets of all the papers on the newsstand. But on Purim, Blima Gittel and her two sisters were so engrossed in their culinary and baking activities, measuring the heights of the cakes as they issued them from the oven, and heaping platters and filling baskets for us children to deliver to neighbors and friends, that they didn't even have time to worry about what mischief their sum total of thirteen children might get into.

Mordechai, usually referred to as di vilde Mordechai, and justifiably so, was dangling from the fire escape, doing the kind of acrobatics that could only be matched by circus performers. His mother, knowing her s'choira, usually kept a watchful eye on him, but on Purim, as long as she didn't hear the fire engine sirens or the shrieking of an ambulance, figured that maybe, please G-d, the kid was behaving for a change. Perhaps he considered there was too much competition for clowning around today. Of course, if things got too quiet, it could also be a bad sign, but the three sisters were themselves making so much noise, putting final touches on their Hungarian gourmet delights they were famous for, that they were deaf to everything else.

The children could never figure out why their mothers worked so hard on Purim. Didn't they already know that despite all the hectic preparation to put together a Purim Feast befitting a king, little of it would even get eaten? With noshing going on all day long, with the children gobbling up all the goodies and yummies the moment shalach monos arrived from neighbors, and eating what came by their way as delivery tips, by the time the families sat down to eat, most appetites were killed.

The streets began to empty. People hurried home to begin the Purim seuda while daylight still reigned. But though the traffic with shalach monos had subsided, the door still kept opening for charity collectors, poor old men with receipt books, who bargained and joked with the head of the household, until a sizable donation appeared; for the poor, the sick, the widows and orphans, the yeshivos... and always for those far away in Israel who guarded the Homeland till Moshiach came.

Once the rush was over, the ladies would quietly moan how much their corns were burning and their eyes were closing, that Purim was such a hard day for the baalebusta. But the kids wanted it to last forever, though they knew that as soon as the men benshed and went off to the Rebbe, the glow would slowly fade.

But that year, the girls decided that instead of missing out on all the fun, they would also go along to the Rebbe.

The shul was crowded with chassidim humming a melody without words, moving in a dance without steps. The Rebbe sat up front, hands covering his eyes, body swaying in rhythm with the others. All eyes were clenched tight.

In the ladies' section, things were more hectic. A very drunk chossid was sprawled across two benches that had been pushed together. He was moaning and groaning and calling upon every tzaddik who had ever lived, from Avrohom all the way down to the holy rebbes of this generation, to come to his rescue.

Seeing him roll from side to side and afraid he might topple off the bench, a woman stretched out an arm to keep him from falling. He immediately jumped up in alarm and in a voice, unexpectedly clear and distinct, shouted, "Don't touch me! I can take care of myself!" He slumped back on the bench, the effort having totally exhausted him.

In no time, he was up again. "A drink!" he shouted. "I still have to drink. I still know that Mordechai is blessed and Haman is cursed. Please! Somebody!" he entreated in tears, "Please bring me a drink. I still haven't fulfilled the Purim mitzva."

When at last a friend, aware of his absence, came looking for him in the ladies' section, Ber, as we discovered his name was, sat up sheepishly and coarsely whispered something into his savior's ear. At that, Avrumchik, the savior, heaved him up and stooping beneath the weight of the smiling, hiccuping Ber, slowly proceeded to lead him to the lavatory so that he could vomit and relieve himself otherwise.

"Now leave me alone!" said Ber, still in control of the situation. He lurched inside and succeeded in locking the door. After what seemed forever, Ber, a look of total calm, relief and contentment on his face, noisily pushed his way out.

Before allowing himself to be led back into the men's shul, Ber freed himself from Avremchik's hold and proceeded to wash his hands, splashing himself and the whole floor in the process. Then, lifting both hands up high, he said the blessing, every word distinct and emphatic, eyes closed in a concentration that defied any interruption.

Only then did he allow himself to be led back to his regular corner in shul. In no time, he was fast asleep.

The swaying of bodies went on and on; the dance without step, the song without words. Eyes were clenched tight. Faces squeezed together in happy sadness and sad happiness.

 

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